A True Person

Chapters

Chapter 3 - A glimmer of hope
Chapter 4 - Shameless
Chapter 5 - Path
Chapter 6 - Matters of love
Chapter 7 - Throwing off the shackles
Chapter 8 - The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on
Chapter 9 - A demon on the loose
Chapter 10 - City of light, city of magic
Chapter 11 - Kind heart
Chapter 12 - Blood and tears
Chapter 13 - Betrayal
Chapter 14 - Loyalty
Chapter 15 - Insignificant characters
Chapter 16 - New Hope
Chapter 17 - Love and purity
Chapter 18 - Indifference of stars
Chapter 19 - Royal wedding (1/3)
Chapter 21 - Royal wedding (3/3)
Chapter 22 - Instinct
Chapter 23 - The Shadow over the Crystal Empire
Chapter 24 - Guests from the past
Chapter 25 - Negotiations
Chapter 26 - Failures and death are natural
Chapter 27 - I am who I am!
Chapter 28 - Alone in the Darkness
Chapter 29 - The King is dead
Chapter 30 - Long live the King!
Chapter 31 - Huge benefits
Chapter 32 - Woe from wit
Chapter 33 - Meditating with spiders
Chapter 34 - Just be yourself
Chapter 35 - Experiments
Chapter 1 - No regrets
Chapter 2 - Brave New World
Chapter 20 - Royal wedding (2/3)
Chapter ??? - The end

Chapter 3 - A glimmer of hope

The man's heart beat loudly as he ran up to the pair of creatures, gesturing for the zebra to hide behind him. The zebra, though somewhat surprised by the new creature's appearance, realized that she had better obey and follow directions. She had no other options anyway.

The hyena stopped, laughing excitedly. Her eyes glittered with hunger and greed. She eyed the spear in the man's hands warily, but she wasn't about to back down. Quickly and nimbly she ran around, trying to snatch the zebra, but staying at a safe distance.

Alexei stood still, constantly circling, keeping the hyena between himself and the zebra, and looking for an opportunity to attack. He knew his opponent was experienced and cunning, the hyena's reaction to the spear spoke of that. Apparently, this was not the first time it had fought with a creature armed with a sharp stick, but the man was not going to give up.

And so the opportunity presented itself. The hyena was too greedy, getting closer to the zebra. The man did not hesitate. He swung his spear towards the hyena, aiming for its eye, but it deftly dodged, avoiding serious damage. The spear struck her shoulder and slid off without doing any tangible damage. Her hide was surprisingly tough.

The hyena grew bolder and bolder in her attacks. Her attacks became more and more aggressive, opening up new opportunities for counterattacks. But the man did not panic.

He struck again, but the hyena was ready. With the agility and strength of a beast, she grabbed the spear with her teeth and pulled sharply, wrenching it from the man's hands. Her neck, surrounded by powerful muscles, gave an impression of primal might.

"She seems pleased with herself," the man smirked as he watched the hyena shake the spear violently, savoring her small victory.

"Then let's move on to plan B," Alexei smiled, pulling out a knife and clutching it tightly in his right hand.

The hyena wasn't particularly impressed with the knife and spitting the stick aside, it was already preparing for its next attack.

The man crouched down a bit and spread his arms slightly, as if preparing for a dash, but in fact he wanted to show the hyena his exposed neck. It may have had some experience, but it was still a beast. Instincts deeply engraved in her brain instantly gave an order that the beast could not ignore. The hyena, immediately realizing that she had received an excellent opportunity to strike a decisive blow, rushed forward, aiming directly at the man's throat.

Alexei was ready. At the last moment he raised his left arm, wrapped in a leather belt, and let the beast bite it.

The belt, though it offered some protection, proved insufficiently reliable. One of the hyena's fangs slipped between the layers of the belt and sank into the man's flesh. Immediately the hyena began to twist its head violently, trying to tear off a piece of meat. But the man ignored the pain and with unrelenting determination plunged his knife into the beast's neck and then twisted the blade. The hyena let out a shrill shriek, let go of his hand and bounced away. In the process, the knife handle peeled the skin and nearly dislocated several of the man's fingers. But he still held the knife in his grip.

Now the hyena was thrashing about frantically, driving its paws over his neck as if trying to wipe away the wound. The man was no expert in anatomy, so he didn't know the exact location of the artery, but he was confident in his knife. Scarlet blood spurted out of the wound onto the withered ground in a pulsating stream.

A puddle was quickly forming around the hyena.

Yes, now he was sure he had hit an artery.The man stood motionless, not averting his gaze, waiting for further action from the wounded beast.

However, the hyena seemed to begin to weaken and consider the possibility of retreating.

He had no intention of letting her go. The moment she turned around and was about to flee, the man jumped up to her and kicked her forcefully in the right side, turning the beast around with the impact. The hyena growled, trying to bite him, but the man nimbly bounced away, avoiding the danger.Their roles reversed, he became the hunter and she became the prey.

The man made dangerous swings of his knife, which now clearly frightened the beast, but it was all just a farce. He was just stalling for time. The hyena tried to run away again, but the man quickly rushed towards her, giving her no chance of escape. The more she panicked, the harder her heart pounded, and the more blood flowed out of her.

The hyena bounced to the side, avoiding the imaginary blow of his knife. Alexei wasn't going to hit, it was all just another trick.

The hyena began to stagger, her movements becoming unsteady. After a few seconds it finally fell silently, resigning itself to its inevitable fate.

The hyena's side slowly rose and fell in time with her fading breath. The last glimmers of life were leaving her exhausted body, and finally her eyes closed forever. The man sighed and put the knife away. Cleaning the blade could be taken care of later. He turned away from the dead beast and focused his attention on his hand.

Pulling off his belt, he began to survey the damage that the fight with the hyena had left behind. His gaze flickered to the zebra that had frozen some distance away. He wasn't going to let her go either, but for a different reason. First things first, the wounds.

Two wounds were clearly visible on his arm: one the size of a fingertip, oval and bleeding, left by hyena fangs that had penetrated deep into his flesh; and a smaller one. The rest of the injuries were minor, a few bruises and bruises. The man pressed his lips to the wound, sucked in the blood, and spat. He then began to lick the wound, knowing that the human's saliva contained an antiseptic. He wasn't sure how much it would help him, but he figured it certainly wouldn't make it worse. Continuing to treat his wound with improvised methods, he turned to the zebra.

The little zebra was still breathing heavily, clearly in a state of shock, keeping his eyes on the already dead hyena.

Slowly and cautiously the man approached the zebra, careful not to frighten her. He had no desire to chase the creature across the plain. The little zebra seemed to ignore him until he came quite close.

Her gaze slid down his torso until finally their eyes met. The zebra's pupils had narrowed to the size of needles, and her body trembled slightly. It was unclear whether she was paralyzed with fear or simply exhausted after the long chase. The man's tall stature obviously made the zebra nervous and was subconsciously associated with threat.

The man slowly lowered himself to the ground in front of the zebra, carefully crossing his legs, trying to avoid any sudden movements. The zebra continued to watch his every move without making a sound.

“Ты, очевидно, разумное создание (You are obviously a sentient creature),” he said in a soft, calming voice. "Ты меня понимаешь? (You understand me?)"

To think that the zebra understood Russian was perhaps too optimistic, but the man wanted to explore every possibility. The zebra only blinked in response, but seemed less frightened already, soothed by his affectionate tone. The male decided to try other options.

"Can you understand me?"

"Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"

The zebra perked up, started making squeaky noises and gibbering something in her own language.

"Really? Did she recognize German?" the man thought. His knowledge of German had already ended at one phrase, but he had no right to complain. His musings were interrupted by a small foal.

"Name," the zebra said, pointing with a hoof at himself. "Itanya."

The name and tone of voice gave a hint that the zebra he'd rescued was most likely a female.

"Name," he repeated automatically, pointing to himself. "Alexei."

More importantly, the zebra knew English!

The zebra didn't know English. Her knowledge of English was even worse than his in German.

After long and awkward minutes of facial expressions, gestures, and diagrams drawn on the ground, the man was finally able to establish a semblance of communication with the zebra.

First of all, Itanya was incredibly grateful for the rescue. However, she would have been even more grateful if the man had agreed to carry her home. Walking on her own was something she was incapable of doing and evening was already setting in. Her request matched the man's plans.

Secondly, Itanya had informed him that there was some sort of settlement of other zebras nearby. She had even drawn a small map on the ground. The man was about to set off when he remembered something else.

He started drawing on the ground, trying to explain to the zebra that he needed to step back into the forest for a while. Itanya was frightened by the idea, and interestingly enough, her fear was specifically related to the forest.

"What's wrong with it?" thought Alexei. "Maybe she's just afraid of being alone?"

He insisted, however, and headed in the direction of the forest, glancing at the zebra from time to time.

After walking about a hundred meters, he stopped and found a suitable spot. Pulling out the contents of his pockets, he buried it as deep as he could, covering it with earth and covering it with leaves. The knife and clothes could still be explained, but the plastic and money, if found, would certainly raise questions.

With some sadness in his heart, he turned around to look at the forgotten hares and sighed. He couldn't take them with him either. It would be somewhat embarrassing if they turned out to be some sacred animals to the locals. Not to mention the whole meat-eating thing. As he chatted with Itanya, he didn't notice any fangs on her. Looks like the local zebras followed a regular vegetarian diet after all.

Returning to the zebra, he gently picked her up and laid her on his shoulders, ignoring her disgruntled squeaks. The zebra was almost the same size and weight as a normal dog. Picking up his spear, he headed in the direction the zebra had indicated.

An hour of the trip flew by. The zebra, who called herself Itanya, kept telling him something, repeating his name, but he only smiled back.

The settlement stretched out clearly before him, and it seemed that the inhabitants had noticed his approach. A group of zebras armed with spears approached him swiftly, their leather armor gleaming on their bodies.

One of the warriors stood out for his power and commanding appearance. His leather armor was adorned with massive metal plates, giving the impression of being unyielding. He had silver earrings in his ears, shimmering against his black mane. The bodies of many zebras were decorated with scarlet tattoos, mostly animals and some strange patterns.
Behind them ran a lone zebra without weapons.

Finally, they surrounded him and pointed their spears at him. The spears were real spears with metal tips, unlike his pathetic stick. The zebras had secured their weapons to their flanks as they ran, but now they held the shaft deftly in their hoof.

The man scrutinized each zebra, remaining calm. His gaze paused on an unarmed zebra, who looked anxiously at Itanya who was on his shoulders.

"A relative?" he thought.

Finally, the warrior he had spotted earlier emerged from the crowd, apparently the leader among them. The moment of first contact with the sentient race of zebras had arrived.

"Acha mtoto aende, mnyama," the leader said sternly, swinging his spear.

Given that Itanya was showing a reaction to English, the man decided to communicate in it.

"I do not understand your language. I am a friend. I saved Itanya from the beast," he said calmly.

The leader was a little surprised, but immediately replied already in English, "First let the foal go. We'll talk later."

"All right, all right. Take it easy. I'm a friend," the man reassured him.

Carefully lifting Itanya off his shoulders, he released her and she instantly rushed to the lone figure behind the warriors. They embraced and began touchingly rubbing against each other, expressing their joy at meeting. Then Itanya broke from the embrace and began to gibber furiously in her language, pointing at the man.

"Only good things, I hope," the man thought, still searching for gaps for a possible escape.

Itanya's words proved effective. The leader said something, and the zebras lowered their spears.

"Follow me," the leader said simply, turning and heading towards a nearby settlement.

"Where are you taking me?" - The man asked.

"To the chief. He will decide your fate," replied the leader.

"We ask the questions - you answer. Is that clear?" came the voice of a zebra clad in gold jewelry. It was the chief of the tribe, whose power and authority was reflected in his every movement. A zebra with an abundance of jewelry looked somewhat unusual, but even stranger was the old zebra to the left of the chief.

The zebra's head was adorned with the skull of a horned creature, and its body was wrapped in a net studded with feathers, black crystals, gold coins, and various bones. The presence of this zebra gave Alexei a very strange feeling. It was as if thin claws were scratching the back of his head while sending a cold breeze down his back. The man felt like he was facing something supernatural. Instead of the expected fear, he felt anticipation. The word "shaman" came up in the zebras' conversations as he waited in the chief's tent. And, indeed, this zebra clearly resembled a shaman in his appearance.

"Yes," Alexei replied briefly.

A feeling had arisen in his soul that it was not proper to lie. But what was a lie and what was the truth?

"You saved a foal from a hyena?"

"Yes."

"How exactly?"

"Killed the hyena."

"Why did you decide to save her?"

"Heard it calling for help," the man shrugged.

"What's your name?"

"Alexei."

"Where did you come from?"

"From the forest."

"How did you get there?"

"I was walking along the road at the edge of the forest, there was a bright light and pressure, then a blow, I lost consciousness, woke up here. I don't know where I am now."

"Where is your homeland?"

"In the south."

"Are you from a tribe of monkeys?"

"Yes," Alexei replied, feeling somewhat amused, but he didn't show it.

"What do you know about the explosion in the forest this morning?"

"The explosion? What's he talking about? Is he about the whole portal thing? Did they sense something even here?" the man's mind flashed.

"There was an explosion? All I saw was light, and then I blacked out. When I woke up, I found several dead small animals nearby."

The chief silently shifted his gaze to the zebra shaman, who only nodded in response.

"We never thanked you for saving our young," the chief spoke with gratitude in his voice. "Tell me, what do you wish?"

The man hesitated, weariness reflected on his face.

"May I answer later?" he finally uttered, raising his gaze to the chief of the zebras. "I am wounded, exhausted, and hungry."

The zebra chief smiled, nodding his head.

"So be it," he replied. "There is an empty hut at the edge of the settlement, you can sleep there and recuperate."

The man felt a sense of relief. It seemed the interrogation was over for the day.

"There is a mare waiting for you before you enter," the chief continued. "She will take care of your wounds and hunger and show you the way. Go."

"What mare?" the man thought confusedly.

Noticing his bewilderment, the chief laughed.

"You have already seen Imani," said the chief. "You saved her sister."

Alexei made a short bow, deeming it appropriate, and walked out of the hut. Two armed zebras flanked the entrance, watching his every move.

A little in the distance stood the aforementioned mare. Her head barely reached the man's chest, and the look in her eyes was full of respect and gratitude. She quickly ran up to the man, stood on her hind legs and hugged him tightly.

"Thank you. Thank you!" - sobbing, the mare whispered. "I wouldn't know what to do if I lost her."

The touching moment was interrupted by a rumbling in the man's stomach, reminding of his hunger. The mare released him from her embrace, brushed away tears, and smiled.

"Let's go," she said vigorously and led him toward a certain shack. "I won't let my sister's savior starve! But first your paw must be patched up."

The man's attention was drawn to the surrounding zebras, who cast a few grim glances at him. One in particular stood out, if he had gotten it right, a tightly built stallion looking at him with obvious malice.

"Why do they stare like that?" he addressed his companion, leaning in close to her ear.

Zebra sighed and seemed to gather her thoughts to formulate a suitable answer.

"I'll be honest," she finally spoke in a quiet voice. "You are not from here. You're an outsider. And you came at the wrong time. The tribe faced a beast raid in the morning. And here you are. Many see you as a herald of new troubles."

"I understand. Thank you for your honesty," the man murmured thoughtfully.

Finally, they came to Imani's hut.

Inside the wooden shack, there was an atmosphere of warmth and modest comfort. In the center of the only room was a small table covered with colorful pieces of cloth, beads, feathers, and shiny stones. On either side of the room were low shelves stacked with a variety of things. The ones on the right were filled with spools of brightly colored thread, bags of colorful beads, and other materials for jewelry. On the shelves to the left were ceramic pots of herbs and roots, bundles of dried flowers and herbs, and several small flasks. At the back of the room lay two stuffed sacks of coarse cloth, apparently serving as bedding for the residents.

Itanya, Imani's younger sister, was also present in the shack. As soon as she saw the man, she ran up to him and hugged his legs, repeating his name. Imani smiled and said something to her sister, whereupon she left the shack with some reluctance.

Imani sat the man down on the sack and began running around the room, bringing in a variety of pots and jars. While the zebra tended to his wounds, the man decided to find out what had been bothering him since his encounter with the chief.

"Can you explain something to me, Imani?" he began cautiously.

The zebra simply nodded, not taking her eyes off of applying some sort of herbal ointment to the wound.

"During my meeting with the shaman, I had some sort of strange sensation. I felt cold and something else. What was it?"

Zebra looked up and gave the man a perplexed look, as if he had just admitted he was an alien.

"Ancestral spirits. Who else could it be?" she said, looking at the man questioningly. "You've never met a shaman?"

The man felt as if he'd been electrocuted.

Spirits! There really were supernatural powers in this world! It was not in vain that he had come to this world! Perhaps it was here that he would find what he longed for.

He looked at Imani, and the zebra backed away slightly from his gaze, filled with obsession mixed with the flames of ambition.

"Can you answer a few questions?" the man said in a gentle voice, smiling at the zebra.

"What did the spirits say?" the chief asked.

"He hasn't lied once, but he's not telling us much," the shaman replied.

"Is he dangerous?" the chief clarified.

"I do not sense any magical powers from him. If there are any, they are extremely weak," the shaman shook his head.

"His appearance is suspicious. Is he connected to that explosion?" the chief continued to question.

"Not likely. He has no such powers and he told the truth, spirits don't make mistakes," the shaman replied indifferently. "He's probably another victim of the explosion, just like us. That would also explain his memory loss."

The chief remained silent, thinking deeply about the shaman's words.

"Look, if you dislike him so much, just kick him out or kill him. Or are you not a chief anymore?" the shaman asked caustically.

"You spend too much time with spirits, old friend," laughed the chief. "He saved one of our own. If we don't reward him properly, what will the other tribes think? In the future, if members of my tribe run into trouble, who will help them? You know better than I do how quickly news travels around here."

The shaman just shrugged, remaining indifferent after the chief’s passionate speech. He cared little for the affairs of the living.

"It is decided. The outsider will receive his reward," the chief concluded.

They talked until late into the night. Alexei had finally gotten a general sense of the world, cloaked in the isolation of his homeland and slight memory loss.

Spirits! Magic! Alchemy! Thousand-year-old creatures!

This world was filled with all sorts of riddles and mysteries. Almost every creature in this world could use magic in one form or another. Zebras had a special innate sensitivity and could interact with spirits, also thanks to this sense they were the best alchemists. Gryphons who controlled lightning. Pegasi who conquered the wind. Earth ponies that manipulated plants and the earth.

Unicorns stood out the most. They had no innate talent in any particular area, but they could use any magic once trained. And their ruler?

Alicorn, who had lived for thousands of years and, he still somewhat doubted, ruled the celestials. The man remembered the name of this being well - Celestia. To him, she was like the unreachable sun.

He found out from Imani that in addition to the shaman he already knew, the tribe also had a zebra-alchemist. He immediately wanted to become their apprentice. He wasn't sure about the shaman - he didn't have any of the necessary sensitivity - but alchemy was available to everyone.

Imani immediately crushed his naive dreams. Neither shaman nor alchemist would share their secrets with an outsider. The shaman already had an apprentice, and he was always the only one. That option immediately fell away. The only hope was alchemy. If it didn't work out, he would leave this tribe and head for Equestria, ruled by the very same Celestia.

Imani also sincerely advised him to ask the chief to make him a friend of the tribe. According to her this status was difficult to obtain normally, but he had the advantage of having the chief's promise. After becoming a friend of the tribe, he could ask the alchemist to make him his apprentice.

Now he was standing in front of the entrance to his hut, still coming to his senses. Imani was not with him. He had convinced the zebra, clearly tired of his onslaught, that he would find his way just fine on his own. He wanted to be alone. The brief directions were enough to keep him from getting lost.

The man raised his head and looked up at the starry sky. He remembered his life on Earth, its limitations and vanity. Why had he come to this world through that portal? What had driven him when he had risked his life without hesitation? What did he so passionately desire?

Eternal life.

He didn't care about the wealth, fame, or high position that the people of Earth chased after. They all live in a fake world with made-up rules, comparing each other's lives.

In his eyes, everything that would die sooner or later was equal. If you can't live forever, is there any difference between a king and a pile of shit? There is only immortality, only eternal life was the goal he wanted to pursue. There was no way to express such an aspiration to others, but Alexei wasn't looking for understanding.

On Earth one could only dream of something like this, but here? A glimmer of hope appeared.

He stood like that for a while, lost in his thoughts, and his gaze, previously blazing, grew colder and colder.

Chapter 4 - Shameless

"Isn't this what you wanted, Siwazuri? I'm offering an opportunity," said a male voice belonging to a middle-aged zebra. "Why do you hesitate?"

"How do you know what I want?" replied Siwazuri in a harsh tone.

"Don't sass me, brat!" the stallion flashed back, slapping his hoof on the ground.

After a few moments, he regained his composure and continued: "So you're not interested in Imani anymore? Have you seen that monkey hovering around her? They seem to be getting closer and closer..."

"Trying to play on my affection, old fart?" snorted Siwazuri. "She gave a clear answer, she's not interested in me."

"You!" the stallion gritted his teeth, but continued in an already calm voice. "And you are satisfied with that?"

"What can I do? How will killing a monkey help me conquer Imani?" Siwazuri replied melancholically. "You're delusional, if you think I'm going to be a part of that."

"Heh heh heh. Don't lie to me. I know you well, my sweet nephew," the stallion said in a faux affectionate tone. "It's not about the monkey at all, is it? You just want to hurt her, don't you?"

Siwazuri looked at his uncle glumly, but didn't answer - the old man was right, and he couldn't deny it. There was a flicker of jealousy in his eyes, and an undercurrent of anger that he tried to hide. He sank into thought, mulling over his feelings. His uncle was silent, not interrupting his thoughts.

If Alexei were here - he would have recognized Siwazuri as the same stallion that had cast baleful glances at him as the man walked to Imani's hut.

"What do you propose?" Siwazuri finally asked.

"You will accuse him of desecrating your father's memory and demand a trial by duel," replied his uncle in an even voice.

"The chief will not agree to that," Siwazuri replied, frowning slightly at the mention of his father.

"You don't need to worry about that. He'll authorize the duel, I'll take care of it," the stallion assured him.

"What if the monkey refuses? The charges alone aren't enough to make it serious. He'll have a choice," Siwazuri said doubtfully.

"Hehehe, he'll definitely say yes," his uncle said mockingly. "You don't know it yet, but the monkey wants to become a friend of the tribe. If this matter is not settled-he can only give up the venture. And who said it would be mere accusations? It's going to be all natural."

"You want me to become a desecrator?!" roared Siwazuri, fixing his gaze on the stallion.

"Hush, hush, hush. Don't get so hot-headed. It's just a performance," his uncle said soothingly. "You don't have to do anything."

His uncle's words had the effect of dispelling the spunky stallion's worries.

"Why do you even want him dead?" Siwazuri asked, looking intently at the stallion across from him.

"Because it would be best for the tribe," the stallion replied gravely.

The answer and righteous tone didn't seem to impress Siwazuri enough - he began to laugh wildly, lurching sideways.

"What nonsense!" Siwazuri said with a laugh. "You think I don't realize whose reputation you want to undermine? Are you up to your games again? One day the chief will cut off your head, my dear uncle."

"Mind your own business," the stallion snorted irritably. "All you're doing is killing the monkey like you wanted to. The rest is none of your business."

"I agree," Siwazuri nodded.

Alexei wandered along the edge of the forest, gathering anything remotely edible into a wicker basket. He dared not go deeper into the forest. Imani had told him in detail of all the terrors that lurked in the green depths.

He had been lucky to reach the plains alive. That flash of mental energy had killed all the small animals in a certain radius and frightened the larger ones. The beasts rushed in all directions from that clearing, creating chaos and fighting each other. Some of those beasts had attacked the tribe's camp that morning.

It had been three days since that momentous night.

The next morning he went straight to the chief and declared his desire to become a friend of the tribe. But nothing in life happens so easily. Bureaucracy had crept into these lands as well. He still had to pass some sort of test. The chief needed to consult with a shaman. The shaman needed to consult the spirits. And the spirits probably needed to consult with someone, too. All he had to do was wait for an answer.

But yesterday, another trouble had arisen - he had run into an insolent stallion who had been going through his belongings. The conflict did not turn into a fight, it was limited to the stallion's provocations and mutual glances.

However, this morning he was summoned by the chief and told that he had been accused of desecrating some altar of the deceased. There were even witnesses who had seen him leave the stallion's hut. Of course, it was all utter nonsense, but what could he do? He had no support.

He had learned all the rules and traditions of the tribe, and now he faced two options: refuse the duel and forget about joining the tribe, or accept the challenge. If he won, he would be accepted without further delay.

But the key word here was "if". The duel was not a simple performance. There was the option to surrender, but more often than not they ended in the death of one of the opponents. No outsider had the right to interfere in the fight, it was considered a serious insult to the tribe.

He had seen the abilities of other warriors of this tribe before, and they were no joke. Those red tattoos he had noticed earlier were actually special runes specific to zebras.
Unlike normal runes, the zebras' technique allowed them to be applied directly on the body, and utilize special abilities.

Runes and tattoos could be used by all sentient beings. How? Very simple - you had to inject your magical energy, mixed with mental energy, into the rune or tattoo.

Alexei laughed at that moment.

Well, sure. There was no way he could access magic so easily.

Tonight, before sunset, he had to give an answer to the chieftain. It was a dangerous situation, but also an opportunity. Alexei had previously found out through Imani the identity of the alchemist. The old zebra called Jiona was arrogant and selfish. Although she came from a tribe, she had spent most of her life in a major city. It was rumored that she was banished from there because of her questionable experiments. Upon returning to the tribe - she was ostracized by everyone, her character not improved in the slightest.

Alexei, picking up another fruit, smiled at his thoughts. He had already started to form some ideas for the upcoming fight.

"Are you really going to fight?" Imani asked for the tenth time that evening.

"Yes," Alexei answered calmly, not taking his eyes off his work.

He was now finishing the creation of a leather shield. It was essentially a hide stretched over a twisted branch. He connected the sides of the circle with more twigs and tied them together with the hemp rope he had taken from Imani. He didn't have high hopes for his makeshift defense, but even that was better than nothing.

Technically, armor was forbidden in the court of combat. But zebras never used shields and nothing in the rules said anything about it. After some bickering with the chief, the man managed to convince him that it wasn't armor, but a traditional weapon of the ancient apes.

"Refuse," the zebra continued his entreaties. "All of this happened because of me. Even if you don't become part of the tribe - I can take care of you.

"It won't stop with me. One day, your sister might get hurt,'' the man said in a determined tone as he looked at the sleepy filly in the back of the hut. Imani could discern tenderness and warmth in his gaze. I will put an end to this."

"You..." the zebra was clearly touched by his words.

"You don't have to say anything," the man interrupted her, raising his palm. "You've done a lot for me."

The zebra stiffened, not knowing what to say, but then, as if realizing, ran to the other side of the room and returned with a roll-up.

Unfolding it, the man's face brightened. In his hands was an iron tip with an elongated leaf-shaped blade. The blade was about twenty centimeters long, and the entire tip was about thirty.

"Where did you get the iron from?" Alexei asked with interest.

"We trade with the capital," Imani shrugged. "Also, trade caravans from Equestria pass through here a couple times a year. You're out of luck - they left a week before you arrived."

The man simply nodded and continued to examine the tip. A handle and a semblance of a garde could be made by wrapping strips of leather around it. Now he had an acceptable weapon for a duel. His opponent relied on speed and maneuverability, and it would be extremely foolish to use a full-fledged spear. His folding knife also no longer met his requirements.

It didn't take much time for that to happen and here he was already saying goodbye to his sisters. Imani hugged him tightly one last time and the man stroked her mane with a soft smile.

Walking out of the hut Alexei's face relaxed. All the warmth shown earlier disappeared and its place was taken by the usual expression of indifference. Without turning around, he walked through the deserted camp to his shack.

Morning enveloped the zebra settlement with its quiet breath. In the middle of the circle, a man and a stallion stood facing each other.

Alexei held his leather shield in his left hand, while the sharp tip of his spear gleamed in his right. Siwazuri, for his part, held in his teeth a hilt with two curved blades.

Looking at the zebra in front of him, the man for some reason remembered the deer beetle.

A crowd of zebra zebras gathered around them, eager to see the deadly duel.

"Are you ready?" came the voice of a zebra from the side.

The man and stallion nodded silently, not wanting to waste unnecessary words. A tense silence reigned around them.

"Remember, you are being watched by our ancestors. Begin!" the zebra shouted, breaking the silence.

The man, though ready, could only see a scarlet flash on the side of his opponent when he was already in front of him. He managed to put up his shield and was sent flying when he felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder. Before he could recover from his fall, he barely had time to react to the movement above him. Quickly rolling to the side, he avoided a dangerous blow that could have split his skull - a hoof was in place of his head.

Siwazuri despised the ape and thought him a weakling, but he wasn't arrogant. Arrogant zebras were plentiful. And almost all of them were already dead. He was going to give it his best shot.

The man jumped to his feet and put his shield in front of him again. A glimpse of his left shoulder and he could clearly see the bone. He dared not take his eyes off his opponent and ignored it completely.

After the initial onslaught, the stallion was in no hurry to attack again. The man knew the reason - the tattoos were 'overheating', they couldn't be used without stopping.

The man and the zebra slowly circled around each other. The human was wary of the second, unknown to him, tattoo, and the zebra just didn't want to take any chances.

After a few seconds, the zebra's side flashed red light again, and Alexei was ready. Rushing forward, he managed to stop the momentum of the stallion's charge with his shield, inflicting a neck wound. More wounds appeared on his left arm. The leather shield barely protected him from the zebra's attacks.

Siwazuri frowned and lunged at the man. Avoiding the shield, he slashed at the man's leg and with a sudden burst of speed, he bounced sideways, avoiding a counterattack. Such movements were simply impossible for a zebra.

The second tattoo's ability was finally revealed.

Vertical and horizontal charges might seem like very simple abilities, without the extra special effects usually attributed to magic. But they were quite effective. The bleeding man was proof of that.

The man rushed towards the zebra. Both tattoos were recharging and Siwazuri had no choice but to fight back with his own strength.

Suddenly, the man opened his mouth and spat out phlegm directly into the zebra's face. Siwazuri was dumbfounded by such an insult for a moment and missed the blow. A deep cut was now visible on his neck.

Multiple screams erupted from the crowd, scornful of the meanness of a certain ape.

The zebra's eyes filled with blood. He had been spit in the face in front of the entire tribe! He was even more annoyed by the condescending smile that appeared on the man's face.

He used his tattoo and lunged at the man again. But Alexei was ready and once again stopped his dash with his shield.

The battle continued with varying success, each showing their strength and determination. Alexei increasingly preferred to dodge - his left arm was getting weaker and weaker.

This infuriated zebra even more.

"Stop dancing, monkey, do you have any dignity left? Fight me like a true warrior!" - Siwazuri roared, holding up his weapon with his hoof.

Alexei looked at him with interest and smiled: "You consider yourself a true warrior?"

"Alright, let's finish this fight without all the tricks and magic. Just you, me, and our bodies," he said, tossing his shield aside.

Siwazuri snorted, but nodded to the man, acknowledging his choice.

The two began to slowly approach each other.

When they were within two meters of each other, the human's foot swung up and sent a cloud of sand into the zebra's face. The blinded Siwazuri began to shake his head furiously, expecting the human's attack, but it didn't hit anyone.

Suddenly he felt a strong sense of danger, but it was too late. A firm grip closed on his mane and pulled upward, and then something sharp slashed his throat. Pushing his attacker aside, he used both tattoos and, spitting the weapon out, finally wiped his eyes. Seeing the waterfall of blood beneath him he finally gave up.

"I-I *gurgh* surren..." the stallion wheezed, but was interrupted by a powerful kick to the stomach, knocking the air out of him.

The man was already at his side.

The last thing Siwazuri saw was the glint of metal as the blade stabbed into his eye, instantly reaching his brain. His legs gave out and the stallion collapsed to the ground.

He was dead.

There was dead silence for a moment, but then the crowd exploded with shouts.

"Disgusting!"

"Monkey bastard!"

"You fought unfairly!"

"Despicable creature!"

Alexei stood motionless, listening to this torrent of ridicule and condemnation. He even seemed to be enjoying it.

Suddenly, he burst into laughter, silencing everyone with surprise.

"You're right! All of you are right! What I did was despicable and I don't deserve to win. I'm ashamed," he said as he leaned over the stallion's body and patted his head. "You won."

The crowd was beyond furious.

It seemed as if they were about to tear the man to pieces, but Alexei knew that wouldn't happen. They were restrained by the same rules that had forced him to accept the duel.
All they could do was shout insults and criticize his personality.

Every being born into the world becomes a prisoner of societal norms and morals that are indoctrinated into them from birth. This is the nature of any organization that seeks to manage and control every step and thought of an individual. The saddest part is that many even use the collar put on them as a symbol of pride.

He organized this performance not to impress the zebras, but to gain a certain reputation. A reputation as a ruthless madman who disregarded all norms and rules. His position in the tribe was extremely precarious. Siwazuri, that stallion, was only one of his problems, and far from the last. He had already received explicit threats before.

Why do people have a fear of psychopaths and lunatics? Because they pose a danger? No.

The reason is that these people can easily cross a line that is considered taboo for everyone else. Their unrestraint causes terror in the hearts of ordinary people. How many will dare to seek trouble with him now?

Alexei brushed his thoughts away and looked questioningly at the chief, who looked at him with a complicated gaze. Then the chief simply nodded.

The man began to walk away. The previously infuriated crowd began to part, letting the bloodied man pass.

Imani ran out of the crowd and began anxiously circling around him, saying something. But Alexei paid no attention to it, concentrating only on one thought - to reach the hut. He was already dizzy from the loss of blood.

When he reached the hut, he collapsed on the floor and just lay there, smiling at the ceiling, watching the worried zebra running around him with potions and medicines.

The alchemist's hut where Alexei stood was modest in appearance, but full of mysterious items and artifacts. The walls were covered with shelves that held vials of unknown liquids, ingredients of all kinds, scrolls and ancient books with tattered covers. In the corner of the room stood a hand-painted table on which various tools and alchemical mixtures were laid. In the center was a black metal cauldron from which spiraling puffs of steam rose from the potion bubbling inside.

The air was filled with the smells of herbs and essential oils, creating a mesmerizing atmosphere.

"What a show you put on yesterday, outsider," the old zebra said cheerfully. "You disregarded all norms and caused the hatred of the entire tribe. I can see that you're well prepared, having studied my backstory."

"You overestimate me," the man said with a smile. "All of this happened by accident."

Zebra gave him a dubious look, but remained silent, mulling something over. A hint of determination flashed in her eyes.

"I know why you're here," Jiona finally said. "And I say yes. You will be my apprentice."

Chapter 5 - Path

Alexei, sitting on a tree branch, watched the pack of needle-skinned wolves slowly move away.Their backs and sides were covered with sharp needles, capable of striking a target at a considerable distance. If he found himself surrounded by these wolves, they wouldn't even need to use their claws and teeth - a single fire would be enough to take his life.

If it wasn't for the need for resources - there was no way he would have returned to this forest.

The zebra alchemist, Jiona, had revealed to him one advantage of his body - the low concentration of magical energy. Most of the creatures in the forest had a high sensitivity to magic and he was like a dead tree to them.

Of course, that didn't mean he was invisible to them.

The beasts had the same hearing, sense of smell and sight as the beasts from Earth. At least he was hard to detect if he hid his scent, hid and stayed quiet. It gave him a sort of confidence as he wandered through the forest alone.

The alchemist, judging by her reaction, either didn't notice the complete lack of magic or didn't think it was something extremely strange. Both options were fine with Alexei.

In addition to the ingredients for his own training, he also had to pay the alchemist. Although she accepted him as an apprentice, that didn't mean the training would be free.
Most of her attention was focused on her main apprentice, and Alexei was accepted rather to annoy the others.

The alchemist's relationship with the tribe was complicated. She couldn't be replaced or kicked out, but the whole exile and return thing had riddled her reputation. There were many unpleasant rumors about her. The zebra herself was already living out her last years and all she wanted was to pass on her knowledge to her apprentice and piss off the arrogant zebras. It was her peculiar form of protest.

Alexei was sure that it was Jiona who had spread those rumors that she had accepted him as an apprentice only because of the chief's promise. Zebra clearly enjoyed stirring up petty conflicts.

Speaking of conflicts: several more zebras had challenged him, but he had refused all of them - he had already achieved his goal and needed no further battles. More and more humiliating rumors circulated around the tribe, but he didn't care.

Only a superficial person would be angry over insults and happy over praise. It's just a passerby's view of you.

When the wolves finally moved away, Alexei climbed down from the branch and began picking up anything that had any value in his eyes. The beast's many body parts and internal organs could also serve as ingredients for potions, but he dared not even think about that. At least not right now.

The man's gaze slid carefully through the forest cover, he hoped to find a magic crystal. Crystals were essentially crystallized magical energy and occurred in places of high concentration. They could even grow on the corpse of a strong enough magical beast.

Depending on the environment, crystals could have different elements in them, but they were mostly of neutral magical energy.
They were used for a wide variety of purposes, from an ingredient for creating potions and magical artifacts to serving as a form of currency in this world of magic.

But luck did not smile on Alexei this time either. Gathering what he could into his bag, he headed back to the village, leaving behind a forest full of mystery and danger.

Returning to the tribe the man came across Imani, who only snorted contemptuously and turned away. Alexei could only smile bitterly.

Recently there had been a furious argument between the two, audible to the entire tribe as the zebra accused the man of all sins and condemned his rotten nature.

It was all just another show put on by the man. He was already an outcast and he couldn't let his bond with the zebra drag her down after him. She was his only connection to the tribe and one of the few people he could turn to for help.

Imani, of course, figured he was doing this for her own good and took an even greater liking to him. He was already beginning to notice the first telltale signs of her forming affection. All this was most unfortunate. He would have preferred a friendly or brother-sister relationship.

Alexei had no extra time for a zebra in love at all!

His daily routine was strictly planned and left no room for personal relationships.

In the morning he would go to the forest, gathering ingredients he knew for potions and anything that was good for food.

From lunch until evening, he would spend time in the alchemist's hut, where he would listen to her explanations and diligently practice processing ingredients and creating potions. He was not allowed to study with another apprentice and this was the only time available.

Alexei devoted the evening and part of the night to reading. He studied zebra script, studied ingredients, memorized potion recipes by heart and read all available books in the common language of the tribe. Thankfully, the alchemist had found a few foal books that became his textbooks.

Sometimes he would sneak in at night to Imani and ask her about the state of affairs in the tribe or ask for help with his studies.

Otherwise, each day blended into a monotonous mass, but Alexei felt no boredom.

Alchemy!

It was something unimaginable. He had already experienced its power to the fullest - those terrible wounds he had received during the battle with Sivazuri were healing quickly. The day after the battle, he could walk freely. The pain hadn't gone anywhere, but Alexei was starting to get used to it.

Regeneration. Blood regeneration. Strength. Speed. Poisons. Fire blasts.

The list was endless. As long as you had the right recipe and ingredients - alchemy was as good as unicorn magic.

The only thing that troubled Alexei was his lack of a sense of magical energy. It was not about the special sensitivity of zebras, but about the sense of magic inherent in any creature.

Everyone around him had that sense, but he didn't. Anyone could sense that he had weak magic. Anyone could feel the energy of a magic crystal within a certain radius.

Anyone but him.

In this world where everything was saturated with magical energy, this was a serious disadvantage. Right now, he was only mastering the "zero" level of alchemy and making the simplest potions. He made up for his lack of magical flair with persistence and following the recipe exactly. But he knew it wouldn't last long.

Without a sense of magic, further path in alchemy was closed to him.

Thus, four months flew by unnoticed for Alexei, absorbed in his aspirations and hard work.

Alexei stood in the alchemist's hut, filled with the smell of herbs and magical ingredients. Light streamed through the small windows, creating a play of shadows on the walls. In the center of the room was an old wooden tabletop, covered in stains and marks from previous experiments. Behind it stood Jiona, a zebra with wise eyes and a serious expression.

"I have mastered all the necessary knowledge as you instructed," Alexei said, bowing to the zebra. "Please teach me basic alchemy."

"I've already told you a hundred times that it's useless," Jiona muttered glumly. "I don't know what happened to you in that explosion, but you no longer have the sense of magic. You can't brew any entry level potions without it."

"I understand, but I still want to try," the man replied firmly. "I'll bring you three times as many ingredients as before."

The zebra looked at him carefully and sighed. Then a few more.

"Listen, Alexei," she finally spoke. "Speaking of perseverance - you're my best student. I admire your perseverance, but... I just can't."

"Why?" the man asked in a calm voice.

"I've been forbidden," Jiona replied through clenched teeth.

"Forbidden? You? And you obeyed?" said Alexei in surprise.

"Don't make fun of the old zebra," Jiona replied sadly. "You see, I have my own difficulties."

"I understand," Alexei retorted emotionlessly and was about to leave, but was stopped by the zebra.

"Wait," the zebra muttered, turning its head to the left and as if looking out for something in the empty space. "If you're really determined - there is one way, but the price will be appropriate."

"What way?" the man perked up.

"You can make a deal with a spirit," Jiona replied, still looking at the seemingly empty space. "The shaman doesn't care about reputation and other conventions, he won't refuse you because of your status."

"What is the nature of the deal? What's the price?" Alexei asked.

"If you can make a deal with the alchemist spirit - she will share all her knowledge with you and can help you with her sense of magic," the zebra shrugged. "As for the price - your life."

"Life? What do you mean?" the man said confused.

"Your life energy. In other words - lifespan," Jiona explained. "You'll have to bargain well, the spirits are greedy for the world of the living."

"How does the bargaining take place? Is there some sort of contract? How many years do the spirits demand?" Alexei started to barrage the alchemist with questions, but was interrupted.

"You'd better ask all these questions to the shaman, if he agrees to your request," the zebra said. "You can trust him. At least where spirits are concerned."

Alexei considered for a few moments and then nodded to himself.

"Thank you for your guidance," the man said with a bow. "I will not forget your kindness."

"Go already," the zebra sighed. "I hope you find what you so ardently desire."

The man's lips stretched in a smile as he turned and walked out of the alchemist's hut.

When he reached his humble hovel, he stepped inside, sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall. A heavy sigh escaped his chest.

"Again. Once again someone has appeared to interfere with me," he thought coldly. "The chief? Someone at the top of the tribe? The family of that dead zebra? It doesn't matter. I don't regret my choice."

"The main problem is myself," Alexei continued to ponder, feeling slightly irritated. "I'm too weak."

On Earth, one man's strength was limited, but in this world filled with magic? As long as you're strong enough - you can do whatever you want.

The only thing he could count on was his own strength, and without strength, freedom was only an illusion.

The man's eyes filled with determination, and after gathering his things, he left the hut.

Then quietly crept over to Imani, his faithful zebra companion, from whom he kept all his most precious possessions. After a brief conversation, he headed towards the shaman's hut, ready to make a deal even with the very embodiment of evil.

"I see your sincerity," the shaman nodded, examining the crystals before him. "But I can only summon the spirits. It is up to them to decide who to contract with."

"I agree," Alexei replied briefly, maintaining his resolve.

"Good, then... Hmm. You have quite an interesting bracelet," the shaman murmured thoughtfully, examining the man's hand.

Alexei inwardly rolled his eyes at the zebra's greed, but only smiled and held out his wooden bracelet to the shaman.

"Please accept this humble gift, Honorable Shaman," he said with a smile.

"Well, if you so insist. The spirits will like your generosity," the shaman smiled. "Come back at night."

Nodding, Alexei bowed to the shaman and left the hut.

Back in his cozy hut, he ate a meal of fruit and began to ponder the upcoming deal.

How clever were the spirits?

He needed to think through every detail of the future contract. He might have seemed reckless, but he carefully thought and planned his every move.

Time flew by unnoticed, and night fell.

Alexey quickly stretched his muscles, which were stiff from sitting and headed back to the shaman's hut.

Once inside, he noticed that in the center of the room stood a bowl with smoking embers, and next to it lay a scroll.

"There you are," the shaman smiled. "Sit down in front of the embers and let us begin."

Alexei nodded and sat down on the floor in front of the bowl. The shaman threw something into the embers, and a smell reminiscent of tar and forest herbs began to spread through the hut.

The shaman closed his eyes, standing still as if transforming into a mystical statue.

Alexei honestly expected the shaman to start singing, dancing, or beating a drum. It was rather difficult to get rid of certain associations. But nothing of the sort was happening.

Time stretched slowly, and Alexei began to doubt whether the shaman had really summoned a spirit.

Finally, the shaman opened his eyes.

"Your request has been answered by a spirit," he said with a mysterious smile. "You may discuss terms."

Alexei looked around, but saw no visible presence of the spirit.

"A spirit? Where is he?" - He asked, twisting his head around.

"I'm right here, you silly biped," came a female voice in his head. "So, what do you have to offer?"

The negotiations began.

"I swear I will skin you, drink every last drop of blood, and feed the corpse to the hyenas!" roared the zebra in the man's head.

"Please don't be angry, great spirit, my offer is quite generous," Alexei replied mentally, smiling.

"Sixteen years of your pathetic monkey life for all the experience I've gained in a hundred and eighty years?!" the zebra continued to yell. "What am I, a harbor whore to you?!"

"In fact, I was suggesting nine, but I'm willing to go along with you - ten years," the man replied still mentally. "And let's not talk about one hundred and eighty years. Why do I need your experience of senile marasmus?"

"Bastard! I'll gut you right now!" the zebra howled.

Alexei was really starting to feel the scratching all over his body, but he was still smiling.

"Ten is the limit of my generosity, or I refuse," he retorted.

"Twenty and not a month less. You refuse? Who else wants to deal with you?" the zebra chuckled.

"I don't see a line of willing people in front of you either," the man snorted. "Are you just going to dust in the crypt?"

"Now you've really crossed the line!" the zebra hissed.

The negotiation went on for over two hours.

The man and the zebra took turns cursing each other and bargaining for every day of his life. And all this in absolute silence, under the understanding gaze of the shaman. It looked really awkward.

Finally, the parties came to an agreement.

"One day I'll piss on your grave, son of a fleabag whore," the zebra muttered. "All right! I'll settle for fourteen."

The man smiled and reached for a scroll, writing down all the terms of the contract with a piece of charcoal.

"Your name, spirit?" he finally spoke.

"Saada," it sounded in his head.

Alexei wrote her name down on the scroll, and to complete the transaction, he cut his finger and dripped his blood on the parchment. At the same moment, a second stain appeared next to his blood, brown and ugly, reminiscent of decay and decomposition.

Alexei then handed the scroll to the shaman, who threw it into the embers. The scroll burned instantly, and the ash flew up and split into two currents, flowing into Alexei and the, now visible, spirit beside him.

"I think we'll work together," the dead zebra smirked.

By the time Alexei returned to his hut, it was deep into the night. But he didn't feel tired, and he wasn't going to rest. There were too many important questions swirling around in his head, and finally he had a reliable source of information, for which he had paid the price of fourteen years of his life. Though, of course, not right away.

One of the conditions he had fought so desperately for was the gradual transfer of life. After all, what would happen if the spirit was destroyed by someone? The man would be left with absolutely nothing.

The terms of the contract were clear - eight years of training and full assistance from the zebra, in exchange for Alexei's lifespan. However, the contract could be terminated at any time if both parties mutually agreed, but if he chose to end the bond early, he would have to give up all fourteen years at once.

Alexei thought about adding a mutual non-aggression clause to the contract, but the shaman assured him that it wasn't necessary. As long as the contract was in effect, they could not intentionally harm each other. Mild breaches of the contract caused only minor retaliation, and serious ones caused death.

Another important condition of the contract was complete confidentiality. Saada had no right to tell or give anyone information about him, but Alexei had no such restrictions.

So he didn't have to hide anything from Saada. He decided to share his whole story with her, not even hiding his alien origin.

"Your life is really funny, human," Saada laughed.

"So how do I use magic? Share your one hundred and eighty years of experience with me," Alexei grinned.

"You don't. You don't meet two basic requirements," the zebra chuckled.

"The first requirement is having magical energy?" he asked, frowning. "What about the second?"

"You don't have a soul!" the zebra chuckled.

"What?!" Alexei stupefied.

"Exactly! I don't understand it either. You're alive, but you don't have a soul," the zebra replied cheerfully.

"What is a soul anyway?" Alexei asked, frowning even more.

"Well, no one knows exactly. Research in this area is progressing very slowly," Saada spoke thoughtfully. "When a creature is born, the magical energy in its forming brain mixes with thoughts to form a soul."

"The soul generates and stores mental energy. That's all I know," the zebra added.

Alexei sank deeper and deeper into thought, contemplating his situation.

"Maybe I had a soul but lost it in the mental explosion?" he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

"No, I would have noticed, and you wouldn't be running around so briskly after destroying your soul either. You just don't have one. Ever since you were born," the zebra replied. "You belong to a rather interesting species. I wish I could dissect you."

"Wait. If the soul generates the mental energy needed for thoughts, then how do thoughts appear in the forming brain when the soul isn't there yet?" Alexei asked suspiciously. "And how were the experiments conducted?"

"That's right! No one has ever figured out where that first spark comes from," exclaimed the zebra. "On animals, mostly. Yes, they have souls too, though somewhat different. Doing mass experiments on intelligent pregnant creatures is quite problematic. Well, you understand."

Alexei understood. He'd already heard the summary of Saada's life. Similar questionable experiments had gotten her killed.

"What about tattoos or runes? Can I use them with your help?" the man asked with some hope.

"I'm dead, remember? Ghosts have almost no magical energy. I can only activate a small rune, nothing else," Saada said. "You could use an outside energy source, like a crystal, but there's a high risk of me being burned by the backlash."

"What about magical artifacts?" Alexei asked already hopelessly.

"Do you have any idea what those are?" the zebra laughed. "Any artifact is a complex combination of alchemical processes, dense runic inscriptions, and a multitude of materials. How are you going to control all of that? You're just going to perish."

"Then what's left? Stretch your memory and find all the options available to me," the man sighed.

Zebra fell silent, immersed in her memories.

"There are two options I can offer you," she finally spoke.

"The first option is two tattoos you can use with my help," the zebra continued. "One of them will increase your speed, and it will need blood instead of magical energy to activate. The ingredients for it are fairly easy to get. The second tattoo has a permanent effect, boosting your body's regeneration. It will give impressive results without any side effects, but the ingredients for it will be quite expensive."

Alexei listened intently, catching every detail. The first option seemed realistic enough, but his mind was already reaching for the second option.

"The second option is a ritual inspired by chimerization experiments," the zebra continued. "The effect of this ritual is hard to predict, especially in your case, but by design it should give the creature magical talent. I found this ritual in an abandoned laboratory, but I have never used it. The ingredients for this ritual are extremely rare and difficult to obtain. And I must tell you something else: according to the records, all attempts have ended in either death or insanity of the subject. If you risk the second option - you'll have to do a bunch of experiments, making adjustments and correcting the defects that cause insanity."

Zebra transmitted all the additional information directly into the man's brain and his face grew serious.

This was what he was looking for - two options, two opportunities to change his fate. The first option was the more accessible one, and the second... The second evoked a mixture of anxiety and excitement in him.

The ritual itself wasn't a huge problem. He could catch some unicorn and, through methods of advanced diplomacy, convince it to help him. The ingredients, that was the difficulty.

Essence of darkness? Phoenix tears? Alicorn blood? And a bunch of other names he wasn't familiar with.

He didn't know about the power of the phoenix, but even he had heard of alicorns. Get the blood of an alicorn? An ant had a better chance against an elephant.

Of course, the man wasn't going to give up. He was already used to the difficulties and obstacles in his way.

For the first time since coming to this world, he had a clear direction, and he was ready to follow it, no matter what. Of course, everything could change in the next second, but there was nothing he could do about it.

The world was hard to predict, but that's what made it so interesting.

"I see you've already made your decision," the zebra said and chuckled. "I wasn't wrong about you. Oh, this is going to be so much fun!"

Chapter 6 - Matters of love

Headaches. It was now an essential part of Alexei's life.

Zebra needed to give him over forty years of her memories in an eight-year contract, meaning the man had to receive five days of her memories every day. He couldn't afford to wait eight years, so he offered to triple Saada's daily portion. The price for this was a constant throbbing pain in his head, but he didn't complain. With some supportive elixirs, his brain would be fine. At least that's what Saada claimed.

Alexei spent most of his time digesting information and conducting mental experiments. The phrase took on a new meaning as the zebra was capable of transmitting visual images to him.

Massaging his temples, Alexei took a deep breath and reached for the bowl of scarlet liquid. He was in his hut, ready to get a tattoo that would increase his speed when activated.

Just like Saada had said - the ingredients for this tattoo were easy to obtain. Some of them he had purchased from Jiona, and the rest he had gathered himself.

Taking off his pants, he made himself comfortable and laid the sketch in front of him. The drawing was like an abstract depiction of sharp gusts of wind, detailed and full of curlicues. There was a lot of work to do.

Alexei decided to get the tattoo on the inside of his thigh, since it was more or less a protected spot and he could reach it easily. Though he would have preferred to get it on his back so that it wouldn't be lightly visible when activated, but that presented some difficulties. Saada was quite capable of interacting with the material world, but she was already exhausted from relaying tons of information to him every day. It would take too much time.

Dipping a pointed sliver of a bamboo-like plant into the bowl, he began to pierce the skin. He had no artistic talent, but with the zebra's prompting, his hands moved with surgical precision.

He started just after noon and finished by nightfall. Wiping the blood off the drawing, he reached for the restorative potion and signaled to the zebra.

The tattoo flashed with scarlet light, activating. Alexei felt as if hot oil had been poured on his skin. The first activation was always painful - the tattoo was embedded in his flesh - but it was normal. He splashed the potion on the drawing and grimaced at the new flare of pain.

Finally, it was over. The wind pattern shone on his skin and the inflammation was fading.

He didn't have time to feel the effects of the tattoo, distracted by the pain, but that could be put aside for later. There were more important things to do.

Alexei wiped the blood and potion residue from his leg, dressed, and quietly walked out of his hut into the cool of the night.

Following Saada's clues, he confidently avoided random passersby and a few spirits, making his way deep into the camp toward a specific hut.
Waiting for Saada's confirmation, he carefully pulled back the canopy and stepped inside.

The interior of the hut of a young stallion, adventurous by nature, opened up before him. The walls were decorated with paintings depicting the lush landscapes of this magical world. On the floor was a carpet chaotically strewn with all sorts of patterns. In the center of the room stood a wooden table covered in dust, on which were scattered a few scrolls, pieces of charcoal, and some utensils. Several saddlebags lay nearby. Above the table hung a map of the plains and part of the forest, with various places and paths marked on it, indicating his experience and knowledge of the area. The man looked at the map, memorizing all the useful information.

That's right, the man now had night vision. Well, not exactly he had. Saada could see in the dark and silently shared what she saw with Alexei. While this was somewhat unusual, he was used to it and recognized that without the zebra's help, his path would have been much more difficult.

In the corner of the room, on a soft mattress, the owner of the hut himself was sleeping peacefully, his face expressing satisfaction. He must have been dreaming something good.

The man's eyes flashed with sinister intent.

"On the left, behind that canvas," Saada's voice sounded in his head.

Step by step, Alexei approached the cloth and carefully pulled it away, revealing a neatly folded cloth that resembled a wide handmade scarf. He looked at it questioningly, turning mentally to Saada.

"Is this it?" he asked.

Receiving confirmation from Saada, Alexei turned without further ado and quietly left the stallion's hut, heading back to his hideout.

The sun's rays filtered through the thick foliage and lit the way for the two travelers, stallion and human.

"Have I told you how much I hate you?" the stallion said in a tired voice.

"Yes, many times," Alexei replied, smiling at him. "Don't get so upset, my friend. Life goes on."

"I hate you," the stallion said with some sort of conclusion, casting a frown at the man.

Tamu, Alexei's new friend, was the same stallion whose hut he had broken into the night before. Earlier, he had encountered a couple of zebras engaged in carnal pleasures on the edge of the forest while collecting ingredients to pay Jiona's tuition. He immediately recognized one of them as the chief's daughter, and through Imani, found out the stallion's identity and the rest of the information. It appeared that the stallion, secretly from the chief and the entire tribe, was dating the mare. It wouldn't have been anything special if it wasn't for the identity of this mare.

Alexei had previously been busy with alchemy and had only memorized the story behind these zebras, but now he saw their relationship to his own benefit.

The cloth he had stolen in the night was a traditional gift for lovers in the tribe. The mare herself wove this cloth and chose the pattern for embroidery. This scarf, or hood if necessary, was a practical and meaningful gift.

But how could zebras weave? Alexei didn't fully understand their amazing agility and the property of hoofkinesis that allowed them to attract and hold anything in their hooves.

And what did it mean to use magic? Residual energy. The cloth was saturated with the mare's energy, which was undeniable proof. The stallion obviously wore this scarf often, as Saada detected his energy on the fabric as well. Even if the energy dissipated over time - the man still had a witness in the form of Saada.

After visiting the stallion in the morning, he began to blackmail him shamelessly and extort crystals.

He needed to collect a lot of crystals before the caravan from Equestria arrived soon. The man had nothing more to do in the tribe, now it was more like a cage. He planned to bribe the chief and get a recommendation to join the caravan. It was too dangerous to travel alone, but the caravan could provide him with some safety.

The most important element of blackmail was Tamu himself, or rather the fate mark on his side. It was another strange quirk of this world, but all ponies and zebras had marks expressing their special talent. Tamu had a scrap of map with a cross in the center, signifying his talent for finding valuable items.

Such a talent could indeed attract other people's envy and greed. Perhaps that was why the stallion led an extremely humble life, hiding the true capabilities of his mark.

If the stallion had been less cowardly and more determined - he would have already made a fortune. Previously, he had only occasionally visited the forest with the tribe's warriors, but that had all changed now.

"Stop," the man's order suddenly sounded.

"What is it? I wanted to get back to the tribe before tonight," the stallion began to complain.

"Shut up," came the man's short reply.

Tamu was about to start to get indignant, but stopped when he saw the man's frown as he looked around the surrounding forest. The man pulled out his customary spearhead, and his left hand reached for the pouch on his belt.

"What have you got?" he mentally asked Saada.

"Nothing," came the reply. "I can fly down and take a look around."

"No. Stay close," Alexei declined the offer. "Be ready to activate the tattoo."

All of this was somewhat unsettling. The unknown threat was always the scariest.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, at the edge of the man's vision, something dark and extremely fast flashed.

Saada did not fail and activated the tattoo in the same instant. With a sudden increase in speed, the man jumped aside, avoiding the attack. He barely had time to see his attacker, a huge black cat with dark purple spots, when it disappeared back into the bushes.

"Dark leopard," Saada confirmed his thoughts.

"Disable the tattoo," the man said.

"Are you sure? I might not make it in time, these leopards are quite fast," the zebra said doubtfully.

"I'll run out of blood quickly if it's active all the time," the human grinned.

This tattoo passively increased his speed and reaction while it was activated, sucking his blood in return. Unlike active ability tattoos, it didn't overheat - it could be turned on and off at will. Having run tests earlier, Alexei had found out that his limit was two minutes. Then he would begin to lose consciousness.

"What was that?!" the shocked stallion finally shouted.

"Shut up," followed the man's cold reply. "Hide in the roots of the tree behind you."

The man's words brought the stallion to his senses, and he quickly ducked under the protection of the roots.

Tamu, his hen laying golden eggs, was quite an asset to the human. This cat had picked the wrong zebra for a snack.

These predators were not only fast, but also possessed a distinctly magical stealth, easily hiding in the shadows, making them even more dangerous. But the man was not about to relent.

The man continued to stand still, his heart beating harder and his hand clutching a clay vial with a wooden stopper.

Suddenly, he saw a flickering shadow and reflexively dodged, throwing a vial at his attacker. The clay vial shattered on the ground, causing a bright explosion that enveloped the leopard in flames. The predator quickly disappeared into the bushes, but a trail of sparse drops of blood testified to its wounds.

Nodding, the man turned around and walked towards the hidden stallion, running his hand into another pouch.

"Where are you going? They're very territorial and vengeful, he's not gone yet," Saada spoke hurriedly.

"Activate tattoo and watch my rear," came the reply from the man who continued walking.

Ten meters later, the man felt a signal from the zebra noticing the drops of blood as the leopard appeared behind him, preparing to jump. Turning sharply, Alexei threw the vial right into the muzzle of the beast, which had no time to react and was engulfed in flames.

Squinting, the man tensed, expecting the most fierce counterattack of the beast, but it did not follow. The smoke dispersed, revealing the body of a dark leopard lying lifeless on the ground.

Alexei examined it carefully, then exhaled and signaled Saada to disable the tattoo.

The man froze for a moment, contemplating his circumstances. He had fought a pitiful hyena earlier and had even sustained some injuries. Now he had easily killed a much more dangerous dark leopard and from the injuries he had only light blood loss, and that only because of the tattoo.

Alexei felt pleasure - his strength was growing. The stronger he became, the more freedom and chances he had to reach his goal. It was only a young leopard from the edge of the forest and the man dared not become overconfident, but it was still a pleasant victory.

With a glimpse of the stallion climbing out of the roots, the man began to examine the corpse of the leopard. The eyes were completely destroyed, but the heart and fangs were intact, they could be used to create potions. Using a sharp blade, the man quickly extracted the parts of the leopard he needed and wrapped it in a cloth and stowed it in his bag.

Looking at the slightly dazed Tamu, who had been standing silently nearby the whole time, the man grinned. Today, thanks to this lucky stallion, he had collected a whole bag of crystals.

Time to head back to camp.

Back in his humble hut, Alexei felt a pleasant sense of coziness. He was exhausted after defeating the dark leopard and getting some crystals, but it was not time to rest. He had one more potion to prepare before going to bed. Tomorrow he, along with his new partner, planned to venture deeper into the forest, but some preparation was needed.

Unfortunately, he didn't have a cauldron, so he had to improvise.

Earlier, he had built a small support for the pot by gathering rocks from the forest stream. Underneath the pot was an oil lamp. But oil was not the most efficient option, so Saada suggested replacing it with a more flammable liquid, providing the necessary recipe. It turned out rather primitive, but it couldn't be helped. Food in the tribe was mostly cooked over campfires. Though some had clay ovens, but not in his hut.

The man poured water into the pot, then he carefully placed the pot on the stone support, checking that everything was stable and secure. Using a spark from two stones, he ignited the pipe and carefully lit the lamp. While the water heated, he began preparing the ingredients.

Saada hovered beside him, ready to assist and suggest the proper steps. Alexei took a mortar and carefully placed the leopard fangs in it. Dropping a liquid from a vial nearby, he began to grind them with slow and rhythmic movements. The previously hard fangs now turned into a fine mushy substance resembling a cloud of dark dust.

Alexei then took the flowers he had collected during his travels through the forest. He carefully crushed them in a mortar to isolate the aromatic oil that would become the second key component of the potion. With each movement, he inhaled the sweet and spicy odor that filled his nostrils and dispelled his fatigue.

Now it was his turn to add some roots and herbs that had magical properties. Alexei grinded them with passion in a mortar, creating a thick paste. Through Saada, he could feel the energy and power present in each plant combine and meld together.

Alexei checked the temperature of the liquid in the pot and began adding ingredients. Under the heat, the potion began to slowly heat up.

The man continued to carefully stir the liquid and add the last ingredients, paying close attention to each movement. He could feel the potion gaining new properties and strength, as if it were coming to life under his hands. There was an atmosphere of mystery and boundless possibilities around him, which penetrated every cell of his body.

Gradually the potion acquired the desired color and consistency.

Alexei looked at the result of his labor with satisfaction - it was a potion capable of hiding the radiation of magical energy. Of course, the potion was intended for his partner; the man had no need for it.

Saada, who had been watching the process all this time, made a soft and approving sound, as if congratulating the man on the successful completion of his work.

While the potion cooled, they continued his training - the man wasn't going to waste a second of his time.

After a couple hours, he carefully poured the liquid into several vials and corked the lid. With this potion, their trek tomorrow should be much safer.

And with that thought, he went to bed, preparing for the new challenges that awaited him the next day.

At the edge of the forest stood a man looking off into the distance, waiting for his partner, a stallion named Tamu, to approach.

Tamu's face was an expression of fatigue and discontent. Yesterday they had narrowly escaped death after an encounter with a leopard, and now Alexei was leading him into this cursed forest again.

The stallion felt that his life was in danger. And there was nothing he could do about it!

If his liaison with the mare became known to the chief, he would be finished. Or perhaps his end would come here in this gloomy forest. Tamu didn't know which end would be less painful.

"Here, drink this," Alexei said, handing the stallion an already opened vial of potion.

"What is it?" asked Tamu suspiciously, he wasn't expecting anything good from this strange ape.

"A potion that conceals magic," the man replied. "It will make it easier for us to avoid dangerous beasts."

The stallion looked thoughtfully at the vial, sighed, and drank the contents. He listened to his sensations for a few moments, and then calmed down - Alexei had not cheated, the potion really did hide his energy.

Alexei gave him another potion and explained that it should be poured on his fur and rubbed in to hide his scent from the beasts.

"So where are we going today?" asked Tamu in an already more satisfied tone.

"Remember that lake on your map?" asked Alexei cheerfully. "That's where we're headed."

"ARE YOU NUTS?!" the stallion yelled, stunned by the answer. "You want me dead! It's too dangerous out there!"

"Where there is danger, there is opportunity, my friend," Alexei smiled. "Calm down. I've already been there several times. As you can see, I'm fine."

"I'm not going," Tamu flatly refused. "I like being alive, thank you."

"Oh, really?" asked Alexei, looking at the stallion intently. "Then you should definitely go."

"Damn you," the surrendered stallion growled.

Alexei didn't reply, but simply turned and headed deep into the forest. Tamu followed him with a doomed look.

The path to the lake was not a short one, and every step required vigilance.

Alexei and Tamu moved cautiously, trying not to attract attention. They hid in the dense vegetation, using every cover to avoid encounters with magical beasts. Sometimes they heard all sorts of disturbing sounds in the distance - the roar of beasts, the noise of falling trees, and the bizarre melodies of unknown creatures that created an atmosphere of tension and danger.

They saw strange magical beasts lurking among the trees. One of them was a huge bird with feathers of multicolored hues, its wings glistening with sparks as if its inner magic was ignited. Another was a creature with the head of a lion and the body of a huge snake that glittered with golden scales.

They skirted around these strange creatures, making a huge detour but not risking attracting their attention. Alexei and Tamu moved silently, as if they were ghosts. Saada was especially good at it. They hid in the shadows of the trees, listening for every sound, every rustle.

Finally, after many hours of advance, they reached the top of the hill. And there, in the distance, they had a view of the lake. Its water glistened in the morning sun like liquid silver. They stopped, mesmerized by the natural beauty.

In the distance, on the other shore, they noticed a majestic waterfall that created a rhythmic chant that filled the air with magical sounds.

The stallion and the man decided to make a brief stop on a hill to rest before continuing their journey. The stallion was clearly panicking. His previously admiring gaze at the beauty of the lake was replaced by anxiety. He was already thinking of fleeing, but knew he couldn't make it back alive on his own.

"Are you really going to the lake?" Tamu asked with obvious anxiety in his voice.

"No, of course not. It's too dangerous there. I'm not that crazy," the man snorted. "We're only exploring the vicinity of that hill."

The stallion let out a sigh of relief. This man was really driving him crazy.

"Why are you like this?" the stallion asked suddenly, looking at the man thoughtfully.

"Be more specific," the man replied indifferently, resting against a tree as Saada surveyed surroundings.

"Evil. Why are you so evil?" Tamu replied.

"What makes you think I'm evil?" the man replied with a snort. "I don't think I am."

"Then what are you? Siwazuri wanted to surrender, but you killed him," the stallion said sadly. "Now you're risking my life for your own gain."

"Hehe. Then what about you, Tamu? Aren't you the greatest sinner of the tribe?" the man replied snidely.

"What do you mean?" the stallion asked perplexed. "Don't bring my love for Aisha into this."

"Exactly," Alexei replied smiling. "She was destined to enter into a political marriage with a young chief of a neighboring tribe, but that's where you came in. Unification would strengthen your tribe, which would consequently increase its chances of survival. You suffered greatly from that beast raid. Will it be the last?

"Your selfish desires will ruin everything, and your and Aisha's story will end in tragedy.

"You will be the cause of the extermination of the entire tribe. So what are you if not a great sinner?"

The stallion was completely stunned by the man's monologue. He had never thought of it in that way before.

Yes, he knew the chief would not be pleased with their bond, but he believed it was all the fault of his low status. He still cherished the hope of changing that by working diligently for the good of the tribe.

But now Alexei said he was leading his tribe to extermination.

And deep down, he knew the man was right. But even so - he didn't want to give up his love for Aisha!

"If I still want to follow my selfish desires... am I evil?" the stallion muttered, shocked by the new realization.

He shuddered at the sudden burst of laughter. The man laughed heartily, eyeing the stallion.

"What is good? What is evil?" the man said with a chuckle. "These are all just made-up concepts that don't exist in reality. As long as you follow your heart's call - you will feel no regrets.

"You can be both the demise of a tribe and a new hope for it, Tamu. It all depends on you. Your talent could be the key to the tribe's prosperity.

"Would the chief then dare say anything against your union? He would become a sinner of the tribe himself by forbidding you to love Aisha!

"All you need is a little determination. You were only cowardly hiding before, but now look where you are? Wandering through a deadly forest.

"You still have hope."

Tears came to the stallion's eyes. Besides his parents and Aisha, no one had ever said such sweet words to him. He did feel hope, subtle and fragile, but it was still there.

"Thank you," Tamu said sincerely, looking at the man.

"You're welcome," the man smiled. "Now, get your shit together. We must finish the job and return alive to the tribe. She's waiting for you there, remember?"

The stallion nodded decisively.

Alexei mentally slapped Saada, who was laughing hysterically in his head, and started to get up from the ground. There was a lot of work ahead.

Chapter 7 - Throwing off the shackles

Early morning was enveloping the camp located in the picturesque savannah. The atmosphere was imbued with tranquility and harmony, in which the zebras found their place.

Alexei had just finished breakfast and was now scrutinizing the sacks that had been left overnight to dry. For the past two days he had saturated them with a special compound suggested by Saada. Zebra had outdone herself by perfecting the recipe and changing some of the ingredients. Alexei also contributed as much as he could, offering a few ideas. He progressed rapidly and was soon to reach intermediate level alchemy.

The main component of the potion was now human blood. Being an entity without a single drop of magic, his blood did an excellent job of hiding magic radiation. However, this compound was only suitable for processing objects, so Alexei still had to gather ingredients for the potion he used to feed Tama.

Alexei smirked, thinking of his partner.

Tamu had undergone an incredible change lately. Previously cowardly and hesitant, he had become literally obsessed with his daily forays into the forest. The conversation on the hill was deeply ingrained in his soul, and the stallion tried his best to collect as many magic crystals as possible.

Now Alexei was giving him a portion of the spoils, but it did not cause him losses. On the contrary, his profits had tripled!

Tamu glowed with hope and turned into a hound with burning eyes. It was just as the man had planned. He even pretended not to notice Tamu hiding some of the crystals he had found from him. As long as the stallion didn't cross a certain line, Alexei wouldn't suppress it.

Of course, he knew that sooner or later Tamu would get cocky, but that was the nature of all sentient beings, be they human or zebra. But the human didn't care about that. By then he would be leaving the tribe and traveling with the caravan to Equestria.

He quickly transferred the crystals from the bags into two sacks and looked out of the hut, looking around. The tribe was just waking up, and aside from a few sentries there was no one in sight.

Taking one sack, Alexei quietly snuck over to Imani, who was just waking her sister. He decided to leave one of the bags with her and hide the other in his hut.

He couldn't risk leaving the crystals in the forest, after all, the beasts had much keener senses and his shielding bags wouldn't fool them. To many beasts, the crystals were like delicious and extremely nutritious cookies, and he didn't want to lose all of his prey.

Imani wished the man would stay for breakfast, but only sighed when she saw him hurrying off.

Noticing the sadness on her face, Alexei leaned over, wrapped his arms around her face and kissed her passionately. A quiet giggle came from the right side of the long awake filly, but the man ignored it.

Finally pulling away from the flushed zebra, Alexei straightened up.

"I'll stop by at night," he winked at Imani, further embarrassing her, and got ready to leave.

"Please be careful," the zebra said in a quiet voice.

"I will," the man replied with a smile as he walked out of the hut.

Alexei sighed as he pondered his bond with Imani. He constantly had to consider a lot of factors and worry about a bunch of things.

Earlier, he could no longer ignore the zebra's increasingly obvious hints and flirtations. The man wasn't sure how she would take rejection, so he didn't take any chances and now they were in a relationship. He didn't care one bit about her obviously exotic appearance by human standards, but he had no real feelings for her either.

"Poor thing doesn't realize she's harboring a snake. It makes my heart bleed," Saada said with feigned sadness, interrupting the man's musings.

"You don't have a heart," Alexei snorted in response, walking briskly toward his hut to the displeased grunts of the zebra.

Returning to the hut, he hid the sack in the hole he had dug earlier, filling everything with earth and covering it with all sorts of trash.

Quickly gathering himself, he headed towards the forest, where his highly motivated partner, Tamu, should already be waiting for him.

"What's taking so long? I've been waiting for half an hour already," Tamu grumbled unhappily, his eyes expressing impatience and determination. He was standing near a tree, waiting for Alexei, who had just approached him.

"Sorry-sorry, had some business to attend to," the man replied nonchalantly, he was pleased with the stallion's attitude.

As usual after giving the stallion two potions, Alexei leaned against an old tree and began to contemplate the route they were about to take

They stood at the edge of the forest, preparing to set off. Today they planned to get deeper into the forest, and they might even have to spend the night in its dense thickets. Alexei didn't really want to do that, though - he knew that the forest was an even more dangerous place at night.

The outskirts of the forest were relatively safe during the day, but that all changed as darkness fell.

The deeper parts of the forest were even more dangerous and unpredictable. A human could probably survive by relying on their stealth and experience, but a stallion would definitely not survive the night. Unless they found a safe haven, but was that easy?

The man was well prepared for this journey - he had packed everything he needed in his bag. He even took a supply of food for a few days, including dried meat that he had cooked himself. Although it was tough and not particularly tasty, it didn't bother Alexei.

Previously, to replenish his protein supply, he had eaten maggots, frogs, snakes, and robbed birds' nests. The dried meat was truly a royal meal compared to his former diet.

Tamu was also well prepared. He had two saddlebags filled with items he found useful - ropes, potions, dry rations, and more. Mounted on his chest was a double blade, which he had chosen instead of the standard spear. In the woods, weapons of this type proved more comfortable and maneuverable, especially when crawling through ravines and some of the larger burrows. These blades had already tasted blood - Tamu had fought alongside a human against several storm wolves.

The route they had chosen was fairly safe. The foot of the mountain they were headed to was a relatively desolate area, indicating a low concentration of magical energy. The local zebras didn't go there, preferring busier areas. Alexei wouldn't have gone there himself, but now he had his talented searching partner, and he decided to comb the place thoroughly.

Finishing their preparations, they moved forward, traversing the dense thickets of the forest.

As they passed through the magical forest, they looked around carefully. The trees with curved branches and lush foliage created a mysterious atmosphere. The air was saturated with the smell of wild magic and strange energy, which made their skin covered with goosebumps

Gradually, and most importantly without incident, they reached the foot of the mountain. Here the air was cool and fresh, and the forest was receding, giving way to bare earth and rocks.

Tamu and Alexei stopped to survey their surroundings. They began to look closely at every corner of the foot of the mountain. Alexei squatted down, examining every rock and crevice.

Tamu, for his part, looked around, looking for any unusual signs or tracks, listening for his fate mark. From time to time he even stopped and sniffed the air.

Several hours of strenuous searching passed when they came upon a small waterfall.

The water flowed down from the heights, forming a noisy stream and creating a majestic sight. Tamu and Alexei stopped to enjoy this moment of nature, but the man's attention was caught by something behind the waterfall.

Climbing up the wet rocks, he discovered an opening in the rock hidden behind the waterfall. Tamu followed him cautiously, his tail swaying slightly with impatience and curiosity. Alexei raised his eyebrows, sensing that this could be something promising. Or extremely dangerous.

Alexei moved forward warily, accompanied by Tamu.

Inside, they found a narrow passage that led them down into the bowels of the mountain. The stallion used his tattoo, capable of creating a ball of light above his head, to illuminate the path in front of them. The man relied on Saada's night vision, already used to it after many night hikes.

Tamu and Alexei exchanged glances full of excitement and anticipation.

They moved deeper and deeper inside the passage, carefully skirting the stalactites and stalagmites that hung from the ceiling and grew from the floor. Suddenly, a flock of bats flew out of the darkness, crashing into their figures and creating noise and confusion. Tamu was startled and recoiled, but the man reassured him and they continued on their way.

Finally, a cave opened up before them, its walls covered in moss and mushrooms glowing with a pale blue light. The babbling of a flowing brook filled the air with the music of nature. It was an amazing sight, as if they were in a fairy tale world.

But most importantly, on one of the walls was an entire area covered in black crystals. They glittered like drops of night and emitted powerful energy.

These were magic crystals with the element of darkness. And judging from the radiation, they were of high quality. Crystals of darkness were in demand by alchemists, shamans, dark mages, necromancers, and many other dubious individuals. There wasn't a lot of them - only a small sack, but even that would be enough to buy a house in luxurious Canterlot.

The stallion's eyes glittered with greed. He was well aware of the value of these crystals.

"This is my greatest luck!" flashed through his mind. "If I collect them and return to the tribe - I can change my fate! I could marry Aisha or we could even run away from the tribe...

"Stop. I almost forgot. I've also got that monkey with me.

"He'll take most of it for himself. Why should I share with him? It was my talent that brought us here!"

"I'll kill him. Only by killing him can I finally change my life," the stallion's hoof reached for the blades, but he immediately stopped. "No, no. First I must calm him down and lie that the crystals belong to him. I'll put his guard down and stab him in the back. I could push him onto the sharp rocks and then finish him off.

"This place is so hidden, even if I kill him, no one will know."

All of these thoughts passed quickly through the stallion's mind, though in reality only a few seconds had passed.

Finally, Tamu came up with a plan and pulled on his best fake smile, preparing to speak.

He slowly turned to Alexei, but before he could utter a word, the blade of a spear flashed toward his face.

The stallion's pupils narrowed to the size of a pinhead. It happened too fast, and he didn't have time to react when the blade pierced his head.

A second or two later, Tamu's body fell to the floor of the cave with a thud.

"You were over thinking it," Alexei shook his head, glancing at the corpse lying on the ground.

He had seen the stallion reach for the blade perfectly well. He also couldn't let him inform the tribe of this find. The naive stallion didn't understand how society worked. The chief or shaman would simply take everything away from them.

The man's gaze was about to head toward the wall of crystals when an unexpected event occurred - something abruptly flew out of the stallion's corpse and rushed toward the exit.

"What was that?" he asked Saada.

"A guardian spirit," the zebra replied somewhat guiltily.

"And why am I only finding out about this now?" Alexei asked irritably.

"I swear I didn't feel a thing!" Saada replied. "It was hiding inside his body the whole time."

Alexei nodded, accepting the explanation. Saada did the same thing, hiding inside the man's body all the time.

The spirit would be sure to tell the shaman everything. He could no longer return to the tribe. All of his accumulated crystals were also lost, but it was still worth it.

Returning to the stallion's body, he began to search it thoroughly, not wanting any more unpleasant surprises. Tamu had nothing of interest, but he did find a hidden pocket in one of the bags. Slitting it open, he found a scrap of parchment with an image of a map and frayed words in a language he didn't recognize. The map also marked a certain point.

"What does it say?" he asked Saada curiously.

"Hmm, you can't make out the words, but it's definitely the language of the griffins," the zebra replied after a few moments. "There are many mercenaries among them, this must be some sort of stash of their junk."

Alexei could only sigh - he wasn't interested in gold, but it was still worth checking.

After collecting all the crystals, the man put all his things away and was about to leave.

His gaze stopped on the corpse of the stallion - the second sentient creature killed by his hands. He did not look for excuses for what he had done. He was being honest with himself.

He didn't want to kill him, but unfortunately, Tamu had become an obstacle in his path. If that was the case, he would trample on the obstacle and keep moving forward.

The man's thoughts traveled to the very beginning of his journey - the portal.

Somewhere out there, in another world, was his family. He had abandoned them, pursuing his ambitions in this world. Perhaps he had been buried long ago and no one remembered him.

He wasn't dating anyone, so there was no one to mourn his lover.

A certain mare came to Alexei's mind - Imani. Her company was quite pleasant...

Perhaps he could fall in love with her in the future. He had plenty of money now. They could escape the wrath of the tribe, buy a house somewhere in Equestria, and live a long happy life.

But would he want that? Would he be satisfied with such a life? Alexei looked into the deepest parts of his mind for an answer.

His lips stretched into a smile when he finally found the answer - no, he would regret every second of it. Only by chasing his dream was his life given meaning. He enjoyed the journey itself and felt no regrets.

"Even if I can't reach my goal at the end, so what?"

"Even if eternal life doesn't exist, so what?"

"I still want to do it!"

"That's how I want to live!"

"That's how I can find meaning in my life!"

Coming to this realization, the man began to laugh maniacally - he was happier than ever.

"You know, sometimes you scare even me," Saada murmured thoughtfully.

The human didn't reply. Stepping over the corpse of the stallion, he headed for the exit of the cave, feeling that nothing was weighing him down anymore.

As he emerged from the depths of the river, Alexei felt his lungs fill with long-awaited air. Coughing and breathing heavily, he looked around with a certain amount of fear.

A swarm of huge bees circled over the water on the opposite bank. These bees were not only different from their Earth version in size, they were five times larger than normal bees. Their steel stingers easily pierced the wood, and Alexei's body was now covered with bleeding holes left by these insects.

Earlier, he had come across a ruined hive of these bees. Seeing the remains of the honeycomb, he was about to eat them, but suddenly the owners returned.

Who knew that at that time they were killing an impudent individual who had dared to attack their hive?

"Could it have been that bear?" wondered Alexei.

Yesterday he had fought with a huge black bear, but he had been unable to pierce its hide with his blade, and the potions had not done much damage to it. The bear had also failed to wound the agile man, and finally they had simply parted ways, realizing that the battle would bring them nothing but loss of energy.

After breathing and eating a few medicinal herbs that should help stop the bleeding, Alexei shook himself off and continued on his way.

It was already the fifth day of his rapid journey. He almost never stopped, trying to get as far away from the tribe as possible. At night he hid in the trees, and Saada gave him a chance to get some sleep. Often he was awakened by all sorts of night noises and the roar of beasts, reminding him of the restless forest he was in.

The end point of his journey was what was presumably the griffins' cache.

The man was not interested in the jewels and riches that might be hidden there. He needed only one thing, an iron cauldron or any other pot.

He had nearly exhausted his supply of potions, and the ability to cook them in the forest was limited. Some trees could withstand fire, but were not suitable for brewing potions. Alexei could make simple pottery, but he didn't have time for that right now. He was a decent alchemist, but without the help of Saada, who shared her sense of magic with him, much of his knowledge would be useless.

Alexei thought eagerly of the moment when he would be able to get magic in his own hands. What bliss that would be!

Pondering the twists of fate, he finally reached the area marked on the map.

Alexei explored the entire surrounding area looking for any sign of a hiding place.

After a couple hours of persistent searching, he finally found something interesting. On the slope of one of the hills, hidden beneath the grass and earth, was a double-leaf wooden door covered in scarlet runes.

"Those are blood runes," the zebra said in surprise, touching the door with a hoof. "They're already inactive, don't worry."

Carefully opening the flaps, Alexei suddenly felt a horrifying stench hit him in the face.

He warily picked up a few clods of earth and tossed them inside, checking for traps. Once he was sure everything was in order, he entered a room hidden inside the hill. Before him was a view of a large room filled with rusty tools lying on dust-covered tables.

There was no doubt about it - these were instruments of torture.

Cabinets along the walls hid their dark secrets, and the bones of various creatures were scattered across the floor. Next to the table lay the skeleton of a griffin, stripped of several claws and ribs.

Alexei noticed a ragged book lying on the table, covered in dark stains and bound by hand.

"How interesting," the man muttered, licking his lips.

Taking another careful look around he made his way over to the table. Carefully taking the book in his hands, he began to leaf through it. The book was written in a language he didn't recognize, but a few pages caught his eye. They showed a circle filled with many symbols and lines.

"What's this?" Alexei asked the zebra that was hovering above his head.

"Hehe, that griffin is quite the fetishist. Had to come up with that," laughed the zebra. "These are blood magic spells."

The man immediately lost interest. After the contract, he found out that he couldn't use magic, even with the help of a spirit. Perhaps these spells would be useful to him in the future or as a reference, but right now, he had more important things to do.

"Why such a cold reaction? Didn't you want to learn magic?" the zebra asked cheerfully.

"What good are spells if I can't use them?" Alexei brushed it off, continuing to rummage through the things on the shelves.

"But you can use them! With my help, of course," was the zebra's immediate reply.

The man froze in front of the half-opened cupboard.

"Translate to me what it says there," he said in an even voice.

When he got the information he needed, Alexei was stunned with surprise. Zebra was right - the griffin was a real fetishist. A masochist, to be more precise.

Blood magic was one of the varieties of magic available to everyone. It used life force or blood as part of the fuel for spells. But this gryphon went even further. Its spells required no magical energy at all, only mental energy and the sacrifice of the caster himself.

Nails, teeth, bones, eyes, skin, limbs, and even internal organs were all used in seven spells. Of course, all of these parts had to belong to the caster himself.
Four of these were attacking, two restraining, and one defensive.

Many might find this book extremely disturbing, but Alexei's eyes were already sparkling at the possibilities before him.

Bright daylight filtered through the thick tree branches of the midday forest.

In its depths, among the variegated foliage, the entrance arch of the cave was hidden. The whole cave was pierced by the rays of the sun, penetrating through several holes in the ceiling. The rocks covered in moss and lichen made it feel as if nature itself had reached inside the cave to leave its mark.

"Are you sure?" Saada asked doubtfully. "Even for you, it's too much."

Alexei, sitting completely naked on a rag spread out on the cold floor of the cave, paid no attention to her words.

"If I'm stopped by such a petty thing, my ambitions are worthless," the man said indifferently. "Just make sure I won't pass out."

A cup of steaming liquid stood before him, holding the already rust-cleaned tools he had found in the griffin's hideout. Alexei was now carefully treating his right side with a special potion. Taking a belt folded several times, he bit it in his teeth and took a razor-sharp blade out of the cup.

Methodically, he began to cut his flesh around his ribs, opening one of them completely. Working his way down to his sternum, he freed the rib from the cartilage.

Removing the blade, Alexei put his thumb under the rib at his side, holding it firmly, preparing the breaking point. Then, clenching his teeth and pulling sharply, he broke off the rib.

The belt clenched in his mouth muffled the man's scream that would have pierced the deafest of ears. His entire body shook, cold sweat trickled down his forehead, and air rushed violently from his flared nostrils.

"Merge the edges," the man mentally relayed to Saada. Immediately he felt his flesh fuse together, hiding the rest of the rib.

Grabbing the potion standing nearby, Alexei poured it over the fresh wound. A stifled groan came from his mouth, muffled by the belt.

Gradually, the flesh began to heal, forming new tissue and bringing new agony to the man. Finally, all that remained on his side was a crusted scar.

Spitting the belt out of his mouth, Alexei picked up another vial and greedily drank the healing potion. Then he simply collapsed to the floor of the cave, broken and exhausted.

Glancing down at the bloody rib in his left hand, his lips stretched into a grin.

Chapter 8 - The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on

Early morning enveloped the forest with its mysterious atmosphere. The sun's rays penetrated through the dense foliage, creating a play of light and shadow on the ground. The air was saturated with the smell of damp earth and blooming flowers, and the singing of birds provided a melodious backdrop to the natural symphony of nature.

Among the thick bushes, hidden from view, sat a lone man. In his hands lay a rib, already dried and processed, ready for the next stage. After carefully inspecting its surface, he nodded - everything was in order. All that remained was to carve the runes and dye them with his own blood mixed with some ingredients.

Opening the griffin's book, the man placed it in front of him and began to carefully carve the runes into the surface of the rib. Each movement required extreme caution, for even the slightest mistake could lead to irreversible consequences. If he made a serious mistake, he would have to tear out another rib and start all over again.

Of course, all these manipulations could be done at the table or at least in a cozy cave, but he specifically chose this hidden corner of the forest.

During his search for ingredients and food, he had come across several snares and traps that had piqued his curiosity.Now he sat there, some distance away from the traps, while Saada flew around, exploring the surrounding area.

Not to waste any time, he continued to carve runes into the rib.

Hours of painstaking work flew by, and finally all the runes were ready. He didn't make a single mistake, remembering the painful procedure he had to go through and not wanting to repeat it again.

Kneading his fingers and back, the man looked around. There was nothing else to do.

"If no one shows up before noon, I'll go prepare the dye for the runes," Alexei thought, stretching lazily.

Taking the gryphon's book, he opened it to the page with the drawing of the first spell and began scrutinizing each line, testing his memory.

It turned out that magic was far from as simple as it was described in fantasy novels. To successfully use a spell, one had to meet three basic aspects: formula, comprehension, and energy. The formula was the same circle from the book, filled with symbols and lines.

Saada had explained to him that there was no universal standard for all magical formulas. Each race - ponies, zebras, griffins, minotaurs, and many others - had their own unique magical school and method of writing formulas.

A formula could look like a mathematical equation or like a multitude of abstract shapes intertwined with each other.
But they all reflected the same laws of magic, though they had different ways of recording them. Saada assured her that it was enough to learn one method to have a superficial understanding of the others.

Unicorns and alicorns are, of course, the primary spellcasters. Their horn, directly connected to their brains, serves as a focal point for utilizing any magic with formulas. They can wield absolutely any element or type of magic.

For the other races, this was an unattainable level and they had to limit themselves to their innate talent for a particular element or type of magic. They could use their magic intuitively without the need for formulas, but it still required training and practice.

However, there are a few types of magic whose formulas are available for all races to use. Blood magic is one of them.

Thanks to the gryphon's book, Alexei had a detailed description of the creation process and sources of inspiration for each part of the formula.

Comprehension of the spell meant that you couldn't just memorize the formula and start hurling fireballs. To successfully use a spell, one had to fully understand its essence and the processes that took place within.

For example, if he wanted to use a fire spell, he had to have at least a basic understanding of what fire was and how it functioned. He also had to understand the method of recording the formula he was using.

The deeper the comprehension, the less chance of failure and the easier it was to use the spell.

Failing a spell was not some kind of joke. A backlash could kill the caster, seriously injure them, rob them of their mind, or, sometimes, anything at all could happen. Within the energy put into the formula, of course.

The path of magic was covered with the corpses of negligent spellcasters.

As far as energy was concerned, it was simple. Activating a spell required mental energy and magical energy as fuel.

To use a spell, the mage had to recreate the formula in his mind and then infuse it with energy. Most spells required only magical energy, but some required certain ingredients or even sacrifices, as in the case of the masochistic griffin spells. Everything had a price.

Alexei was a diligent and persistent student, but he had already experienced the backlash of a failed spell. His whole body was still sore from the explosion that had literally driven him into the ground.

The first spell he had learned was fairly simple, and Saada had easily shared all the knowledge he needed. However, visualizing the entire formula in his mind with as much precision as required proved to be a challenge.

He could not rely solely on Saada's memory in this matter. He had to perfectly recreate the formula in his mind, then Saada activated it with mental energy. After that, the man had to pull out a fingernail, which, after a rapid flight, exploded with a bright scarlet light.

According to Saada, the explosion matched the upper bar of spells of the same level of unicorns in terms of power. The gryphon had created something truly powerful, albeit problematic to use. It took Alexei seventeen nails to master this spell. Good thing his fingernails grew back quickly under the influence of potions.

He practiced using the spell not only while standing still, but also in combat. He mastered the activation on the second try, but using it in combat was much more difficult. It was difficult to concentrate on the formula in combat, and it required cohesive teamwork with the zebra.

Magic proved to be a difficult and dangerous craft, but Alexei wasn't complaining - he could finally use a few spells, even if only with Saada's help.

Suddenly, he was torn from his book by Saada's signal. Alexei looked out of the bushes, squinted his eyes, and began to wait.

Soon, a bipedal figure covered in fur appeared near the trap.

"A diamond dog?" the man immediately identified it.

Diamond dogs were one of the races that inhabited this world. Their innate magic increased their strength and regeneration, which somewhat paled in comparison to the other races. They often enslaved members of other races, dug deep dens, and loved snacks like magic crystals.

Signaling to Saada, the man drank the potion and with cautious steps he began to sneak up on the dog, who was busy freeing a hare from a snare.

Hearing a noise in the bushes in front of him, the dog picked up the club previously leaning against a tree and perked his ears.

Nothing was happening, but the dog kept his guard up.

Suddenly, the ghost of a zebra slowly floated out of the bush.

"A zebra? Is there a troop of them around here somewhere?" the dog thought, becoming even more wary and sniffing.

However, he didn't detect any suspicious movements or extraneous odors, and calmed down slightly.

"Greetings, brave hunter," the ghost spoke suddenly. "I died in this forest, but in my lifetime I left a cache full of crystals. I have no more need of them. If you help me get rid of my obsession, I'll give it all to you."

"Go on," the dog said, licking his lips.

"In my lifetime, I was a dancer that delighted the audience with graceful movements and curvy shapes," the zebra continued. "I died without ever performing the most important dance of my life.

"I regret it.

"If only you could give me one last dance... I'd give you everything I've accumulated in my life."

"A dance I can do," the diamond dog replied, intrigued by the offer. "How would you..."

The next moment, something grabbed him from behind, pinning both of his paws to his torso, and the limb clasped his neck tightly in a lock.

Diamond dog began to struggle wildly, trying to break free of the grip, but the grip on him seemed like steel. He scratched furiously with his claws and tried to twist around to bite, but he was held tightly.

After a while his mind began to cloud over and he lost consciousness.

"Obsession, huh?" the man muttered thoughtfully, pulling the rope out of his pocket. "You haven't told me yet how ghosts even appear."

"What is a ghost anyway? Can anyone become one?" the man began to barrage the zebra with questions. "You call yourself a ghost, but other zebras call you spirits? What's the difference?"

"Zebras call all non-material entities spirits," Saada replied as she watched the human bind the diamond dog tightly. "There are fire spirits, water spirits, ghosts called ancestral spirits, etc.

"No, not all of them. It takes strong mental energy, spiritual affinity, possession, and the right conditions. These criteria are best met by zebras. You're unlikely to encounter ghosts of other races."

"As to the nature of ghosts..." the zebra pondered, choosing her words. "A mixture of mental, magical, and death energy fused together by obsession. You could say a ghost is the garbage of the soul, but don't quote me on that in front of other zebras."

"So what is your obsession, Saada?" the man asked, finishing tying up the dog.

"I wanted to become the first zebra alicorn," the zebra replied with some hesitation.

"Where's Rarg hanging around? I'm hungry," the diamond dog whined pitifully, standing in front of the cave entrance.

"Stop whining like a bitch," snorted his companion, dressed in rags and a few hides. "You're only making me hungrier."

"But he's already hours late!" the first dog said indignantly.

"Maybe he's hiding from something dangerous," shrugged the second. "Or maybe he's already been eaten."

"Then I'll surely stay hungry," muttered the diamond dog sadly.

Suddenly, a strange hairless creature in clothes, with a wild look and a small sack in his hand, jumped out of the bushes in front of them. His left hand was tightly wrapped in bandages and blood dripped from his fingertips.

Upon noticing the dogs, the creature's eyes went wide and it froze in place. Swallowing, the creature began to slowly back away.

"Freeze!" the two dogs roared, picking up their clubs and rushing towards the creature.

Surprisingly, the creature actually obeyed their command. The others usually ran away.

"Please don't kill me!" the creature whimpered, falling to its knees. "I have the crystals! Take them! There are more! I'll tell you everything! Just don't kill me!"

The dogs snatched the pouch from the creature's hands and peered inside, immediately their faces blurred into a satisfied grin.

"Where's the rest of it? Speak. You will live," the diamond dog growled.

"Take me to your leader and I'll tell you everything," the creature said with a pleading tone in its voice. "If you do, I'll keep one secret just for the two of you."

The two dogs looked at each other. They would have to report everything to the pack leader anyway. Of course, he would take most of it for himself, but their share would be good too. After all, they caught the creature.

And one part just for the two of them... That sounds good.

"You cheat, I'll skin you," the dog growled and shifted his gaze to his partner. "Go ahead and search him."

"Why it's always me?" the other dog snarled, but obeyed and began groping the creature that had risen from its knees.

The dog's gaze stopped on the creature's strange claws, which were half torn off and bleeding. It looked somewhat unpleasant.

"He's got nothing," the dog finally said.

"Come on, move it," ordered the other, pushing the creature in the back with a club.

Once inside the cave, the creature looked at its surroundings with interest.

Several torches illuminated the surroundings, and here and there sat diamond dogs. Including the attendants, six males and ten females could be counted. One male was busy with his equipment, the others were eating or having fun with the females. The entire cave was littered with furniture that these diamond dogs were definitely not capable of creating. At a table in the center of the room sat a tightly built diamond dog, served by several females, bringing him food and drink. He clearly looked like a pack leader.

Noticing the approaching trio, the dog broke away from his meal and looked them over.

"What's that thing you brought?" he asked with a dose of displeasure, gesturing for the females to step back.

"Caught it out front," one of the dogs replied cheerfully, patting the creature on the back. "Says he has a lot of crystals."

"Is that true? How many? Where?" the big dog asked doubtfully, scrutinizing the unknown creature. "And what are you anyway?"

"Human," the creature replied, looking around and untying the bandage on his arm. "Are you the pack leader?"

"I am!" the dog growled, he already didn't like the creature's attitude. "I asked a question."

The man didn't answer.

Grabbing one nail, already half torn off, the blood from his fingers disappeared and the nail flew sharply at the pack leader's head. There was a massive explosion, accompanied by terrified screams.

The pack leader's body flew aside, his head was half split open, and blood splattered on the walls of the cave. But the man didn't see it - he was already busy with other things.

Pulling a dagger he had borrowed from the griffin from his bandage, he plunged it into the head of the dog beside him. With a sharp pull of the blade, the man dodged the blow from the club, and easily killed the second diamond dog.

It all happened so quickly that the other dogs were just beginning to realize what was happening. The female diamond dogs fled deep into the cave or scrambled into corners, while the three males grabbed their weapons and began to surround the man.

Another nail flew whistling towards the two dogs standing nearby, seriously injuring them and throwing them back against the walls.

The man turned toward the last diamond dog, deftly intercepting the dagger in his hand. But the dog apparently had no desire to continue fighting this strange creature that had wiped out half of his pack in one fell swoop.

"I give up. You are pack leader," he said, throwing aside his club. "I obey."

"Mhm, good," the man muttered contentedly, slowly approaching the dog. "Can you explain something to me?"

"Of course, pack leader," the dog replied cheerfully, relaxing. "Just ask."

"What is this?" Alexei asked, pointing at something to the right of the dog.

The dog turned his head, but didn't see anything special. He only had time to feel a slight puff of wind as his consciousness was instantly extinguished.

Pulling the dagger out of the dog's body, the man finished off the two remaining diamond dogs that had been seriously injured by the explosion earlier.

"Seven males in total. Just like that dog said," Alexei thought as he looked over the corpses.

His gaze moved to a few females pressed against the wall.

"I'm not going to hurt you. Call the others," the man said, frowning slightly when there was no response. "Don't keep me waiting."

The dogs quickly jumped up and ran deeper into the cave, returning a few minutes later with all the remaining females. They huddled together, peering at the bloodied man standing in the center of the room with obvious anxiety.

"I am the new pack leader," the man said with a warm smile as he looked around at the new arrivals. "I hope we get along well."

The man sat in a spacious room, lit by the bright light of torches. In front of him was a bowl of red liquid into which he dipped a thin twig with a disheveled tip. Carefully staining the runes carved into the rib, he concentrated on his task.

Only a noise coming from another part of the cave broke the silence. It was the female diamond dogs, busy cleaning up the aftermath of the battle he had set up.

After finishing coloring one of the runes, the man carefully placed the rib to the side to let it dry. This rib was used to activate the fourth attack spell from the gryphon's book. He already knew exactly where he would be able to fully utilize it. While the rune was drying, his thoughts drifted to the pack of diamond dogs he had become pack leader of.

That dog he had interrogated earlier had given him all the information he needed. There had been a conflict in the large pack of diamond dogs over pack leader status and the defeated dog had been forced to flee. Several of his supporters followed him and ten females were just kidnapped. The former pack leader wanted to create a new pack.

It must be said, they had traveled quite far - it was about two months' journey to their previous den.

The man was just looking for a suitable base to settle down and finally do some experiments.

He had crystals of darkness with which to replace the essence of darkness. Alicorn blood, phoenix tears, and other rare ingredients could also be replaced with simpler analogs.

Of course, in such a case, the ritual lost all its power and did not give any abilities. But that was not the man's goal at the moment. He wanted to investigate the process and find out the cause of insanity and mutations among the subjects.

He had originally planned to stay at the griffin's hideout, but he had stumbled upon a pack of these dogs, which was quite fortunate. He could concentrate fully on his experiments, letting his new followers handle minor household matters in his stead.

Some might have thought him crazy - to expect loyalty from dogs whose kin he had just killed in a bloody massacre? But Alexei understood perfectly well how life worked.

The females might be unhappy with the situation and dislike him, but all that would soon change. They were deep in a dangerous forest where they faced predators and other dangers. Under external pressure, they would have no choice but to accept the man and compromise with their conscience. Everyone wanted to continue living.

The weak always followed the strong, as strength increased the chances of survival. This is a common trait of all living beings.

Man had no need to intimidate or suppress them; soon they would begin to gather around him.

Besides, they had been brought here by force, so they were unlikely to have warm feelings for the past pack leader and his underlings. The man decided to slaughter all the males - he was going to stay here for a long time and didn't want to leave any potential threats behind.

After working late into the night, he finally finished coloring all the runes. The rib was ready for use.

However, his musings were interrupted by a rustle as two naked female diamond dogs entered the room, avoiding direct gaze.

"Um," one of them began hesitantly. "We've come to offer our company. For a night out."

The man chuckled inwardly - something he had expected, but not on the first night. These dogs had realized their situation much quicker than he had expected. He understood exactly why they had come. They must have been sent by the older female to test the waters and establish a relationship with the human.

The man looked around at the figures of the female diamond dogs. Considering his long abstinence - they looked quite good.

"Really? I have to look at this?" Saada's disgruntled voice echoed in his head.

The man snorted and shook his head. It wasn't the right time for all of this - all his thoughts were occupied with the upcoming daring plan.

Perhaps another time.

"Today I don't want to," he replied, waving off the diamond dogs. "You can leave."

Nodding, they turned and silently walked away.

"Everfree has been increasingly restless lately," the stallion, walking in a group ahead of the wagon, muttered thoughtfully. "This is the last time I'll be accompanying a merchant to Equestria."

"What makes you think the forest is to blame?" the mare next to him asked. "Probably some gang of griffins."

"All the merchants that disappeared were carrying either food or alchemical ingredients with high radiation," the stallion shook his head. "Gryphons would have attacked merchants carrying jewelry. It's more likely to be some beasts attracted by the smell."

"Can't griffons sell the ingredients?" the mare asked doubtfully. "Why are you so adamant that it's beasts specifically?"

"Have you seen many alchemists among the gryphons? Half the ingredients would be ruined in their claws before they could sell them," the stallion snorted. "At least they have the sense to admit it."

"Then what about the zebra gang?" the mare continued on the offensive, but was interrupted when she saw the stallion's tense gaze.

Shifting her gaze to the road ahead, she noticed the body of a creature lying on the side of the road. Squinting, she saw that it was clearly a bipedal creature, and its entire body was covered in thick black hair. The face couldn't be seen, its head was turned sideways.

What makes it more alarming was that the ground beneath it was drenched in blood.

"Diamond dog?" she asked doubtfully to the stallion beside her.

"Doesn't look like it. The legs are different and the fur is weird," the stallion replied glumly, signaling for everyone to stop. "Shard, what are you sensing?"

"Magic energy is almost nonexistent. Definitely a corpse," the unicorn replied. "Nothing out of the ordinary in the surrounding area either. Should we go check it out?"

"No. Let's not split up. Maintain the scanning spell," came the reply from the stallion, apparently the leader of the squad. "Everyone prepare for battle. Keep moving."

The group continued on their way, but the tension in the air became perceptible. They were alert, ready for any possible enemy.

Looking around carefully, the group approached the body.

"Well, it's definitely not a diamond dog," the mare muttered, examining the corpse from some distance. "What is it? An overly hairy mutant minotaur?"

"I have no idea," the leader replied irritably, examining the bloody footprints stretching deep into the forest. "Shard?"

"Nothing at all. Whatever killed him is already gone," the unicorn replied. "Wait. Where's the blood coming from anyway? I don't see any wounds on the corpse."

The leader froze and shifted his gaze to the body. To his surprise, the supposed corpse's hand suddenly surged upward and stuck some bone in its leg.

At that moment, the leader felt his world crumbling.

Agony gripped every cell of his body, and he was utterly powerless before this unbearable pain. A scream erupted from his mouth that pierced the silence of the forest, and his legs gave out, nearly rendering him unconscious from this outburst of pain. Trying his hardest to stay conscious, he gritted his teeth and wriggled on the ground. All of his comrades were doing the same thing - screaming and rolling on the ground.

While they suffered agonizingly, the hairy creature, staggering slightly, began to rise. The stallion could see the twitching muscles on its face and clenched teeth. It seemed that whatever the creature was doing, the effect was mutual.

Using all the willpower he had, the stallion tried to get up, but was immediately knocked out by a powerful leg kick.

The unknown hairy creature was of course a human who had drunk a potion that temporarily covered him with thick hair. A simple but quite effective disguise for unexpected situations.

The man slipped his hand into his pocket and extracted an orb neatly wrapped in cloth. Squeezing it tightly in his palm, green smoke violently poured out of the ball. The man immediately threw it at the wagon and everything around him quickly began to fill with clouds of smoke.

Seeing that the unicorn's horn was beginning to glow - the man pulled out and stuck the rib into his leg again. A second wave of pain followed.

Half the squad had already passed out from the pain as they continued to inhale the green smoke.

The man just stood there with his teeth clenched, waiting for the smoke to take effect. The smoke itself didn't bother him - he had already taken care of it by putting a filter in his nostrils and drinking the antidote beforehand.

Finally, things quieted down and the smoke began to clear, revealing the zebras and ponies asleep on the ground. Exhaling, the man pulled the rib out of his leg and walked limping towards the wagon.

Inside, in a pool of his own urine, lay a unicorn, apparently the very merchant.

After examining the contents of the crates the man's face brightened - he had finally gathered everything he needed. Now he could create an ink for the tattoo that would grant him permanent regeneration.

Stepping out of the wagon, the man took a deep breath and whistled shrilly.

A few minutes later, eight diamond dogs with curved grins came running out of the forest.

"Put them all in the wagon and let's go back," the man ordered.

"Can't we just kill them? They're heavy," one of the females complained.

"No, I need them alive," the man refused. He had plans for them. Experiments required the subject to still be alive. At least in the beginning.

The man's wandering gaze stopped at a certain point in the forest. Somewhere out there, far, far away, was Equestria, ruled by the majestic Celestia.

He had plans for her, too. But first things first.

Chapter 9 - A demon on the loose

...For you see, the mythical Mare in the Moon is in fact Nightmare Moon, and she's about to return to Equestria, and bring with her eternal night! Something must be done to make sure this terrible prophecy does not come true...

Celestia smiled as she gave a quick read of her apprentice Twilight Sparkle's letter.

"She's a smart mare, but she lacks wisdom," the princess sighed, reaching for a scroll for a reply letter. "She really thinks she stumbled upon part of a secret prophecy quite by accident."

"Hmm. Dusty books and celebration preparations. That'll do," Celestia decided as she sent the letter.

She sank down on her pillow, looking off into the distance, immersed in thought.

"Now the Elements are all in," she whispered under her breath. "It's so hard to deal with these prophecies. Too vague and fragile..."

Celestia was limited in what she could do. She couldn't just walk up to Twilight and tell her that she was an Element of Magic and explain the further plan. That could ruin everything and lead to unpredictable consequences. Celestia only had to teach Twilight, give "accidental" hints and nudge her in the right direction.

The prophecy only hinted at the Element of Magic and a city that didn't exist at the time - Ponyville. However, Celestia had long ago figured out the identities of all the other Elements. She really hoped that she wouldn't need their help at all.

The cage for Nightmare Moon was ready and had been tested thousands of times. She was confident in her ability to handle it.

All that remained was to wait.

"It won't be long now, sister," Celestia murmured, smiling sadly.

The main hall of the ruined old castle was shrouded in an atmosphere of antiquity and magic. The walls, covered in runes, seemed to tell their own story, and the floor was covered in a mosaic of symbols and signs. Around the center of the hall rise eight stone pillars on which crystal spheres float, their glowing rays piercing the darkness and giving the impression of small suns. The hall was filled with warlike unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies ready to challenge the returning darkness. Ahead of everyone stood Celestia, her eyes intently watching the moon through the holes in the roof as if looking for a sign.

And then, the dark silhouette of an alicorn on the surface of the moon flashed and disappeared.

Suddenly, swirls of black smoke began to appear in the middle of the hall, which took the form of an eerie black alicorn mare with burning turquoise eyes. Her presence filled the hall with coldness and anxiety.

"A thousand years later...," the black mare said solemnly. "I roam the lands of mortals once again!"

The spheres suddenly erupted and released rays that enveloped the black mare, trapping her in a transparent sphere. The thin walls of the sphere resembled a soap bubble, but everyone in the room could feel the immense power centered in this unremarkable shell.

"Your walk is over, Nightmare Moon," Celestia replied calmly, turning to the group of unicorns controlling the rune array. "Begin."

"Good spell," Nightmare said satisfactorily, poking at the barrier with her hoof. "But I'd rather destroy the world than let the world destroy me."

Celestia frowned, trying to figure out what the crazy mare was talking about, but didn't have time to respond.

"Praise the Lady!" several ponies roared and rushed to attack the unicorns in charge of the rune array.

Instantly, many unicorns died from this sudden attack, but the attackers had no intention of stopping. In the next moment, their bodies bulged with veins, and then, with a powerful surge of energy, exploded.

Celestia, as if in slow motion, saw cracks appear in several spheres and light tearing furiously outward. She only had time to shield herself and the nearest ponies.

A powerful explosion pierced the air, shattering the ruins of the castle to pieces. Rocks and dust flew into the air, creating an image of grandiose chaos and destruction.

Toward a stunned Celestia, the figure of a smiling black mare emerged from the smoke.

Nightmare made several strokes in the air with her glowing turquoise horn, and all the ponies that had survived Celestia's barrier fell to the ground. Their faces contorted as if they were having nightmares, and black smoke began to pour from their bodies. The smoke, completely ignoring Celestia's barrier, began to be drawn into the black mare's body.

"Long time no see, sister," Nightmare Moon smiled. "Shall we get started?"

Twilight stood in the main square of Ponyville, her eyes fixed on the direction of the Everfree Forest, where a huge column of smoke and fire was rising from. The ponies around her were running around in panic, shouting something about the end of the world, and the mayor was trying unsuccessfully to restore order.

But none of that mattered to Twilight. Her thoughts were preoccupied with something else.

"Mentor?" she muttered, keeping her eyes on the smoke. "Just now... Was that your energy?"

Though Princess Celestia had brushed off her concerns, Twilight wasn't going to just accept it. She spent the entire night watching the moon and checking her instruments. And then she saw something surprising.

The silhouette of an alicorn on the moon appeared and disappeared, and shortly after, there was an explosion that even the citizens of Ponyville felt. But what was most disturbing was that this explosion carried the energy of her mentor that was so familiar.

"No, no, no. It can't be," Twilight whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. "You couldn't have sacrificed yourself, could you? It can't be!"

Twilight's gaze filled with determination as she lit her horn and instantly teleported to the stage standing in the middle of the city.

"SILENCE!" she shrilled, amplifying her voice with magic.

All the ponies around froze, stunned by the flash and the loud order.

"Gather in front of the stage. I have an important announcement to make," Twilight said dryly.

The ponies looked at each other and began to pull up to the stage, awaiting the words of the princess' apprentice.

"Something terrible has happened. Princess Celestia may be in danger," she announced, sliding her gaze over the whispering ponies in front of her. "I can't do this alone. I need volunteers."

"And what do you need volunteers for?" a pony asked from the crowd.

"We're going to Everfree and rescue the princess," Twilight replied firmly.

"Are you out of your mind?! You saw the sign! Mare in the Moon is back!" they shouted from the crowd. "What can you do to an alicorn?"

"Anything I can," Twilight replied firmly.

The crowd erupted into shouts and debate. It seemed no one was ready to go into the forest and fight the ancient evil alicorn.

Twilight could only watch the clamoring crowd sadly.

"I'll go," came the sudden loud voice of an orange mare who stepped forward. "Princess has done much for my family, and we always repay our debts."

The crowd fell silent, looking perplexed at the earth pony from the Apple family.

"I'll go t-too," came the quiet voice of the yellow pegasus. "The Crown has always been generous in helping the animal shelter."

Twilight looked at Fluttershy in surprise, not expecting such a decision from this fearful mare. Fluttershy apparently hadn't expected this from herself either and now stood there, trembling.

Three other mares came out right behind her, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie.

"Are we going to stand like this?" the blue pegasus asked impatiently.

Twilight took one more look at the five volunteers and determinedly headed towards the forest.

In the air above the Everfree Forest, an epic battle broke out between two powerful alicorns. Nightmare Moon and Celestia, both beautiful and majestic, clashed in a battle that engulfed the sky in its fierce flames.

Nightmare Moon, with her horn emitting an evil turquoise light, was determined to prevail. Her spells of darkness and ice created dark forces that surrounded her around.

"It's been quite peaceful for a thousand years," Nightmare smirked, gathering energy in her horn. "Hasn't it, sister?!"

A portal appeared in front of her, into which she fired an endless volley of turquoise beams. Hundreds of small portals appeared around Celestia, surrounding her on all sides. A stream of rays flew out of the portals and hit Celestia, creating a massive explosion.

With a flash of light, Celestia appeared a hundred meters away from the explosion - she was almost unhurt, having managed to teleport away in time.

In this battle, the sky witnessed their confrontation.

Their gazes sparkled with fierce determination. Swirls of magic and light surrounded the battle, creating a beautiful but dangerous spectacle. The wings of the alicorns beat the air with extraordinary power, leaving trails of light and darkness behind them. The forest beneath them trembled with the power of their magic, and the sounds of battle penetrated to the very depths of the dense grove.

Nightmare Moon attacked with an unrelenting rhythm, unleashing streams of turquoise rays that tore through the air. Celestia responded with powerful blasts of light and fire, creating golden flashes and swirls of magic.

But as the battle continued, it became clear that Nightmare Moon was proving to be stronger.

Celestia wasn't giving up, but she was beginning to tire. Her glowing golden aura faded, and her eyes lost their luster. She tried to counterattack, but her magical powers were weakened. Nightmare Moon continued to attack mercilessly, leaving her no chance to recover.

"You know, I've imagined this moment so often that now I feel disappointed," Nightmare uttered as she lazily bombarded Celestia with her spells. "You are weak, sister. You only won last time because of the Elements of Harmony.

"So how do I get you to fight for real?"

"Oh! I got it," the black mare smiled, stepping back and lighting her horn.

Suddenly, Nightmare Moon disappeared in a dark flash of teleportation.

Celestia frowned and flew over to where Nightmare had just been and began tracking the coordinates. Her heart sank when she found her destination, the center of Canterlot. With a wave of her horn, she disappeared in a flash and appeared in the sky above Canterlot's main square.

The ponies on the ground screamed in surprise and consternation.

"Well, at last," came a snide voice from behind.

Celestia looked around and saw a black mare with a sparkling horn emitting powerful magical energy. Celestia instantly raised a magical shield around herself, ready to repel any attack.

However, to her surprise, Nightmare did not direct her magic at her. Instead, she released a giant dark blue beam that struck the center of the square.

"NO!" Celestia screamed, trying to block the spell, but it was too late.

The beam crashed to the ground, turning into a wave of cold and darkness that spread throughout the area.

The ponies in the affected area instantly froze, turning into ice statues that immediately crumbled under the corrosive darkness. Thousands of lives were extinguished in an instant before they even realized what was happening. Buildings began to collapse, and the air was filled with the aura of death.

"The castle is beautiful," Nightmare's voice pierced the dead silence. "I won't destroy it."

Celestia didn't answer. She just stared blankly at the icy wasteland before her, and flames began to run through her mane.

"Oops. I think I pissed you off," the black mare laughed. "I hope you stop being such a disappointment now."

Celestia cursed her failure as she tried to get up off the ground. Her body was exhausted from the battle and every movement caused sharp pain. Blood flowed from her wounds, staining her white fur a bright red. Celestia's eyes dimmed, lacking their usual glow.

Nightmare Moon, standing above her, felt the pleasure of her victory. Her black fur glistened against the blazing horn and her eyes sparkled with triumph.

She used her magic to lift Celestia's head with telekinesis, demonstrating her ruthlessness. Nightmare's horn flashed with a dark glow and Celestia instantly fell into a deep sleep.

Nightmare stood over her, watching the sleeping white alicorn. Her eyes showed a mixture of curiosity and annoyance.

"An apprentice? Elements of Harmony? They've been in the castle all this time!" Nightmare exclaimed, scrutinizing the sleeping Celestia. "You're crazy! What are you planning?"

There was no reply.

Nightmare frowned, trying to get deeper into Celestia's mind, but she resisted by sheer force of will.

"If the Elements of Harmony had already found their Keepers, they should have attacked me long ago," Nightmare pondered. "But the future isn't set yet. I must hurry."

Nightmare's gaze returned to the white alicorn who was still in her magical grip.

"Don't think we're done, sister," Nightmare hissed. "I'll be back soon and we'll continue."

The black mare's horn flashed, and Celestia disappeared in a dark beam of magic.

Nightmare did another teleportation and found herself on the border of the Everfree Forest. She knew that teleporting within the forest was no easy task due to the constant distortion of coordinates by the magic of this wild place.

With a flap of her wings, Nightmare dashed forward, heading towards the ruins of the Castle of the Two Sisters.

The ruins of the castle that had once been a place of pride and grandeur long ago was now a pitiful sight of devastation and desolation. The explosion that had occurred earlier had left its traces in every corner and crevice. Chunks of stone and fragments of columns scattered on the ground, creating a sad spectacle of destruction.

The smoke and ash that rose into the air after the explosion created a gloomy cloud that reflected the moonlight like an ominous phantom.

"Princess Celestia?!" Twilight shouted, running through the smoking ruins. "Where are you?!"

Her companions, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Applejack, stood some distance away, watching the nervous unicorn sadly and helplessly.

The entire area was searched, but not a single sign of life was found. Everything was engulfed in devastation and silence.

"I refuse to believe this!" Twilight shrieked, throwing a piece of the ruined column away with force.

Her voice sounded a mixture of despair and hope for a miracle.

Applejack, an earth pony with bright orange fur and green eyes, slowly approached Twilight.

"Look, Twilight..." Applejack began hesitantly. "We've already searched everything we can. We'd better get back to Ponyville and prepare for the worst and hope for the best."

"Twilight?" the earth pony called out again.

Twilight didn't answer.

Her gaze was fixed on the iron door of the trapdoor that was beneath the ruined column she had tossed earlier. The door bore her own fate mark, surrounded by five other indistinguishable designs.

It was amazing that this door had survived the explosion at all.

Twilight's horn lit up with a bright purple light as she tried to open the door with her telekinesis. But the hatch remained stationary, defying her efforts.

Twilight frowned, lighting her horn even brighter and putting all her strength into trying to open the door. But there was no response.

Stopping, Twilight took a few deep breaths, trying to calm her troubled mind.

"Anger clouds the mind," she remembered her mentor's words. "This can't be a mere coincidence."

The ponies watching her moved closer, sensing that something unusual was happening.

Twilight muttered to herself as she pondered the mystery.

"Five and I'm sixth... Wait..." she muttered, suddenly realizing something. "The Elements of Harmony! They were mentioned in the story of Mare in the Moon!"

"That can't be! Did she plan it all?" Twilight's mind raced as she pieced all the fragments together.

Her worry for her teacher was replaced with confusion. She felt like she was participating in something grand, and her role was not yet finished. Her mentor must be alive.

"Girls, help me with this door," Twilight said excitedly, turning to her friends. "On the count of three, inject your magic into it."

The ponies looked at each other and nodded approvingly. Questions could be asked later. They were also beginning to sense that something momentous was happening.

"One... Two... Three!" Twilight counted down, activating her magic.

All six markings on the door flashed, and the door began to slowly rise, revealing a stone stairway down.

Twilight swung her horn and the staircase in front of her lit up with light. A bright beam penetrated downward, illuminating each step.

The other ponies followed her, treading carefully on the lighted stairs. They sensed that this path was leading them to something important and mystical.

At the bottom of the castle basement was an ancient stone monument covered in runes and moss. It looked like a sacred place where ancient wisdom was kept. The monument consisted of six stone pillars, on top of which were placed stone spheres with certain symbols. In the center of the monument, like a heart, there was an unfathomable energy that made the ponies' hearts beat harder.

"These are the Elements of Harmony? I wonder..." Twilight muttered, but suddenly realized. "Nightmare Moon! We haven't met her yet. We have to hurry."

"And how do these things work?" the blue pegasus said impatiently, circling the monument.

"They're sealed," Twilight muttered thoughtfully, touching the stone spheres with her magic. "Give me a few minutes."

Twilight delved into her memory, recalling those rare snippets of ancient history related to the Elements.

"Honesty, Kindness, Generosity, Loyalty, Laughter, and... Magic!" exclaimed Twilight, looking stunned at the ponies standing nearby. "That's literally us!"

The solemnity of the moment was interrupted by the quiet pounding of hooves.

"Indeed," came a cold voice from behind. "Now die."

All six mares turned around and saw before them the epitome of a nightmare - Nightmare Moon.

Her eyes expressed coldness and ruthlessness, and her horn was already gathering colossal energy. She wasn't going to waste her time - she could give a pathos speech to their cold corpses.

But suddenly, thousands of threads burst from the cellar walls, as if woven from the flames themselves. The threads bound Nightmare tightly, holding her in place and especially carefully wrapping around her horn.

"Sister!" roared Nightmare, tensing every muscle in her body.

The threads snapped, but so far they were able to withstand the pressure of the infuriated alicorn.

"What do we do?!" Rarity shouted worriedly, turning to Twilight.

"Just a minute! I'm thinking!" Twilight's brain was working at full speed as realization came to her. "Hurry up! Put your hooves on the spheres!"

The ponies obeyed her and raised their front legs, gently touching the symbols on the spheres.

"Concentrate. Think about what you care about most.

"Think about what makes you who you are!"

The mares closed their eyes, concentrating on feeling their inner selves.

The monument trembled, and the stone spheres began to soften like melting ice. Dust flew around like a cloud of vapor.

In a flash of light, necklaces with stones embodying their fate marks appeared around the necks of the five mares. And on Twilight's head shone a tiara with the stone that corresponded to her mark.

Nightmare roared and began to thrash even harder. Each of her movements tore dozens of strings, but there were still too many of them.

The five mares, surrounded by streaming light, began to lift off the ground, but they didn't even seem to realize it as they were focused on their inner world.

Twilight opened her eyes, and a powerful light burst from them. It was as if she had become an integral part of the world, that she had become the very embodiment of Magic.

The light coming from her was so bright and powerful that it blinded Nightmare Moon.

"I HATE YOU!" roared Nightmare Moon as a thin beam of light, as if woven from a myriad of colors, struck her.

Suddenly, her dark shell began to crumble. The black mass dripped off her body, forming puddles of bubbling slurry on the floor.

Soon a blue alicorn mare appeared beneath her, weak and haggard. She staggered and collapsed to the floor, separated from the last remnants of Nightmare Moon.

A tiny beam of light burst from her body and soared into the sky as if trying to reach the sun.

All the ponies stood stunned, looking at what had happened. It was quiet, only their breathing could be heard in this tense atmosphere.

And then, in this lingering silence, one of them finally broke the silence.

"Did we win?" Twilight asked, breathing heavily, looking around at her comrades. "This alicorn... I think I've seen her before."

"This is my sister, Luna," came a soft voice from the side of the steps.

The ponies jumped with fright. They had been sneaked up on too many times today.

With a quiet clatter, Princess Celestia descended the steps. Her eyes were tired and her body was covered in wounds and dried blood. A guilty smile flashed across her face as her gaze met Twilight's.

"Mentor!" Twilight screamed, unable to contain her emotions, and rushed over to Celestia.

In that moment, she completely forgot that before her stood the princess reigning over the entire country. She hugged her teacher tightly, as if afraid to let go.

Tears flowed from Twilight's eyes, but Celestia just smiled and stroked her head affectionately.

A lone man sat in front of the cave entrance and looked up at the night sky. His appearance hadn't changed much in three and a half years, though there were a few wrinkles and a few gray hairs.

The years of life Saada had taken from him had only shortened his maximum lifespan, otherwise he would have looked like a graying old man by now.

Of course, there were ways to prolong life. Saada herself had lived to be one hundred and eighty and might have lived another seventy if she hadn't been killed. But was it really so easy to gain longevity? Of course not.

The most noticeable change was in his gaze - the dark green eyes had become like bottomless wells, full of indifference to the world and contempt for life.

"All for nothing," Alexei muttered, crossing his arms behind his head and pressing himself against the still warm stone.

His experiments had completely failed.

Though he quickly found the cause of the insanity and mutations, there was no way to fix or avoid them. The problem was the extremely high doses of dark energy that was the basis of the ritual. Dark energy had an uncanny ability to infiltrate and alter, allowing different energies to be combined into one body. It was on this feature that the ritual was built.

The creator of the ritual came up with something incredible in theory, but unfortunately, in practice everything ended in failure.

Three years were spent trying to fix or circumvent the problem, but to no avail.

Although he was able to find out that he was not in danger of insanity from dark magic due to the lack of a soul, the problem of mutations remained unsolved.

The lack of a soul was the main obstacle. Even if he successfully performed the ritual and avoided death from mutations, he still wouldn't have a soul. He had never found a way to create an artificial soul through alchemy.

Alexei sighed, but his face expressed nothing. He had faced despair too many times over the years. Many times he had found himself on the brink of death, whether it was during attacks on merchants or encounters with the monsters of the Everfree Forest. He needed rare ingredients for his experiments, and he risked his life to obtain them.

"Time to go to Equestria," the man thought. "Perhaps in the secret archives of Canterlot there is an answer to my question."

Over the years, he had gathered many books on unicorn magic into his hands - some by looting, some through trade with the help of diamond dogs. Though he found nothing of interest, there was some hope for the capital of Equestria.

The man's gaze shifted to the moon.

Something crazy had happened an hour ago - an alicorn silhouette had flashed and disappeared on the moon, and waves of strange energy had swept across the area. Saada informed him that this energy resembled the one from the explosion four years ago.

She also told him the myth of Nightmare Moon. Well, now the myth had become reality.

The man had many theories and guesses as to how that portal was connected to Nightmare Moon, but right now something else was on his mind.

A major battle between the two giants was coming to Canterlot.

Conflicts were always a disaster for some and an opportunity for others. The man was not about to miss this opportunity.

Traveling to Equestria was more dangerous than living in this crazy forest. At least for him.

He was going to encounter beings that on Earth could be called gods. He was going to brazenly slip past them and snatch the tastiest piece for himself.

The power of the alicorns seemed as limitless as the night sky he was looking up at.

Compared to them, he was so insignificant.

Going against the gods?

"Interesting," Alexei thought, smiling.

Chapter 10 - City of light, city of magic

"Here comes Ponyville," the unicorn said, adjusting the ropes on the crates floating above him like balloons. "Are you going to stay here, or are you going to move on?"

"Undecided for now," Alexei replied politely, looking around the small town in front of him. "I think I'll check out the local sights."

"Ha! What sights are there in this village?" the unicorn snorted. "Elements of Harmony except for that."

"Maybe I can get an autograph?" smiled Alexei. "I'm a huge fan of theirs."

"Maybe you can before they get too proud of themselves," the unicorn laughed. "When you're about to leave, don't go to the pegasi. They charge a hefty price. Feathered fuckers enjoy the monopoly."

Alexei's lips quivered at the mention of monopoly. It was funny to hear it from a unicorn.

"Then what would you advise me?" Alexei asked.

"A teleportation array, of course, but Canterlot is still recovering from that battle," the stallion said sadly. "There are a lot of aid wagons being sent to Canterlot right now. You could make a deal and buy yourself a seat."

"Then that's what I'll do. Thank you," Alexei replied gratefully. "I wish I could use the array this time. The unicorns' mastery is truly astounding..."

"It is! You'll be awed when you see the grandeur of Canterlot," the unicorn began enthusiastically, but stammered. "Damn it! I'd tell you more, but I'm already running out of time as it is."

"Here, take this," he continued, handing Alexei a round bronze token. "When you arrive in Canterlot, be sure to stop by our office. They'll let you in with the token, no questions asked."

"Thank you very much," Alexei said gratefully, taking a slight bow.

"I'll see you in Canterlot then, friend," the unicorn smiled, turning toward the wagon loading area.

"Have a safe journey, friend," Alexei waved a hand at the departing stallion.

"Oh, ancestors. This is why I hate unicorns," Saada said in a tired voice. "Two days of listening to that smug bastard. Just a little more and I would have killed him myself."

"And when did you become so bloodthirsty?" smiled Alexei, examining a token with a drawing of a unicorn on a hill surrounded by flowers. "Getting into Canterlot will be easier with this thing."

The man looked around and approached a light green mare tending to the flowerbeds in front of the house.

"Excuse me, miss? I'm looking for the center square. Can you point me in the direction?" Alexei asked, slightly startling the immersed mare.

"The square is that way," the mare pointed, looking surprised at the strange creature wrapped in roughly sewn and ragged clothes in dark colors.

"Thank you," the man smiled, heading in the direction indicated.

Arriving at the plaza, Alexei noticed a purple unicorn standing behind a desk and directing the ponies bustling around.

"These crates are ready to be sent out. You may take them away," Twilight pronounced as she went through the papers on the table.

She felt someone's gaze on her and turned her head to see an unknown creature examining her.

Their gazes met.

Earlier, Twilight had already seen the anger and despair in the pony's eyes. She had looked into the hate-filled eyes of Nightmare Moon and didn't flinch. But the creature's gaze was something else.

She felt a gasp as she looked into those eyes.

The indifferent gaze, like a bottomless dark sea, drew her into its impenetrable depths. But she could swear that somewhere in that darkness there was something shining as brightly as the sun.

Her fate mark began to tingle, responding to the presence of this creature.

Twilight blinked, trying to get rid of the unpleasant sensation.

However, the creature had already turned away and slowly left the square. Twilight stared after it, trying to sort out her thoughts.

"Twilight?" the voice of a white earth pony interrupted her thoughts. "We have delivered all the medical supplies as listed. Would you please confirm?"

"Ah? Yes, of course," Twilight responded, shifting her gaze to the paper-cluttered desk.

She checked the list once more and made sure all the medications were placed and sealed in the boxes. The strange creature had already left her thoughts. The most important thing now was to help the ponies affected during the crisis that had engulfed Canterlot.

"What do you think?" the human asked mentally.

"She's incredible," Saada's simple reply rang out. "She hides most of her magical energy, but even so you can roughly understand her power. Don't even think of messing with her. She'll atomize you in a split second."

"Am I some kind of maniac in your eyes?" the man shook his head, peering out at the wagons ahead. "Killing is just one way of solving problems."

The man headed towards several massive wagons that were being loaded with all sorts of goods.

Alexei's gaze stopped at the strange sight unfolding before him.

The wagons were pulled by unusual magical monsters - huge, bus-sized black beetles with armor-covered bodies and huge claws. Their eyes glowed with an ominous orange light, and their chitinous armor emitted magical energy. The beetles' bodies were covered in a thin layer of glowing spots, creating a unique effect as if they had been magically painted on.

These creatures, although they looked terrifying, were actually quite peaceful.

"A magical world indeed," the man laughed, looking at the beetles with some interest.

Previously, he had only encountered small merchants and had always avoided large trade caravans.

"What did you expect? Horses?" the zebra asked snidely, already familiar with some of Earth's features.

Approaching the leader of the wagons, the man pulled a token from his pocket and raised it into the air. The gleam of metal caught the attention of the leader, who scrutinized the token. After a short amount of haggling and negotiation, the man was able to get a seat on one of the wagons.

Noon cast its rays upon the city of Canterlot, which towered over all of Equestria like a crown on the head of the land. The city, gracefully woven of white stone, attracted the eye with its majestic architecture.

The streets of Canterlot pulsed with life, filled with a variety of intelligent beings. Unicorns and earth ponies strolled the sidewalk, discussing the latest news and business deals. While pegasi, easily defying gravity, parted the sky above the ponies' heads. Their wings, like canvases of the most delicate clouds, created magnificent patterns in the air.

Griffins and minotaurs, somewhat rare in these parts, could occasionally be seen, whose powerful figures attracted the attention of passersby.

Majestic fountains and waterfalls flowed through the streets of the city, creating a pleasant rustling sound. The water adorned the city with its vibrancy and brightness. Curious ponies watched the playful fish hiding in the depths of the clear waters.

Stores and artisan stores decorated with floral arrangements and window displays drew the eyes of passersby. Ponies with a variety of talents and skills offered their services, from creating magical items to making unique clothing.

Canterlot was a living and breathing city where sentient beings enjoyed their unique abilities and interacted with each other in harmony. This city was not only the capital of Equestria, but also a symbol of unity and diversity, where magic and peace merged into one.

In the corner of a quiet city cafe, amidst the hustle and bustle, a lone man was enjoying a hot coffee and flipping through the pages of a newspaper. The dark circles under his eyes testified to the lack of sleep that had become an integral part of his life after meeting a unicorn collecting specimens in the forest. This unicorn had shared with him the latest news of the events that had taken place in Canterlot. The alicorns battle that was being talked about so much right now had long since come to an end.

The man only sighed upon hearing this. No matter how many plans he made, half of them always fell apart when faced with reality.

The other news caused him to have mixed feelings. Princess Luna, Celestia's sister, had returned after a long absence. According to the Crown's claim, she had sacrificed herself a thousand years ago to seal Nightmare Moon.

The unicorns immediately plunged into investigations, scouring through family archives for information on this mysterious princess.

But it's not just about her return. Her ability to enter other people's dreams made one wary.

After all, if someone could peek into his mind or dreams, his fate would be decided - he would either be sent to the dungeon or simply be beheaded. The man didn't know exactly how the death penalty was carried out in Canterlot, but he was sure that he would be thoroughly studied and experimented on.

That was why, after learning of Luna's ability, he began to train in conscious dreaming with the help of his companion, Saada. Zebra, thanks to the connection through the contract, could see his dreams and send him visual images, but had no way to manipulate his dreams.

So Alexei worked out a simple plan: Saada monitored his dreams and periodically sent images that were supposed to gradually make the man doubt the reality of the dream. The constantly changing weather outside the window, the clock hands not moving, the different inscriptions on his hand - all this was part of this plan.

Now his nights went like this - he would fall asleep and Saada would try to let him know he was asleep. Then she would wake him up and it would start all over again.

Each night his progress became more noticeable. He began to realize himself in his sleep almost without Saada's prompting. Though the zebra himself had claimed that Luna was unlikely to be able to enter his dreams due to his lack of soul and magic, he wasn't about to take any chances on such an important matter.

Underneath the man's clothes, hidden from the pony's prying eyes, a black rat named Alice was nestled comfortably, greedily eating a bun.

The rat was one of the byproducts of man's experiments to create an artificial soul. Although he had failed to create a soul, in the process he had obtained a powder that could increase intelligence in animals. It had no effect on already sentient beings and was extremely unstable on its own. After a while, the animals would start to go insane and attack the man with wild rage. He used to have a large wolf that he rode most of the way, but on the seventh day it lost its mind and he had to kill it.

This recipe alone was enough for a life sentence in the dungeons of Canterlot - he used the souls of unicorns to create this powder.

"Can't you change your rags for something more decent already?" Saada asked, distracting him from the newspaper. "You're already getting a bad look from the waitresses."

"Later. Those rags will still play their part," the man smiled, returning to his reading. "Look, the local unicorns also linked the explosion from four years ago to the return of the Luna. That's spawned even more rumors."

"What's so surprising about that?" the zebra asked perplexed. "Anyone with a bit of intelligence and a sober memory would have connected the two incidents."

"Hehe, isn't that my lucky ticket to the royal palace?" the man smirked, folding up the newspaper and rising from his seat.

Saada knew immediately that he was up to no good again.

Arriving in Canterlot under the cover of night, the man stayed at one of the inns. But at first light he was already on his feet, heading for the griffin quarter. There he began actively gathering and buying up information about everything related to the palace. He was most interested in the behavior of the new princess.

Princess Luna had become a hot topic of talk in Canterlot's criminal circles. An alicorn capable of invading other people's dreams!

To ordinary ponies Nightmare Moon was a nightmare in the flesh, but to criminals, and many nobles, the nightmare was Luna. Were it not for her status as a princess, the power of an alicorn, and the palace's strong defenses, Luna would have been on the brink by now - too many people wanted her dead.

The gossip and rumors circulating through the city added fuel to the fire. The newspapers competed with each other to find new details. Speculation about Luna's connection to Nightmare Moon grew more and more heated.

The man understood very clearly who was sponsoring these rumors and stirring up public hatred - a bunch of nobles and businessmen were clearly involved in all sorts of dirty deeds.

The returning Princess of Night had become the number one outcast in Equestria in an instant.

The man's thoughts drifted to Celestia as he walked towards the palace. She sat at the top of the social ladder and wielded supreme power, but that same power had become a heavy chain for her. Always striving to maintain the image of a good and fair ruler, she could not brute force to suppress the nobles and stop rumors from spreading.

She must be trying to strike a deal with the nobles now, but the man doubted it would be that easy. The nobility would take full advantage of this opportunity.

"What a pity," the man shook his head, remembering his past awe for this creature.

Upon reaching the plaza, the man looked around the place where one of the most epic battles of the two alicorns had broken out.

The debris had already been cleared away, and construction workers were hard at work finishing rebuilding the destroyed buildings. Along the edges of the square lay flowers and all sorts of items left in memory of those who had died in that battle.

The man's attention was drawn to the crowd of ponies in front of the palace, held back by the royal guard.

On a crude platform stood a unicorn, looking like a common laborer, and riled up the crowd with his fiery speech. Behind him stood two similarly humble unicorns, clearly acting as his assistants. The crowd shouted loudly, calling for the princess to be held accountable and to stop deceiving ordinary ponies.

Alexei stepped closer, watching the crowd with an indifferent look. His gaze fell on the speaker and his assistants, and he squinted his eyes, studying them closely. A chuckle flashed across his lips, but none of the others, lost among the noisy crowd, took any notice.

"What's so funny?" Saada asked, not understanding the man's reaction.

"Look at his helpers," the man said cheerfully.

"What's wrong with them? They look like ordinary laborers," the zebra replied perplexed.

"Wrong," the human interrupted her. "Look at their hooves. They look unkempt and chipped, but that's only at first glance. Look closely. Don't you think they're damaged a little too neatly and methodically?"

"Hmm. You're right. The hue is also healthy, indicating good nutrition," the zebra pondered as realization came to her. "Are these minor nobles sent to control the protest?"

"Maybe, or maybe someone on the business side," the man shrugged, turning around and leaving the plaza. "The important thing is that it's all in my best interest."

"I must say modern ponies have a lot more freedoms. Celestia allows them a lot," Saada muttered thoughtfully. "It was different in my day."

"Most people don't want freedom. They fear it," the man shook his head. "Truly free people are terrifying to them even.

"All they need are illusions.

"The illusion of freedom. The illusion of control. The illusion of truth."

"And I'll give them what they want," the man smiled as he stood in front of the entrance to a luxurious building adorned with a sign featuring a newspaper and a feather.

...Sensation! New details of an incident four years ago! The sole survivor, kidnapped by Nightmare Moon's associates, has given an exclusive interview! Everything he said has been independently verified through a truth spell!...

Holding the newspaper in her telekinetic grip, Celestia looked at the article and the photo attached to it with surprise and bewilderment. In the photo, she saw a creature without fur, dressed in rags, who was blowing a tear, and beside him was a gray unicorn touchingly soothing him. It was an image that evoked sympathy and compassion.

Quickly reading the entire article, Celestia's face frowned even more. She knew that some of the information was obvious fiction, but the creature pointed out details that had never been reported to the public. Either the creature really was the only survivor, or it had some inside information.

"Raven," Celestia called out, setting the paper aside. "Have you started gathering information yet?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," replied the white unicorn mare with black mane and tail. "Right after the article was published this morning, I sent some ponies out to find out all the details."

Celestia sighed, examining the humble afternoon snack on the table in front of her. This morning had been particularly crazy. She had just managed to enjoy a rare moment of peace when she was interrupted by this article.

"What has been found out?" the princess asked, massaging her temples.

"The origin of the creature is unknown. We were able to trace its movements back to Everfree, but where it came from in the first place is a mystery," Raven replied quickly. "He arrived in Canterlot the day before yesterday and is staying at the Gryphon's Feather Inn, which is near the gryphon quarter."

"Have the nobility tried to contact him yet?" Celestia asked, picking out a few pastries.

"Yes. Lots of them. A whole line since this morning," the mare replied. "He turned everyone down."

"What?" Celestia asked, frozen with a chocolate cake hanging over her plate.

"He refuses everyone and won't let anyone in," Raven said in a calm voice. "He doesn't answer questions from reporters either."

Celestia hesitated, shifting her gaze again to the picture in the paper.

She had expected it to be just another pawn of the nobles, but it looked like that wasn't the case. She had also assumed that this creature would be enjoying his moment of fame, chattering left and right. But this Alexei, as mentioned in the article, was behaving completely differently.

Suddenly, Celestia laughed as she realized this creature's motives.

"Cheeky brat," she smiled, scrutinizing the photo closely. "You've got a lot of nerve."

The unicorn mare Raven stood silently with an indifferent face, waiting for her princess to finish her musings.

"Raven, send a group of guardsmen in civvies to this Alexei. Have them invite him to dinner at the palace," Celestia ordered. "Send the picture and all the information you've gathered to Intelligence. I want to know everything about him by tonight.

"And cancel all my appointments for that time."

"As you command, Your Majesty," Raven bowed and quickly left the room.

Celestia sighed, feeling the fatigue that seemed to be creeping into her bones. She reached for the table where a variety of cakes lay, intending to finally get some rest.

After eating a few of the cakes, Celestia shuddered and looked in a certain direction. Her gaze seemed to penetrate the many walls of the palace with ease.
Celestia's gaze settled on Luna, who was slowly walking down the hallway.

Dark circles shone under Princess Luna's eyes, and her eyes were bloodshot. She hadn't been sleeping well lately.

Everything around her seemed to be plunged into darkness, reflecting Princess Luna's gloomy mood. The rare maids scattered into side corridors, and the guards huddled against the walls, trying even harder to look like motionless statues.

Luna paid no attention to this atmosphere of tension and fear - she was absorbed in her thoughts.

A thousand years were like a blur, but recent memories of Nightmare Moon returning from her imprisonment were slowly coming back to her. The Elements of Harmony seemed to want her to remember what she had done earlier.

Luna had tried to kill her sister, killed thousands of ponies, and nearly destroyed Canterlot.

She couldn't hide from herself that her own desires were part of this nightmare as well. There were dark thoughts and feelings lurking in the back of her mind that Nightmare Moon simply pulled out and began to carry out.

Any other mortal, faced with such guilt and terror of themselves, would have gone insane long ago. But Luna was no mortal.

She had lived for over a thousand years, having known every possible joy and suffering of this world.

She had personally executed deserters, bathed in the blood of Equestria's enemies, faced betrayal and betrayed others herself. She had known love and hate, and experienced almost everything this world had to offer.

Her mind was tempered like steel. What to a mortal would be the most horrific event of their life, to her was just an extremely shitty Monday.

Luna wasn't about to drown in self-pity. After crying for a few days, she picked herself up on her hooves and promised that she would right her mistakes.

She couldn't bring the dead back to life, but she could do her best for the living.

Maybe that would atone for her sins. She didn't know if she even wanted forgiveness, but she knew she had to keep moving forward.

Something strange had happened tonight that kept Luna uneasy and occupied all her thoughts at the moment. After regaining some strength, she decided to go to the Dreamworld, seeking the usual solace for her troubled mind there. Upon entering Dreamscape, she felt something wrong and puzzling. Heading towards the place that had attracted her senses, she discovered a dream.

This dream was unusual and mysterious. Luna tried to enter it, but the boundaries of this dream seemed impenetrable, as if made of steel. She tried many times, but she was never able to break through this barrier. Sometimes, the dream seemed to become ethereal and she couldn't interact with it at all.

However, the most puzzling thing was that Luna could feel a familiar energy in this dream - her own mental energy. It was faint and barely perceptible, but it was still present.

Luna mused on speculation as to who this dream belonged to and how it related to her. If it had been any other dream, she might have been able to determine the approximate location of the owner in the real world, but not in this case.

All she managed to see was a fleeting glimpse of the dream owner's appearance before he disappeared after noticing her presence.

Luna had never seen a creature like him before. And that made her even more curious and eager to solve this mystery. She got up earlier than usual to grab a quick snack and head to the library.

With these thoughts, she entered the dining hall and greeted her sister, Celestia. Her voice sounded a little tired, but there was determination and eagerness for change.

"You haven't been sleeping well," Celestia stated the obvious, examining her sister closely.

"I'm fine," Luna replied simply, taking a seat at the table.

"Why don't you get some help? I know some good..." Celestia started to say, but was interrupted when she noticed the glazed look in her sister's eyes as she stared at the paper on the table.

Luna lit the horn and grabbed the newspaper, scrutinizing the picture.

"Did you miss the paper that much?" Celestia asked cheerfully. "Or did you take a liking to that brat?"

The next moment, she regretted her joke when Luna gave her a wild look.

Celestia reflexively squinted and spread her wings, taking a fighting stance.

"I'm sorry, sister," Luna said in a sad voice, lowering her gaze.

Celestia sighed, folded her wings and stepped closer.

"It's okay," she said, hugging Luna with her wings. "It was just an accident."

Luna answered her with a look that clearly showed she didn't believe a word she said.

"So what were you so interested in the paper?" Celestia tried to change the dangerous topic.

"That creature. What is it?" the Princess of Night asked.

"I don't know myself. Some brat who thinks he can play games with me," Celestia shrugged. "I have a meeting with him tonight."

"I want to be at that meeting," Luna said firmly, looking into her sister's eyes.

The man moved the rook chess piece and leaned back in his chair, enjoying a rare moment of tranquility.

Across from him was Saada, with whom he was playing the Equestrian equivalent of chess. The rules were essentially the same, it was just that the pieces looked and were called differently.

This strange game of chess was watched by a rat named Alice, crunching some small nuts that the man had stolen from the inn's counter. He had spent quite a bit of time training her, teaching her many complex commands. With Saada's help in transmitting images into the rat's mind, they were making good progress.

"It'll be evening soon. Do you think someone will come from the palace?" Saada asked, eyeing the chessboard thoughtfully.

"Of course they'll come," the man smiled, resting with his eyes closed. "I've already shown Celestia my attitude. She'll be sure to contact me."

"We've been sitting here all day and all we've done is chase off those pesky nobleman's lackeys," the zebra muttered, rubbing her cheek.

The man didn't reply, but reached out and scratched a finger behind the rat's ear, causing it to rumble contentedly.

Alice was an important part of his emergency plan should he suddenly find himself in Canterlot's prison. He hoped it wouldn't come to that, but he always prepared for the worst. That was why he was still alive and free.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door, interrupting the man's rest. Gesturing for Saada to return to his body, the man walked to the door and looked through the peephole. Standing in front of the door were five very ordinary looking unicorns, but their faces gave them away as military men.

The man smiled as he opened the door.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, peering at the unicorns through the gap. "I don't do interviews or host guests."

"We're here on an errand. I think you understand from whom," the unicorn in front replied in an even voice. "May we come in?"

"I'm naked. Wait a moment," the man replied, closing the door.

"Are they using magic now?" he mentally asked Saada and receiving a negative answer walked over to the table and picked up the rat.

Whispering something in its ear, he opened the cabinet under the sink and let the rat crawl into the gap in the wall leading outside.

Pulling two black pills out of his pocket, the man popped them into his mouth and swallowed them quickly.

Now everything was ready. All that remained was to go on stage.

"I hope she remembers all the instructions and stash locations," the man mentally sighed as he walked back to the door.

"Please come in," he smiled, letting the group of unicorns inside.

The unicorns entered, taking a quick look around and using several spells on the door and the entire room.

"These are anti-surveillance spells," the leader explained. "We represent the Crown and Princess Celestia personally. She wishes to meet you for dinner at the palace."

"Good. I'm ready to go even now," the human agreed.

The unicorn nodded and turned to the two unicorns behind him. Those took out a huge parchment covered with many runes from their bag and taped it to the wall. Reacting to the energy injected by the unicorns, the runes began to glow and seemed to merge with each other.

Soon, a portal shone in place of the wall, revealing the palace's luxurious decorations.

"I love portals," the man mentally grinned. "So far, they've only brought good things."

"Come on in. We'll stay here and make sure no one enters your room," the leader said. "If necessary, another portal will be created for you to bring you back."

Nodding, the man walked through the portal and out into the large living room. The portal behind him began to close with a quiet hiss, leaving him in new, uncharted territory.

"There you are," came a soft voice from his right, making the man flinch slightly.

Turning around, he saw a white and dark blue alicorn sitting on an exquisite couch. Celestia and Luna, the princesses of Equestria, greeted him with their divine presence.

He had seen Celestia before when she spoke before the people, but up close it was a very different experience. There was a flicker of admiration in the man's eyes that the princesses couldn't help but notice.

"Good evening, Your Majesties," the man said, bowing low before the princesses. "Princess Celestia. Princess Luna."

"You may raise your head," Celestia said with a smile on her face.

The man obeyed and stood up, looking at the princesses and waiting for their words.

"Hmm, how interesting," Celestia said cheerfully as her sister Luna scrutinized the man. "How did that happen?"

"I'm not quite sure what you mean, Your Majesty," the man smiled politely.

"Where is your soul, wanderer from another world?" Celestia continued in the same cheerful tone.

The princess could see how the pupils of the creature in front of her dilated with shock, and his left hand began to tremble.

"So you know," the man smiled bitterly, growing increasingly nervous. "What's going to happen to me now?"

"Depends on your answers," Celestia started to say, but she was interrupted by Luna.

"What's your connection to the Nightmare Moon cult?" Luna asked, eyeing the man suspiciously.

"No connection at all," the man replied simply. "I saw a portal appear in my world and entered it. That's how I ended up in the Everfree forest. That's all."

"Tell the full story," Celestia ordered briefly.

The man launched into an explanation, recounting everything that had happened to him in those four years.

Well, almost everything. Some things the alicorns clearly didn't need to hear. Many things.

"So you ended up here because of me?" Luna muttered silently, casting the man a sad look.

"Interesting story," Celestia hummed, pulling out a rolled up flyer. "What do you think of this?"

The human looked at the flyer in Princess Celestia's telekinetic grip.

It was a flyer with a bounty on his head. His own face was depicted on it. Squinting, he read that he was wanted by a tribe of zebras for killing their tribesman.

"It did happen," the man sighed, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "However, that stallion reached for his weapon and was about to kill me. It was only self-defense!"

"Really? Then what about..." Celestia started to say, but she was interrupted again by Luna.

"Stop pressuring him, sister," Luna said coldly. "You heard about his situation in the tribe. He was an outcast, the tribe just found a scapegoat."

"As if it wasn't his own fault," Celestia muttered, but fell silent under her sister's gaze.

Celestia shifted her gaze to the man, who was extremely nervous and sweating, and his gaze seemed to be filled with pure distilled fear. Even from the couch, the sisters could hear the sound of the man's furious heartbeat.

"He's turning out to be more timid than I imagined," Celestia thought to herself. "Just a little longer and he'll have a panic attack."

"Good. Let's forget about it," Celestia sighed, realizing that further questioning would not lead to a positive result. "So why did you put on this whole show, getting our attention?"

"I heard rumors of a connection between that incident and the return of Princess Luna. I... I wanted to meet her," the man said loosening his collar. "Though, right now, I can't remember what I wanted to say."

"Calm down. We're not going to execute or imprison you," Celestia said, trying to calm his nerves, but the man didn't seem much calmed by it.

"We'll end it there today, sister. He can stay here and rest," Luna said, shifting her gaze to the man. "I guarantee your safety, Alexei."

"Thank you, Princess Luna," the man smiled warmly, looking at her gratefully.

Celestia sighed and lit her horn. A few seconds later, two maids entered the room.

"Take him to the guest room and provide him with everything he needs," Celestia ordered.

Bowing deeply once more, the man followed the maids. All the way he stared at the floor and breathed heavily.

The maids looked at him with interest, but dared not speak to him first.

When he reached the guest room, he thanked the maids and sent them away, saying he needed nothing, and closed the door.

Collapsing on the bed, the man curled up and lay staring at one point. He looked so pathetic and vulnerable.

"Boy, you are something!" the zebra in his head laughed wildly. "Mad, crazy bastard, but still something!"

"The easy part of the plan is complete," the man mentally replied, maintaining his previous fetal pose. "If it weren't for the fact that unicorn magic can't read my mind due to the lack of a soul - things would be much more complicated."

"Why do you keep acting?" the zebra asked. "Do you think they're still watching you? I don't feel any magic."

"Of course they're watching," Alexei snorted mentally. "They'll definitely want to see how I act when I think no one's watching."

The man planned to infiltrate the palace, separate the sisters, and meet with Luna alone. So far, everything was going according to plan.

Rolling over onto his back, the man inhaled and exhaled deeply, massaging his face with his hands.

"Luna..." the man's thoughts shifted to a certain princess. "We're going to be best friends soon."

Chapter 11 - Kind heart

"And that's a short version of the story," Luna finished with a sigh, shifting her gaze to the man. "I think you have a right to know."

The man answered nothing, gazing thoughtfully at the night sky.

They were sitting on a bench in the Royal Garden, surrounded by majestic trees and flowering plants. Luna was enjoying the coolness of the night, and her ethereal mane swayed in the light breeze. The sound of a fountain could be heard in the distance, creating an atmosphere of peace and tranquility.

"May I ask a question, Princess Luna?" the man finally spoke.

"Of course," the Princess of Night replied easily. "As long as we are in private - there is no need for titles and formalities. Just call me Luna."

"Okay, Luna," the man smiled, then looked at the princess seriously. "You and Nightmare Moon are the same being?"

Luna flinched as if his words had pierced her heart and looked the man in the eye.

The man looked into her eyes and felt the pressure of thousands of years.

Blood, death, resentment, anger, hatred, despair, hope, betrayal, triumph and happiness. All of these things were circling like sharks in Princess Luna's bottomless gaze.

Such concentrated feelings could drive a mortal to a nervous breakdown.

Alexei allowed it all to pass through him, but his gaze remained as calm as the ocean's smooth surface.

"Yes," Luna replied briefly, breaking her gaze and examining some random flower. "You're here because of my selfish desires. Do you hate me?"

"Why should I hate you, Luna?" the man asked with a smile.

"Your family, your friends, your lover. You will never see them again. There is no way to bring you back to your world," Luna continued in an increasingly somber voice. "So tell me, why don't you hate me!"

The man regarded the princess in silence, sinking into increasingly dark thoughts. Her very presence seemed to absorb the light, plunging everything around her into darkness. It was a mesmerizing sight, bearing a certain beauty.

The man stood up resolutely and approached the princess. She didn't even seem to notice the movement, buried in her thoughts. Given the height of the bench, their faces were on the same level.

Luna flinched when she felt a hug, pulling her out of her dark thoughts.

"I don't hate you," the man's whisper sounded, blowing hot breath against her ear. "And I forgive you, Luna."

Princess Luna's pupils dilated slightly in surprise, but she immediately picked herself up on her hooves.

After a few moments, the man broke the embrace and smilingly looked into her eyes.

"Of course, you'll have to compensate me for this," the man began in a serious voice, but there was amusement evident in it. "Have I told you yet that I have a sweet tooth?"

Luna snorted and laughed a tinkling, bell-like laugh.

"Who let you touch the princess anyway?" she began in a feignedly displeased tone. "I'll buy you all the cakes in Canterlot."

The man laughed and plopped back on the bench, the previously gloomy atmosphere completely obliterated.

"Actually, I was planning on bestowing a noble title on you," Luna murmured thoughtfully, looking at the man cheerfully. "Now I don't know what to think."

"I don't need a noble title," the man replied nonchalantly.

The playful expression on Luna's face disappeared as she looked at the man perplexed.

"Why? You can firmly establish yourself in society," the princess replied confidently. "Nobles have many privileges. You can live carefree and enjoy all that Canterlot has to offer."

"And yet, my answer is no," the man smiled, finding the princess' bewilderment amusing.

Perhaps she thought it was a good offer, but the man didn't think so.

By gaining a noble title, he would integrate into society and become a member of this "organization" called Equestria. By becoming part of the system he could gain a bunch of advantages, but the suppression would also become stronger. The man preferred to act without any restrictions.

"I don't understand, but I won't insist," Luna said with a sigh. "I can't bring you home, but I can give you a new home. I'll buy you a house in Canterlot anyway. You don't need the title. Gold then? I can provide for you for life."

"I don't need gold," the man replied with a chuckle.

"Then what do you wish? Just tell me!" the princess said, deciding not to beat around the bush.

The man thought for a moment, his eyes staring off into the distance as if searching for an answer in the vast expanse. Then he looked at the princess with sincerity in his eyes.

"I don't need anything," the man replied simply.

Princess Luna squinted her eyes as she considered the man. She wanted to compensate him for all the trouble he had caused, but he dared to refuse. What an impudent man!

"I won't accept such an answer," the princess flatly refused, staring resolutely at the man.

The man thought deeply, scratching his cheek.

"As you already know, there is no magic in my world," he began after some thought. "I would like to use magic. Is there a way?"

"I'll be honest with you," Luna sighed after some hesitation. "I know of several ways, but all of them are terrible. The chances of success are extremely slim, and in your case, close to zero. If you don't die right away - you'll be wishing you were dead. Not to mention the unethical nature of some of these methods. Trust me, you don't want to mess with dark magic."

The man listened silently, not reacting in any way.

He asked the question more for confirmation. He didn't expect the princess to have a convenient spell that could make him a mage. Her options were no different from the ritual Saada had suggested.

There was no point in even asking about eternal life. How many close friends and lovers had the princesses had during their lifetime? And where were they now?

"I understand," the man replied indifferently, shifting his gaze back to the sky.

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing that can be done," the princess said sadly, watching the man's reaction. "Maybe there's something else?"

The man fell silent, looking extremely pensive and immersed in his thoughts.

"Can you teach me how to dreamwalk?" he finally replied, smiling at the princess. "I'm very interested in dream magic."

Princess Luna thought for a moment. Dreamwalking was one of her specialties, and she knew it was inaccessible to someone without a soul. But in his eyes, she saw genuine desire and curiosity.

"You realize you'll never be able to use it, don't you?" the princess asked, looking at the man perplexed.

"I realize perfectly well. And yet it is my wish," the man replied firmly.

The princess's eyebrows raised slightly as a certain thought crossed her mind - she remembered her sister's apprentice.

"He wants to become my apprentice to... cheer me up?" Luna thought in surprise.

"Good," she replied briefly, some warmth flashing in her eyes. "I don't have much free time, so you'll have to learn from my journals and books. Of course, I'm always available to answer your questions."

"Sounds good," the man replied, smiling at the Princess of Night.

A week had passed since that momentous night, and now the human was enjoying his morning coffee in his new house.

They had nearly fought with the princess recently while they were choosing the right house for him. Luna had insisted on buying a giant mansion, but Alexei was more modestly inclined. He only wanted a simple house with a securely shielded basement where he could do his experiments in alchemy.

After much debate, he convinced Luna that a simple dwelling was enough for him. Although Luna looked slightly displeased, Alexei reassured her by promising that perhaps in the future he would need rare ingredients that she could acquire for him. This answer satisfied the princess. She was impressed by the passion and perseverance with which the man was learning the art of alchemy.

However, all these little things around the house and the ingredients did not bother Alexei. At the moment, his attention was completely focused on two things: dream magic and his relationship with Luna. As soon as the man heard the princess' story, he was immediately interested and wanted to learn all about dream magic. And who could be a better teacher than the Princess of Night herself?

Alexei was extremely cautious about bringing up the subject of learning, pretending that he was only mildly curious and just wanted to spend more time in Luna's company.

In fact, he was deeply intrigued.

Nightmares in particular caught his attention - creatures composed of dense mental energy, capable of using any form of magic, just like unicorns. Unlike the latter, nightmares possessed neither magical energy nor a soul. They used their extremely powerful mental energy as fuel for spells, and they simply didn't need a soul. In addition, they could take over other creatures by taking over their bodies. Nightmares resembled viruses with their behavior.

Alexei seriously considered the possibility of turning into one of them. To him, the human body was just a sack for a mind made of flesh and bones. If it would get him closer to his goal, he was willing to easily discard his humanity. Although Alexei did not possess the ability to use dream magic, he could partially mimic it through alchemy. He realized that he would have to create recipes from scratch, and so he needed all the information available about dream magic.

For the past week he had burrowed into the library in the princess's room, absorbing every book and entry on the subject. It was a good thing that she rarely had anyone in there, otherwise there would be rumors about a man who never left the princess's room.

But now his thoughts were not on the books, but on Luna herself.

He had previously believed her to be in complete isolation, according to information acquired from the griffins. His plans had been to slowly establish a relationship with the princess. All of those plans instantly collapsed - Luna was not in isolation.

Several clans of thestrals returned to Equestria and swore allegiance to Luna. Thestrals, a mix of ponies and bats, had a long connection to the princess. This turn of events did not suit Alexei, and he began to wonder how this might affect his plans.

What resources do thestrals have? What actions will thestrals take? Would they be able to negotiate with the nobles by stopping the bullying of Luna? Or will they use more extreme methods?

None of this suited the man - he wanted to be everything to Luna, and thestrals were pulling the blanket over him.

While Luna had agreed to share some information with him, she was clearly hiding the most interesting, and dangerous, aspects of dream magic. He and Luna were still far from being considered close. Which was why the man was trying to constantly improve his relationship with the princess.

Getting close to someone and creating a good relationship was both easy and difficult. The main thing was simply to lower one's status and satisfy the other party's desires.

"What do you desire, Luna?" he wondered, stepping out of his house and heading towards the palace. "Forgiveness. Even though you don't want to admit it. It's easy, but what else?"

"She's a warrior and a commander, values loyalty and sacrifice," the man continued to ponder. "She wants to be appreciated. She also cares about other people's opinions, even if she hides it. Otherwise, there wouldn't be the whole rebellion thing. There are many dark thoughts in the back of her mind. And she secretly enjoys them, even if she regrets crossing a certain line."

"Let's not forget the inferiority complex," the man thought as he bought some hot apple-filled pies. "She wants to outdo her sister in anything. If you put all her desires together, what would my plan be?

"There's another important point. Princesses aren't stupid at all. Sooner or later they will uncover my disguise and begin to suspect something. Perhaps they already suspect me.

"I need to take the initiative and reveal some things. Let them think they can see right through me and control everything.

"Hehe, those alicorns are pretty arrogant."

The man walked towards the palace and chewed apple pie, his mind buzzing with all sorts of plots and intrigues.

At the entrance, he ran into several nobles who cast dirty looks at him. Alexei, as usual, ignored it and continued on his way, but suddenly froze. His head slowly turned towards the nobles and his face spread into a smile.

"Nice day today, isn't it?" the man asked the unicorns and without waiting for an answer, he entered the palace.

He had just gotten a great idea.

"Are you serious now?" Luna asked in a tired voice, her eyes expressing disbelief and questioning the man's sanity.

She was exhausted after a sleepless night and was going to meet with the nobles in an hour. Returning to the political life of the country required her utmost concentration and energy. And now there stood before her a man with some crazy idea.

"I am always serious," he replied with a smile.

"I was wrong to tell you all this," Luna said in a doomed voice. "Now you come and say you want to go to the head conspirator among the nobles and convince him to back down. Am I understanding this correctly? I haven't missed anything?"

"Yes, all correct," the man replied with the same smile, despite her skeptical look.

"You're nuts," Luna summarized. "You must have overdone your studies and damaged your mind. Take a couple days off."

"I'm not kidding, Luna," the man replied seriously. "Is there anything I can do to make this already dire situation worse? No. So why don't you trust me and give me a chance?"

Luna gave him a certain look that showed her whole attitude toward his naivete.

Alexei responded with a determined look, glowing with hope.

"All right, all right. Just don't look at me like that," the princess sighed. "I'll arrange for you to meet the Marquis at noon. Now go away and let me wash in peace."

"You won't regret it," the man smiled. "Ah yes, may I borrow one of your maids?"

"I did assign you a personal maid, though," the princess said perplexed. "Moonlight has been hanging around idle for a week now."

"Hmm, right," the man frowned, actually remembering that he had a maid. "I'll see you later, then. Good luck with your meeting."

The man turned around and walked out of the princess' room to her heartbreaking sigh. He headed to his room in the castle and found the gray mare of thestrals who, by the looks of her, had just slept.

"Moonlight, eh?" he asked as he approached her. "I have two errands for you."

The mare nodded silently, she was glad to finally get down to business after a week of downtime.

"Do you have any day ponies outside of the Royal Palace in mind that you can trust?" the man asked, pulling a few costumes out of the closet.

"I think there are a couple of trustworthy ponies," Moonlight replied after some thought.

The man nodded satisfied, leaned over to her and began whispering something in her ear.

"Got it all memorized?" the man asked, finally completing his instructions. "And of course, the source wished to remain unknown."

"I will fulfill your assignment, Friend of the Night," Moonlight nodded confidently and quickly left the room. Her graceful footsteps resounded in the silence, reflecting the determination and ruthlessness she felt for those who stood in Princess Luna's way.

"You're not going to attack the Marquis, are you?" came the zebra's voice, interrupting the man busy with his costume. "I hope you realize there's a bunch of armed guards out there?"

"Attacking a nobleman?" Alexei asked shocked. "What scary things you say, Saada. We'll just talk."

His face expressed unwavering confidence, as if he was convinced of his ability to sway the marquis to his side. Zebra only rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

Taking his costume, the man returned home and began brewing the potions that were necessary to carry out his plan.

Time flew by quickly, and now it was time for the meeting. Alexei drank two potions, walked out of his house and headed towards the Marquis' mansion.

His name was Radiant Rose, and according to the Crown's information, he was the mastermind behind the campaign against the princess.

Quickly reaching the mansion, Alexei gave his name to the guards and after a thorough search, he entered the mansion accompanied by two impressive unicorns. Their gazes were filled with determination and vigilance, as if they were ready to protect their master at all costs.

The man really didn't have anything with him.

Although, the guards should have discovered the tattoo on his left leg, but it hadn't been there for a long time. Earlier, after obtaining the ingredients for the regeneration-giving tattoo, he destroyed the speed tattoo and chose another place to place them. He removed the skin from his back, carefully applied the tattoos on the inside and put the skin back in place. These tattoos were extremely important to him, and now discovering or damaging them was extremely problematic.

As they walked down the corridor, Alexei discreetly removed the flower from his chest, pinned with a needle, and tucked it into his pocket. He hid the needle between his fingers.

Knocking on the door of the Marquis' office, the guards waited for an answer and let Alexei in, closing the door from the outside.

The man took a quick glance around the room. To the right hung a painting of a majestic unicorn that seemed to come to life against the bright green of the forest. Cabinets filled with books took up an entire wall, and a large desk by the window was covered with stacks of papers and writing pens.

Two impressive unicorns stood to the sides of the door, watching intently.

"Good afternoon, Marquis Rose," the man said with a smile as he greeted the unicorn behind the desk.

"Good afternoon to you as well, Alexei," the marquis said, raising his gaze to the man. Curiosity flashed in his eyes. "I confess, I don't quite understand the purpose of your visit."

"It's just a friendly visit," the man smiled warmly at the unicorn. "I would like to talk about some disturbing things in Canterlot."

"Disturbing? Then you'd better contact the royal guard," the marquis replied perplexed. "I'm not sure I can help you."

The man did not answer, pacing around the room as if he were in his own home.

His gaze was drawn to a set of writing pens on a cabinet shelf and a knife for sharpening them lying nearby. The fine knife with a small silver handle decorated with gems was immediately eye-catching to anyone. The handle was rather decorative - unicorns didn't need them.
The man walked over to the shelf and began to examine it, then took it in his hands.

"A very beautiful piece, Marquis," the man said in satisfaction as he admired the knife. "You have good taste."

"Please don't touch anything," the unicorn said with a polite smile, telekinetically snatching the knife from the man's hands. He had to make some effort - the man clung to the knife like a tick.

"Oh, please forgive me. I seem to have gotten carried away," the man smiled guiltily and then immediately grew serious. "I came to talk about Princess Luna."

The unicorn frowned upon hearing the princess' name and put the knife back on the shelf.

"And what exactly do you wish to discuss?" the unicorn asked, scrutinizing the man.

The human didn't answer. Putting his hands behind his back he began pacing back and forth as if gathering his thoughts.

"Surely you must have heard all those unpleasant rumors about the princess that have been floating around Canterlot?" the man asked, finally stopping near a shelf of feathers.

"I think I've heard something vaguely," the unicorn replied indifferently. "But what does it have to do with me?"

The man turned to the picture of the unicorn hanging on the wall to the right and took a step back, closer to the shelf, as if trying to get a better look at the image.

"Who is this, Marquis?" the man suddenly changed the subject, nodding at the painting. "Your ancestor?"

"Yes, he is the founder of our family," the unicorn replied turning his head. There was a flicker of pride in his eyes.

Neither the unicorn nor the guards noticed the man's hand hidden behind his back grabbing the knife and stashing it in his pocket.

"There is an opinion that rumors are spread by some nobles," the man said thoughtfully, discreetly pricking his finger with the needle. "Do you think your ancestor would have approved of such actions?"

"Is it just me, or are you accusing me of something, Alexei?" Marquis Rose squinted, gazing into the face of the man who wandered into his office. The Marquis' gaze was perceptive, as if he was trying to read his guest's mind.

"No, no, not at all," the man replied calmly as he continued his slow steps across the room. Each step he took left a trail of blood drops on the luxurious carpet. "It just really hurts me to watch the princess suffer, and I want all these rumors to stop."

"I share your sentiments," the Marquis said with bitterness in his voice. "My family has always been loyal to the Crown. If I find out who is behind these slanderous rumors, I will immediately report it to the palace."

"You are truly a paragon of virtue, Marquis Rose," the man smiled, looking at the unicorn appreciatively. "Those are exactly the words I wanted to hear."

"You overpraise me," the Marquis replied, smiling again. "It is my duty as a noblepony."

"Then this visit was not in vain," the man continued to smile, taking a bow to the unicorn. "I dare not waste any more of your time, Marquis."

"If it concerns the Crown, you may come anytime," the Marquis replied politely, shifting his gaze to the guards standing at the door. "Please escort my guest out."

Bowing once more, the man left the office. The two unicorns serving as guards led him back to the entrance.

"The meeting ended somehow poorly," the zebra snorted in his head.

"What do you mean? The meeting hasn't even started yet," the human replied with a smile. "Quick, check the surroundings for magic and creatures."

"There's a room behind us, packed with guards. There are guards in front of the entrance as well. No one else," the zebra relayed after a moment. "There is no one watching us. Marquis seems to be trying to contact someone."

With a satisfied nod, the man raised his hands and struck the unicorns' heads with force, knocking them out. The soft carpet in the hallway muffled the sound of their bodies falling.

Raising an eyebrow, Saada watched as the man pulled a knife out of his pocket and began furiously cutting up his body. He didn't even spare his face, methodically making deep cuts. Blood slowly streamed down his body, falling to the carpet. Not even a minute later, it already felt like the man had survived an attack from a wild beast.

"Keep wounds open," the man mentally relayed to Saada, frowning slightly.

He had previously drunk a regeneration-suppressing potion, but it didn't seem to be enough - the blood was stopping too quickly. The tattoo was indeed of excellent quality.

The unicorns on the floor groaned, beginning to regain consciousness.

Stabbing the knife into his right shoulder, the man left a few bloody prints on the wall and rushed for the exit.

Meanwhile, in a neighboring street, very close to the Marquis' mansion, a squad of royal guards were fighting off pesky journalists.

"I say again, we have no idea what you're talking about," the squad leader said irritably, trying to keep the crowd of journalists at bay. "We're here for a routine check."

"Are you saying that..." the pegasus reporter began, but was interrupted by a shrill scream.

All eyes turned toward the source of the sound.

The pegasi among the reporters immediately leapt into the air and rushed in the direction of the shout.

A squad of royal guards, pushing the remaining reporters away, ran towards the scene. Quickly reaching the right place, the leader's pupils dilated with shock for a moment. Before him appeared a sight that could only be seen in nightmares.

A bipedal creature leaped out of the Marquis' mansion, torn to shreds and bleeding. The creature stumbled and fell, but immediately continued to crawl desperately on the ground, leaving a trail of blood. Its eyes were full of terror and despair.

The guards immediately recognized the creature as a human who had been frequenting the palace recently.

After a second of shock, the squad rushed toward the wounded man.

"Everypony back!" the squad leader roared, shoving away the omnipresent reporters and approaching the man.

Taking a quick look at the wounds, the unicorn used several first aid spells to stop the bleeding.

"Can you speak?" he asked worriedly, trying to catch the man's gaze. "What happened, sir?"

It had indeed been a crazy day for his squad. First they got news of an upcoming riot in a certain area. Next, reporters had appeared from somewhere accusing them of all sins. Now it's a bloody mess.

"Marquis Rose..." the man said in a trembling voice, looking back at the manor with horror. "He's a monster!"

"This is all rather disturbing, Marquis Rose," Celestia said thoughtfully, examining the unicorn across the room.

Sitting beside Celestia on the couch was Luna, and next to her, on a chair, sat a man. His entire body was wrapped in bloody bandages. Actually, his wounds had long since healed and even his scars were fading, but a certain image had to be maintained.

"I had nothing to do with this," the Marquis hissed through clenched teeth.

"There are traces of blood in your office. The corridor and the walls are drenched in blood. And it all belongs to a human," Celestia continued in a calm voice. "The weapon of crime has yours, and only yours, magical energy on it.

"Can you explain all of that?"

Marquis Rose remained silent, gritting his teeth and drilling his gaze to the floor. He knew the princesses wouldn't be able to imprison him for long. However, they could definitely ruin his life.

Taking a deep breath, the Marquis' face relaxed. It was time to let go. This time, they had fucked him.

"I'm listening," Marquis finally replied in a steady voice.

Celestia smiled and shifted her gaze to the man, waiting for his words. She was a little curious as to what he would say.

"As I said before Marquis, my heart aches from all the bullying directed at Princess Luna," the man said with a sigh. "That pain is probably what caused this whole misunderstanding.

"Maybe there's something you could do?"

The unicorn licked his lips and stared at the human. Oh, how he wanted to tear this insolent man apart.

"I'll do my best," the marquis squeezed out with a strained smile.

"You have a kind heart, Marquis Rose," the man smiled warmly. "I suffered an explosion when I broke your late father's precious artifact and said some unnecessary things. However, you are still concerned about my feelings.

"I will make a statement and clarify the situation."

Everyone in the room was well aware that all of this was utter nonsense, but no one even turned a deaf ear. Including the Marquis, who had just yesterday received a letter from his father, who was enjoying a vacation in retirement.

"I'm very glad we were able to clear up that misunderstanding," the unicorn replied with the same strained smile, shifting his gaze to Celestia.

"You may go, Marquis Rose," followed the princess' reply.

Bowing, the unicorn left the room, leaving the two alicorns and the human alone.

The two princesses immediately stared at the human. Celestia's face expressed nothing, though there was a flicker of some thoughtfulness in her eyes. Luna's gaze was complicated, but in it they could discern appreciation and a hint of... respect?

"So," Celestia began slowly, breaking the silence. "What was that?"

"Advanced diplomacy?" the man suggested, smiling innocently at the princess.

Author's Note

Luna snorted and laughed a tinkling, bell-like laugh.

"Who let you touch the princess anyway?" she began in a feignedly displeased tone. "I'll buy you all the cakes in Canterlot."

Man, I think I'm in love.

Chapter 12 - Blood and tears

The man stood at the window, gazing up into the sky where Princess Luna was interacting with the moon with her magic.

He knew now that the story of the moon rising and lowering was just a myth. The moon and the sun moved according to their own laws, needing almost no help from the princesses. The sisters, Princesses Celestia and Luna, became guardians of the celestial bodies because of a magical cataclysm that happened long before they were born. This cataclysm disrupted the normal movement of the sun and moon, and at first the task of correcting the trajectories was taken on by groups of unicorns.

However, when the princesses came into the world, they began to protect and guide the celestial bodies with their magic.

The story of the magical disaster was not something confidential - all nobles and common ponies knew about it. Each of them had their own opinion about it. Some believed in the divine nature of princesses, considering them untouchable and omnipotent. Others considered it all fiction, myths created to embellish reality.

The sisters never answered these questions directly, preferring to keep the intrigue and mystery surrounding their destiny and magical powers. Many nobles from the old families knew the real story, which was now heard by man as well.

With each passing day, the sun and moon returned to their normal motion. Perhaps one day the sisters would no longer be needed?

"Beautiful, as always," the man praised as he gazed at the night sky.

Princess Luna, finishing her work, turned to the man with a smile.

Usually, he stayed at the princess' place late, but tonight he had to go.

"Good night, Luna," Alexei smiled warmly as he said goodbye to the princess.

"Leaving already? It's still only evening," the princess grumbled unhappily.

"You need to get your sleep routine back on track," Alexei flatly retorted, not giving in to the princess's pleas.

"You dare order a princess around?" Luna asked in a playful voice, trying to bring a smile to Alexei's face.

"I dare," Alexei smirked, walking up close to the princess.

They drilled each other with glances for a while, and then laughed in sync.

Princess Luna rose on her hind hooves and hugged Alexei tightly. Her hug was gentle and full of gratitude.

"Alright," Luna said in a quiet voice, savoring the warmth that came from Alexei. "And thank you again."

"You're welcome," Alexei replied easily and added sincerely. "I'm very happy to see you in a good mood."

Finally breaking the embrace, they said their goodbyes and the man left the room, leaving behind a smiling princess.

Her mood had really improved lately - Alexei had done his best. He mentally rolled his eyes, remembering a certain conversation with Luna. The princess had paid a generous compensation to all the dead and attended the funeral procession, but that was all. She hardly advertised her deed.

Alexei quickly corrected this assumption. He gave several interviews, wrote a touching speech for the princess and held a press conference to reveal all the good deeds Luna had done.

In her speech, Luna bowed her head and apologized to all of Canterlot for her weakness. Ah, if only she had been stronger - she would have been able to stop the escaped Nightmare Moon...

Technically, it was all true, but it still took Alexei a long time to convince Luna to say exactly that.

Immediately after temporarily arresting the Marquis, Alexei visited a bunch of minor nobles. He didn't even have to make a scene - his words, confidence, and a bit of threat were convincing in themselves.

He took advantage of their panic, due to the lack of information, and, with a little scare, forced them to make statements in support of Princess Luna. Now, even knowing the truth, they could only grit their teeth.

Wherever it was possible - Alexei trumpeted the heroic story of Princess Luna.

Judging by the conversations in the city, the people took the new information quite well. Slowly but steadily, Princess Luna's reputation was improving.

She was still feared, and there were still many doubters, but that was already a good thing. Alexei knew that every step in the right direction would improve the princess's standing. And the more stable the princess' position, the better for the man.

On the way out of the palace, Alexei ran into a group of nobles whispering among themselves, casting glances of hatred and despise at him. The man ignored them completely. All these foolish nobles were boasting of their status and thought they were somehow better than others.

To Alexei, all these titles meant nothing. A common pony, a baron or a marquis? What was the difference?

Without real strength, a title was just an empty sound.

Marquis Rose, for example. Did he realize that Alexei might as well have killed him that day?

"At this rate, one day all of Canterlot will hate you," Saada said cheerfully.

"So what?" laughed Alexei carelessly. "Even if I offend every living creature, so what?"

These words reflected his philosophical attitude toward life.

Alexei was a human being, a mortal being. Sooner or later he would die. Sooner or later this universe would die too. Everything he'd done, everything he'd felt, would crumble away like an illusion, leaving no trace of his existence.

So why should he care?

That's why man strove so fiercely for eternal life. He was looking for ways to preserve his existence, to make his life real.

But Alexei was not limited by these usual human existential fears. He had long ago accepted his death and lived every moment, enjoying the journey to his goal.

Would he achieve what he so desired? Who knows. Only one thing the man was sure of - he would have no regrets.

Saada fell silent, pondering his words and feeling the strong emotions pulsing through the man's mind.

Her gaze reflected some confusion as she always tried to peer into the depths of his thoughts. But with each passing day it became more and more difficult for her to get into his mind, forcing her to only guess at what was going on in his head.

Within days of the pact, the man had already figured out a way to hide some of his thoughts from her, drowning them out with a lot of chaotic information.
As time went on, he got better and better at it.

Recently, Princess Luna had taught him a new trick: mind splitting. It allowed him to think of two things at once, which was useful in both dream magic and alchemy. But Saada didn't like it. She couldn't read his mind at all now, and he didn't share many of his plans with her, as if playing with her curiosity.

"Whatever," the zebra finally said and added in a slightly annoyed voice. "So what are our plans for today?"

"Hmm?" came the reply from the human, lost in his thoughts. "We're going to stop by the house first, and then we're going for a walk."

Alexei ignored the zebra's follow-up questions, completely immersed in his own thoughts.

He thought about his previous plans to become a nightmare, and knew they had been overly ambitious. Reading Luna's books on dream magic had led him to realize that his scheme was doomed to fail. In order to become a nightmare, he needed ingredients from the depths of the Dreamworld.

But how to get into that world and take out the necessary ingredients from there? That question remained unanswered.

He could enter someone else's dream using alchemy, but there was no way to enter the Dreamworld itself. Taking the ingredients outside was also impossible for him.

It could be done by Luna, but there was a problem here as well.

Dreamworld was a parallel world where the dreams of all living beings in the universe floated. But this was just the tip of the iceberg. Dreamworld also had deeper layers. He happened to come across a passing mention of it in one of Luna's books.

The princess' gaze filled with horror when he asked her about it, but then she quickly regained her composure and refused to answer most of his questions. All she said was that it was a very dark and dangerous place where, already insane as it was, the laws of the Dreamworld turned into complete absurdity. She also warned him against trying to interact with it.

Alexei came up with a new plan - to create his own nightmare.

Earlier, back when he was still living in the forest, he had already worked on the idea of destroying the spirits' minds and binding them to himself, mimicking the effect of the contract with Saada. Back then he had only thought of elemental beings and ghosts, but now the alternative - nightmares - had opened up before him.

Alexei snorted as his thoughts turned to Luna again. The image of Nightmare Moon appeared before him, a grim example of such a failed interaction with the Dreamworld.

Alexei was confident in his venture, however, for several reasons.

Nightmares, he knew, fed off negative emotions - fear, anger, hatred, envy, and all that. And he, Alexei, had no negative feelings for anyone. His heart was filled with nothing but perseverance and determination to achieve his goal.

Even if Nightmare Moon herself targeted him, she would have to go hungry, for he would provide no food for her dark appetites.

Alexei didn't know the full backstory of Nightmare Moon, but he guessed that she was an expression of all the negativity that had accumulated in Luna. He didn't know if Nightmare Moon was a natural nightmare nurtured by Luna's desires, or if Luna herself had created her.

The questions he wanted to ask the princess remained unanswered. He realized that these questions might arouse suspicion and draw unwanted attention to him.

Another reason Alexei was confident in his plan was that he wanted to create a nightmare with an empty mind that would become a part of himself. Essentially, he would have an artificial soul in the form of a nightmare.

In the future, he could become one with it, turning into a nightmare himself, but that was still a long way off.

Back at home, Alexei changed from his usual clothes to loose-fitting hooded clothes. He stepped outside, plunging into the darkness of the night.

"Did you enjoy the fireworks, Blossom?" the unicorn said with a note of excitement in his voice, turning to his pegasus companion. "Of course, its beauty pales before yours."

"Quite," the mare replied politely. "Thanks, Jade."

"Shall we continue on to the restaurant?" the unicorn suggested with a smile. "I know a great place that matches you."

"I think I'd like to end the evening there," the pegasus declined, maintaining her polite smile. "I have to get up early tomorrow."

"A date tomorrow night then?" the unicorn asked, hoping for a positive answer. "You're new to Canterlot, so I'd like to help you get settled here."

"I'm not sure about my schedule," the pegasus replied, unfurling her wings. "I'll write to you."

"Wait!" the unicorn countered, unwilling to let the pegasus go. "Let me at least take you home. Canterlot can be dangerous at night."

"I'll make it in a few minutes," the pegasus smiled awkwardly, taking off into the air.

Suddenly, she turned her head, peering into the street to her left. It seemed to her that something had just flashed there.

"Probably some random pony," Ice Blossom thought indifferently as she flew towards her house.

The unicorn could only sigh as he watched the mare fly away. Lowering his head, he headed towards his home, replaying his date with the mare in his head.

"So why are you so indifferent to me, Blossom?" the unicorn muttered sadly, pushing some pebble in the road.

"Because you're acting too nice, like a pathetic suck-up," a voice behind him kindly suggested.

The unicorn frowned and turned to explain to the insolent one where he would shove his opinion.

However, he immediately received a powerful punch to the jaw and passed out, falling to the sidewalk. The hooded figure approached the unicorn and poured some potion into his mouth.

"Four-legged ones are hard to sneak up on," the man mentally sighed. "You have to call out every time to get them to turn around."

Covering the unicorn's body with a rag, the man pulled some powder from his pocket and walked back down the couple's trail, sprinkling it all around.

"You think they won't look for him?" the zebra asked, watching the man's actions.

"Have you forgotten what he peddles on the streets? Those go missing all the time," the man shrugged. "They'll write it off as a dealer showdown. The pegasus won't be looking for him, either."

Returning to the unicorn, the man wrapped him in a cloth and slung him over his shoulders. The horn was still sticking out, but at least from afar it was hard to tell what exactly he was carrying.

"Go ahead and turn your radar up to maximum,'" the man said mentally to Saada. "I don't want to run into any guards."

The man made his way around all the busy neighborhoods, slowly but surely approaching his home. Sometimes he would stop and wait for random passersby to pass, hiding in the shadows or behind others' fences. It was about a half hour walk to his house at a brisk pace, but now he'd been getting there for over four hours, looping all over the city.

Alexei returned to his cozy home, carrying the smell of fresh parchment and magical ingredients. Carefully, he placed the sleeping unicorn on the soft carpet and made his way to the massive cabinet that held many of his belongings.

Among them was a ring with a gemstone that he had slipped onto the unicorn's horn. This ring was special - it had the ability to suppress magic. The man smiled slightly as he remembered the backstory of these rings - he had bought this ring from a sex shop in the unicorn section.

Originally, the ring was extremely weak and wasn't capable of restraining a unicorn for long. But who was the man? He had already become a master in alchemy after gaining all of Saada's knowledge. Quickly figuring out the ring's device, he easily modified it, turning the sex toy into a reliable restraint tool.

Finishing his preparations, he hoisted the unicorn onto his shoulders and headed to the basement of the house, lit by magical lamps. There, four unicorns chained to the wall - three mares and one stallion - were already waiting for him. They widened their eyes fearfully at the sight of Alexei, but did not make a sound - they knew he appreciated silence.

A rat sat in the center of the room, vigilantly watching their every move and keeping them awake. It would be very embarrassing if Luna stumbled upon their dreams, so the human only allowed them to sleep during the day.

With a sad glance at the rat, the human chained the sleeping unicorn to the wall. Alice didn't have long to live - the first signs of insanity were already starting to appear. He had been feeding her a lot of expensive potions, but he couldn't completely suppress the process. Three more weeks, maybe four, and she would go insane.

Finished with the unicorn, Alexei climbed the stairs and headed for his alchemy table, littered with a pile of vials and tools. At the edge, on a magical stove, stood a brand new cauldron. All of this he had acquired, just after moving into the house.

The man had been robbing merchants for three years. Of course, he had a lot of money. But money was not his goal; he spent it only on ingredients and books, maintaining an ascetic lifestyle.

Alexei rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling the fatigue coming on. But he knew he had a long and sleepless night ahead of him.

Alexei finished his work when the sun had already reached its peak in the sky.

Three transparent crystals lay on the table in front of him, their brilliance reflected in his eyes. Next to them were four potions, each holding the dream magic. Taking two of the crystals, Alexei headed towards the massive wooden shelves, created in a rough natural style, on which stood many books.

Removing the books and pulling one of the shelves out of its frame, the man turned it around to face him. There was nothing appealing to the eye and the shelf looked like a rough piece of wood with cracks in it. Hooking the crack with a curved awl, the man slowly pulled out a hidden drawer.

Inside, in the notches in the wood, lay many of the same transparent crystals, but something black floated within them. As if noticing the man, these black blotches shrank and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible.

The man grinned as he looked at the crystals. They were all nightmares he had caught.

After hiding the two empty crystals, Alexei put everything back in its place and headed to the basement.

There he woke one of the mares, unchained her, and led her upstairs. The mare was trembling with fear, but did not try to resist or run away. Some had already tried it - it didn't end well.

Taking two potions from the table, Alexei led the mare to the couch. He laid her down on it and made her drink the potions. Watching her, he watched as her eyes began to slip until she fell asleep. He made her comfortable on the couch and sat next to her himself, placing his hand on her neck, near her artery.

An hour flew by while Alexei pondered the diagram of the rune array in his hands.

He and Saada worked diligently, reworking the ritual to suit their needs. They used the old ritual as a basis, but made some changes and modifications to it. The essence of the ritual was to fuse different energies. Replacing the magical energy with mental energy was not a big problem.

Despite the fact that everything was ready, Alexei did not stop checking every detail. He couldn't afford to make even the slightest mistake. He realized that there was no point in testing the ritual on other creatures, as their physiology was too different from his own.

The first test subject was to be himself.

The ritual had been altered, and now he did not need the essence of darkness. Instead, he used nightmares and crystals of darkness. But he still needed phoenix tears and alicorn blood.

He glanced thoughtfully towards the palace, knowing that the phoenix tears were in the treasury.

As for the blood of an alicorn...

After the change of plan - any alicorn blood was no longer suitable. He needed the blood of a specific alicorn - the blood of the Luna. Alexei realized that he couldn't handle the alicorns with his own power. They were too powerful. Even if he raised a hundred unicorns to rebel - the alicorns would easily escape.

Who could handle an alicorn? Another alicorn, of course.

Originally, his plans included pitting the sisters against each other, playing on Luna's weaknesses and complexes.

But now things have changed. He went through a series of intrigues to get closer to Luna, and surprisingly everything went smoothly.

Even Alexei himself couldn't believe what he was about to do - just walk up to Luna and ask her for blood.

Blood was widely used in alchemy, so there was nothing too strange about the request and given their relationship, Luna was unlikely to refuse him. Not that he needed liters of her blood - a vial or two would suffice.

But if she did refuse, he'd have to go back to his old plans. He hoped that wouldn't happen. This whole thing was too much of a hassle.

He could also get the phoenix tears through Luna - she promised to get him any ingredient he wanted. The man frowned harder and harder as he pondered over this situation.

But suddenly his face relaxed, and a carefree laugh broke the silence of the room.

"I've faced failure and despair so many times that I can't believe in success," he thought smiling. "My own efforts have brought me here. I've done a good job."

Alexei was about to return to analyzing the array when he felt the mare's heart begin to pound frantically. He turned and saw that her face was contorted with fear. It seemed the mare was having a nightmare.

Without hesitation, he quickly took two potions from the table next to him and drank them in a gulp. Then he carefully tied the cloth-wrapped crystal to the mare's head.

Soon his eyes began to slip and he fell into a deep sleep next to the mare.

"Quite cliché," Alexei shook his head, looking at the abandoned hospital building.

"I think it's a little creepy," Saada replied lazily, looking quite alive and real, flesh and blood. Even more eye-catching was the zebra's wings and horns.

All because they were in a dream.

The man shrugged and walked slowly down the blood-stained hospital corridor, listening carefully to everything around him.

Because of the potion's specificity, every injury he received in this dream would manifest on his body in reality. He could easily die in this dream by stumbling into an overly intense nightmare. Even worse was the fact that he couldn't wake up on his own ahead of time. Zebra needed to come out of the dream and wake him up in reality. In that time, a strong nightmare could already turn him into mincemeat.

But Alexei had no other options anyway.

At least this rule did not apply to dream owners - otherwise a man would have to look for a new unicorn after every nightmare.

Hearing screams from a certain part of the hospital, Alexei and Saada looked at each other and headed that way, their footsteps echoing in the empty corridors.

When they reached the operating room, they opened the doors and entered.

Inside, they saw a scene straight out of a horror movie. The operating room was flooded with scarlet light, and on the iron table was firmly fixed a screaming mare - the owner of the dream. A bipedal figure hovered over her with a scalpel in his hand.

Hearing footsteps, the figure turned.

Alexei sighed, examining his own copy in a medical gown. Every time, in every dream, the nightmare was always him.

"Oh, I'm going to have so much fun tonight," Saada smirked, starting to circle the nightmare to the left.

Alexei mentally rolled his eyes upon hearing the zebra's words. She took a certain pleasure in tearing apart his copy in the form of a nightmare, getting back at him for his sarcastic behavior.

If it helped her relieve stress - he had nothing against it. Their job was to beat the nightmare to a pulp, after which the crystal would retract and seal it.

The man raised his hand and his familiar dagger materialized in it. The man began to circle the nightmare from the right.

The nightmare squinted and suddenly lunged at him, aiming the scalpel at his neck.

But Alexei was quick and agile, he easily intercepted the nightmare's arm and pulled him to him, delivering a hard headbutt to his face. The blade of the dagger swept down, slicing through his neck. This was followed by a powerful kick with his foot, sending the nightmare into the side of the zebra.

The nightmare's head, completely severed by the previous attack, instantly grew back. Nightmares were not material beings, and the concept of heads was foreign to them.

Saada joyfully began firing beams at the nightmare from her horn, clearly enjoying the battle.

The man only shook his head. Sure, in a dream he could also shoot all sorts of rays with lots of special effects, but all that stuff was tiring to the mind. He could do just fine with a single dagger.

Nightmare, who was furiously fending off the zebra's attacks, hissed and suddenly turned into a black cloud, taking his true form.

The nightmare trembled as if drawing in air, and the man, seeing this, immediately rushed behind the surgery table. In the same second thousands of black slimy threads pierced all around.

Several holes appeared on Alexei's body. His left leg, which he hadn't managed to hide, was especially affected, and it was literally shredded.

Saada, who didn't have time to react, was also covered in dozens of holes, though she didn't care much, because she was an immaterial entity. However, her energy was still not limitless.

This was a good time to counterattack, so the man jumped out from behind the table towards the nightmare. However, the nightmare wasn't done yet.

Suddenly, the nightmare's body stretched apart, revealing a pulsating white sphere inside.

Alexei's eyes widened in surprise, and his body tensed, preparing to dodge. At that moment, his injured leg finally snapped, and he barely kept his balance, barely avoiding a fall. This gave nightmare the perfect opportunity to strike. A powerful beam of energy pierced through Alexei's body, smashing him into the wall of the surgery.

The zebra roared, engaging and blocking further attacks from the nightmare.

"Are you still alive, fucker?" shouted Saada, turning to the man. "Should I wake you up?"

"Alive," the rising man wheezed, a huge charred crater visible on his chest. "No, it'll kill me in that time."

Saada roared even louder, continuing her battle with the nightmare. The battle had long since ceased to be fun. If Alexei died, Saada would not get the rest of her contract payment. He owed her another seven years of his lifespan.

The nightmare, realizing their desperate situation, attacked the wounded man with increasing frequency. Sometimes the man managed to dodge, but more often he had to rely on Saada's help.

Several times she blocked the nightmare's attacks with her own body, taking many wounds and even beginning to revert back to her translucent form.

Finally, the nightmare had taken enough damage and was dragged to the floor.

Zebra and human breathed a sigh of relief. This was the hardest battle they had ever fought together.

The zebra looked at the human with a wild look and silently disappeared.

After a few seconds, Alexei woke up to reality and began coughing violently. Coughing up blood from his nose that had gotten into his airways, he looked under his shirt and saw charred flesh. But he paid no attention to it. He knew it would heal in time.

"What are you doing, motherfucker?!" the zebra roared, glaring at him.

"Don't yell like that," the man grumbled, feeling his head still hurt. "You saw for yourself that it proved too strong. Yes, I admit it. I was careless, and it was able to catch me. Are you satisfied?"

"No," the zebra replied irritably. "I saved your pathetic ass and you owe me. I need potions to restore a spiritual body."

"Okay, okay," the man said tiredly. "There will be potions for you. Just let me catch my breath."

The zebra only snorted and dived into his body, slipping into slumber to preserve as much energy as possible.

Alexei sighed and leaned back on the back of the couch. A few minutes of rest was all he needed.

Chapter 13 - Betrayal

Alexei gazed in awe at the glass vial of blood, covered with mysterious runes, in his hand. Even without Saada's clues, he could sense that this blood contained something unfathomable. If one looked closely at the blood, one could see the stars within seem to twinkle and disappear.

Saada's voice trembled as she shared with Alexei her sensations of the magical energy that pulsed through the blood. Alexei's pupils dilated, he had never encountered such a powerful and dense energy before. It was as if the man was facing a natural disaster, ready to descend upon him with unstoppable force. If it weren't for the restraining and concealing runes on the vial, half of the palace would have shown up by now.

There were two more vials in his bag, one with the blood of an alicorn and the other, tiny, with a clear liquid - the tears of a phoenix. Alexei still couldn't believe that he had managed to get them so easily.

Luna had no problem getting the phoenix tears for him, but her look when he asked for her blood was odd. There was something strange about it, something Alexei couldn't quite figure out. Anxiety? Nostalgia? Sadness? Or were all these feelings mixed together in her eyes?

The man felt that Luna had clearly guessed that he wasn't going to give up and still wanted to get his hands on the magic. But she didn't stop him.

That was why he respected Princess Luna. They were just like each other. They were willing to make sacrifices for their desires. Luna tried to kill her sister to achieve her goal, and Alexei was willing to do even worse things.

Of course, Luna was only guessing about his experiments in alchemy. If she knew what he was going to do, he wouldn't be able to leave the palace.

Alexei shook his head, pushing those thoughts away. There was no time to ponder that now.

He had all the ingredients he needed, the rune array had long since been completed, and he was ready to depart. It was time to leave Canterlot - he couldn't risk undertaking such a ritual within the city. But he would surely return. He had many other plans for this city.

Leaving the palace, Alexei headed straight to the alchemist's shop. He purchased three of the best vials protected by magical runes. True, they weren't as high quality as the ones Luna had given him, but he could fix that on his own.

When he returned home, he poured the blood and tears into the new vials, and carefully buried the old ones in a pot with some flower he had bought along the way. The pot itself he placed on the windowsill outside the house.

Alexei took out some pre-made ink and began to carefully add runes to the surface of the vials.

"Did you find anything?" the man asked without taking his eyes off his work.

"I didn't find any tracking runes," the returning zebra replied. "But a precaution wouldn't hurt."

The man nodded - he was fully agreeing with that.

After finishing his work with the runes, Alexei left his house and headed for the paddocks where a wagon awaited him.

He had purchased a covered wagon and an unusual emerald lizard beforehand. It looked like a mixture of a varan and an iguana, but Alexei wasn't too familiar with reptiles to accurately identify its species. The lizard was gigantic in size, almost comparable to a car, and its body was covered in sharp spikes.

Although these lizards did not have high speed or a large carrying capacity, they had incredible stamina and regeneration. They were usually used for traveling to dangerous or poisonous areas.

But Alexei had other plans. He was going to drug the lizard with a huge amount of stimulants. With its stamina and regeneration, it had to be able to withstand this stress. Thus, he planned to reach his hideout in the Everfree at top speed without stopping.

Previously, when Alexei had lived with a pack of diamond dogs, he had created several hideouts throughout Everfree that only he and Saada knew about.

Remembering the dogs, Alexei thought for a moment about how they were doing now. He had originally planned to get rid of all the witnesses, but later changed his plans. The dogs that had been with him all these three and a half years had become his faithful followers.

There was nothing surprising about that. The man treated them well, protected them, and generously shared the spoils. He was only interested in alchemical ingredients, test subjects, and a little bit of Equestrian gold. Everything else he gave to the dogs.

Although he didn't allow them to be present during his experiments, they still understood everything thanks to their excellent hearing and sniffing. But all this didn't bother them much.

Maybe some city dweller would have been horrified by what was happening, but in the forest, survival always came first.

It was a pity, but several diamond dogs had died in the encounter with the forest monsters and there were seven of them left. Right now they were to hide and wait for further instructions from the man. They were one of his backup plans in case of danger. Saada could contact them and they would come to the rescue. He had also left many caches of gold and potions throughout the city for both rat and dogs to use.

Alexei warned Princess Luna that he would be traveling to Everfree in a few days to get the items he needed. Luna didn't object, but insisted that he be accompanied by several bodyguards. They both knew that once he left the city, he would easily become a target for nobles who wanted him dead.

Of course, that didn't suit the man. So even though he had agreed to Luna's terms, he was going to leave the city right now.

The princess had a rather busy day today, so she probably didn't have time to alert the guards and inform her thestrals yet. After gathering all the necessary items, Alexei went down to the basement of his house. It was only noon, so all the unicorns were asleep.

Alexei took out a sleepy rat from his pocket, which was an exact copy of his trusty companion named Alice. Alice herself was sleeping somewhere upstairs in his clothes, unaware of what was going on downstairs.

Setting the rat down in the middle of the room, Alexei began to wake the unicorns. As they woke up, five pairs of frightened eyes stared up at him.

He smiled at them and walked over to the rat, executing a precise strike with his dagger. Life left the small body and Alexei kicked its corpse, tucking the dagger behind his belt.

He then released each unicorn, removing the rings from their horns that restrained their magic.

Soon there were five unicorns standing before him, held back by nothing. They could very well have torn the man apart by attacking him together.

However, the man smiled nonchalantly as he looked at the unicorns, and they only looked away and didn't even try to move without orders. Alexei didn't use any magical potions or mind control spells. He didn't need to, and he couldn't use them anyway.

But the man had something better than magic and potions - intelligence and an understanding of psychology.

After going through so many realistic nightmares, the unicorns doubted reality more and more. They weren't sure if they were awake now or still asleep. They often had nightmares where they were granted freedom, only for things to end extremely sadly.

At some point, they stopped all attempts to escape. They even started attacking those who tried to rescue them or get them out of the basement.

Alexei had already freed some of them several times and walked around the city with them. They didn't try to escape, they just didn't believe in their freedom and in the reality of what was happening.

The rat killing scene was just another show for them. Why would he kill his favorite rat? Why would he want to free them?

They were definitely having a nightmare!

"Impressive," Saada said with some admiration, then snorted. "You'd make a great nightmare, you sick bastard."

The human mentally rolled his eyes at that comment. Zebra had done far worse things and, unlike him, clearly had sadistic tendencies, but it wasn't like he was judging her.

Turning to the unicorns, Alexei ordered them to clean the room and remove the chains from the walls. They complied with his instructions without hesitation.

Having finished cleaning, Alexei went up to the living room with the unicorns. Several large crates filled with straw were already standing there.

He ordered the unicorns to climb inside the crates and sit quietly. They climbed into the crates without question or hesitation. Alexei closed them and sealed them, making sure nothing would give away their presence.

He drank a potion that increased his strength and began loading the crates into the wagon. Finally, the last crate containing chains and other compromising items was in the wagon.

Leaving the envelope with the message for Princess Luna on the table, Alexei closed the house and got into his wagon.

He left the house and headed out of town, ready to head to one of the hideouts in Everfree.

"What's the rush, Valiant?" Celestia asked, looking at the panting unicorn in her office.

"We finally caught them, Your Highness!" an excited Valiant reported. His voice sounded strained from the excitement battle experienced.

"Report properly," Celestia frowned, not sure what this unicorn was babbling about.

"We captured the gang behind the attacks on caravans that began about four years ago," Valiant replied, then his voice grew somewhat sadder. "But we have suffered some casualties."

"Put them in custody," Celestia shrugged, still not sure why she had been informed of this. "What are the losses?"

"As you command Your Highness," the unicorn replied. "We lost six soldiers."

Celestia raised her eyes in surprise, looking at the white unicorn in front of her. This gang was considered small, but the squad had still lost six. It seemed she should think about tightening up training with the military.

"How many were there? Who was in the gang? Were you ambushed?" Celestia began to ask a multitude of questions.

"Seven. Seven diamond dogs," Valiant said with a gulp. "No, we stumbled upon them completely by accident."

"Did I seem to mishear?" Celestia asked perplexed. "Your squad was crushed by seven dogs?"

"They were too strong, Your Highness!" Valiant began to justify himself. "Blood magic. Runes. Potions. We did not expect such an onslaught from mere dogs."

Princess Celestia's face grew darker and darker with every word Valiant said.

Blood magic and dark magic had always been the most troublesome. These two types of magic could be used by absolutely anyone.

These mages had always been outcasts and persecuted in most countries. It wasn't about the cruelty of such practices at all - many countries were secretly researching such types of magic.

The problem was their high efficiency. Blood magic was one of the most powerful types of magic, and its spells had low requirements for the caster's magical energy.

For example, to gain access to powerful spells in Equestria, ponies had three options.

If they were lucky enough to be born into a noble family, they could easily gain the necessary knowledge. Everyone else had to either do their own research or join one of the government agencies. Many unicorns only joined the royal guard for access to high-level spells.

Blood magic and dark magic broke such a balance. Seven unicorn dogs were able to resist a perfectly equipped capture squad and killed six of them.

Every time there was turmoil in any country - these mages would come out like mushrooms after the rain.

"How many did you capture alive?" Princess Celestia finally asked. "What about the leader?"

"We were only able to capture three alive," Valiant replied. "The leader doesn't seem to be with them. We have tried to access their memories, but they are resisting skillfully."

"Bring them here," the princess replied glumly. "I will personally interrogate them."

"Take away the front shield!" the man shouted, overlapping the crackle of lightning and the rolls of thunder.

The unicorn standing nearby nodded in understanding and easily opened the passage for the man. The man instantly jumped out of the wagon, landing on the back of the injured lizard. In his hands were several syringes, which he quickly stuck into the lizard's exposed flesh, injecting the local analog of adrenaline directly into its bloodstream.

The lizard roared, its eyes glistening and it sped up even more. Even with all the chaos and noise surrounding them, the human could hear her heart pounding furiously.

The man then took out some potions from his pocket and began to deal with the lizard's wounds. Even the lizard's amazing regeneration ability couldn't handle the hailstorm of attacks that were raining down on it.

Hearing Saada's warning, the man ripped off a fingernail and fired it behind him. The exploding nail stopped the ball of lightning, creating an even more powerful explosion accompanied by energy fluctuations.

The lizard continued running towards the forest, dodging multiple lightning bolts and razor-sharp wind gusts.

"There's a blood mage among them!" one of the griffins flying above them shouted.

At this time, several pegasi were already working as a team, creating a huge tornado, about to tear down their shield in one fell swoop.

The man frowned as he looked at the flying griffins and pegasi. Shortly after leaving Canterlot, his wagon had been ambushed by some bandits. He didn't believe in such coincidences, realizing that nobles were clearly involved.

Looking into the wagon, the man ordered the unicorns to clench their teeth and remove their shield. He then jumped out onto the roof of the wagon, pulled a rib out of his pocket, and stuck it into his leg. Waves of pain began to spread around, and the groans of the unicorns being hit echoed from the wagon.

This spell was supposed to be extremely effective against flying opponents. But it wasn't this time. The man's pupils widened in surprise when he saw that the spell had no effect on the opponents. Only the amulets on their necks began to flicker.

The man instantly retracted his rib, stopping the spell, and went back inside. A few moments later, the shield surrounded the wagon again.

"Did they take into account my connection to Luna and protect themselves from mental attacks?" a thought flashed through the man's mind.

He was now fully convinced that these were no ordinary bandits. The situation was getting more and more dire.

The unicorns in the wagon were not fighters, they could only maintain a shield, barely holding back the barrage of attacks. The man realized he had to go out against fifteen griffins and pegasi alone.

"The wheels can't take the pressure!" one of the unicorns shouted, interrupting his musings.

"Cover them with a shield and reinforce them with telekinesis," the man immediately replied.

At other times he would have shaken his head - all these unicorns could do incredible things with magic, but they lacked imagination and ingenuity.

Suddenly, the man laughed wildly, attracting the unicorns' attention. Aside from the battle with the griffins, he had to keep an eye on the psychological state of the unicorns, supporting their belief that this was all just a dream with a certain scenario.

But the man really did have a plan.

He hurriedly rummaged through the crates, pulling out a bag filled with magic crystals and handed it to the unicorns. Into his pockets went several potions, ready to be used.

"Charge them until they start to crackle," the man ordered with confidence in his voice. "Don't worry about the shield. Just charge the crystals, okay?"

The unicorns nodded, immersing themselves in the process of charging the crystals with their magical energy. Their horns glowed with a bright radiance, sparks flying around, giving the impression of a magical dance.

The man quickly climbed to the roof of the wagon. The unicorns were busy charging, so he would have to become a shield protecting them all.

One by one, his fingernails collided with the ball lightning bolts, blocking them in advance.

At one point his hand moved towards his left eye, but he stopped. There was one interesting spell from the gryphon's book that could help him in this situation, but he couldn't afford to lose his binocular vision right now.

Soon, the man pulled out his pliers and skillfully began pulling out his toenails. In between spells, he tossed explosive potions, blocking the constant gunfire.

"Done!" came a voice from inside the wagon.

The man quickly jumped off the roof and stepped inside the wagon. Soon a shield reappeared around it, protecting it from enemy attacks.

"When I say so, you will remove the shield and then begin to push the entire wagon forward with telekinesis," the man began to explain. "I need full power, even if only for a few seconds. Is that clear?"

The unicorns nodded, their horns continuing to glow, filling the surrounding air with magical energy.

While they prepared themselves, the man took a bag of sparkling crystals that also contained several potions, tied it tightly, and looked out of the wagon.

The pegasi were pushing their tornado, coming closer and closer.

The man's lips stretched into a mad grin as he signaled the unicorns to remove their shield.

With all his might, he swung the bag straight into the tornado. A powerful explosion followed a moment later, but the tornado was not about to dissipate. The released energy began to flow into the vortex, increasing its size and creating a strong pulling field that drew everything around it to its center.

The gryphons and pegasi instantly sensed the danger and tried to fly away, but the man was ready for them. He cut off several fingers and threw them in front of the feathered creatures, blocking their escape route. A wave of powerful explosions threw them back.

It was another spell from the gryphon's book that he had learned. The effect was the same as the nail sacrifice, but the power was multiplied.

At this time, the tornado absorbed all the energy around it, reaching impressive sizes.

The pegasi and griffins were still trying to fly away or use their spells, but the man bombarded them with potions, cutting off all escape routes. Soon several were pulled inside by the tornado, tearing them apart.

The wagon rattled as it began to be pulled towards the tornado. The lizard roared exhaustedly, digging its claws into the ground and trying to keep going.

The man beckoned to the unicorns, and soon a telekinetic field enveloped the entire wagon. The lizard roared happily, accelerating quickly and rushing to leave this dangerous area.

The man watched the tornado pull in all the remaining mercenaries as his, rather beaten up, wagon rapidly approached the forest.

His eyes shone with a gleam of mad joy as he laughed happily. He was exhausted, bleeding and in pain, but he was still savoring this moment.

He felt so alive in this moment!

"This world is really interesting," the man muttered smiling as he returned to the wagon.

Inside the cave was completely silent, only the faint whisper of echoes echoing off the stone walls. Its walls, floor, and ceiling were covered with thousands of runes, twisting into complex patterns like living creatures holding ancient secrets of magic. Several magical lamps hung along the ceiling, creating a play of light and shadow, giving the cave a special atmosphere.

Alexei and Saada, for the third day, had been working on a complex rune array. Thousands of runes were carefully inscribed on the walls of the cave, each of them carried a piece of magic and power.

Finally, the work was complete.

The hiding place they were in was known only to the two of them. Alexei had never allowed the thought of performing the ritual with the help of a pack of diamond dogs. He would be extremely vulnerable and defenseless during the ritual. Even though the dogs were loyal to him - he truly trusted no one.

In the center of the array, on the floor, was a black crystal, the size of an orange. This crystal was the quintessence of nightmares, and it was to be the basis of the ritual.

Alexei, warming up his muscles, checked the accuracy of the runes for the tenth time. He was sure he hadn't made a single mistake.

Tired from the hard work, Alexei sat down on the floor and leaned against the cool wall of the cave. The night was warm, though autumn was already taking hold. He tried to relax and calm his mind to be ready for the upcoming ritual.

Many scenes that he had experienced in this world flashed before his mind's eye.

Memories of the portal, meeting Imani, dueling, killing, and wild life in the forest. He remembered Canterlot and Luna, and now he was here in this cave. This could be his last day in this world, but Alexei wasn't going to back down. He couldn't betray himself and give up on his dream. All he had to do was keep moving forward.

Sighing, Alexei stood up and his eyes shone with determination.

"Ready?" Saada asked as she flew up to him.

The man only nodded in response and went to wake the unicorns. He slipped into their dreams several times, convincing them that they were still dreaming.

Soon this charade would be over.

After waking the unicorns, Alexei ordered them to take certain positions and start filling the runes with energy. The unicorns obeyed his order without hesitation. Slowly but surely, the runes began to absorb the magical energy emitted by the unicorns.

Suddenly, the unicorns' faces contorted in pain. They tried to break the connection, but to no avail. Their hooves stuck to the runes on the floor, and the array continued to absorb their life energy, flesh and blood. They twitched and screamed furiously, but nothing could free them from the array's deadly embrace.

Soon the five mummified bodies fell to the floor of the cave.

The runes of the array flashed for a moment and extinguished, as if taking a breath before finally awakening. Then the runes slowly began to light up one by one, approaching the black crystal in the center.

Alexei and Saada had set up the ritual so that it would only activate after a while.

He still had to break the contract and complete all the preparations. He couldn't go through the ritual while having a mental link to Saada. It could lead to unpredictable consequences for both of them.

"I, Alexei, offer the rest of my lifespan, according to the terms of the contract, and propose to complete it," Alexei said, looking at the zebra in front of him.

"I, Saada, agree to these terms," the zebra nodded, touching the man's chest with her hoof.

Two streams of ash burst from their bodies and intertwined in the air, disappearing into nothingness.

"Good, now it's done," Alexei muttered, looking at the zebra in front of him. He could still see her, even though the contract was over. The long bond had given him the ability to see Saada, but only her.

Suddenly the zebra disappeared from his sight and appeared already at another point in the array. Her hoof touched certain runes and they flashed, adding dozens more new symbols to the array.

Transparent chains burst from the runes and bound Alexei securely, depriving him of the ability to move. The man's pupils widened in surprise and he tried to break the chains, but they proved to be extremely strong and immovable.

In the silence of the cave, echoing off the walls was the joyous zebra's laughter.

"Heh heh heh, you don't even need to try," Saada grinned. "They're very strong, and you don't have any magic now."

The man looked up and stared fiercely at the zebra hovering in front of him. The man's teeth were clenched in anger and the muscles of his face twitched slightly, hiding the rage raging inside.

Saada had betrayed him!

"You're finally losing it!" the zebra chuckled, moving in close and watching the human's reaction. "First time I've seen such a storm of emotion on your blank face."

Alexei could barely contain his rage, but he would not allow himself to show weakness in front of this zebra who seemed to be enjoying his suffering. A glint flashed in his eyes as he asked the question that burned on his lips.

"Why?" the man asked in a low voice.

Saada couldn't hide her pleasure at the situation. Her smile grew even wider and her gaze became sharp and mocking.

"Oh, nothing personal," she replied, emphasizing each word. "It's been nice to spend time with you, but I need something from you."

"What do you want? More lifespan?" the excited man asked. "We can make a deal."

"No, no, I want your body," the zebra smiled, savoring the flash of fear in the human's eyes.

"I can get you the body of any unicorn you wish," the human began to bargain. "Why would you want my useless body?"

"You see, it's very difficult for ghosts to possess someone permanently because of the rejection of different energies," the zebra muttered thoughtfully, peering at the flaring runes approaching the crystal. "You, however, are a different story. You have nothing. All that's left is to destroy your mind and the perfect vessel is ready.

"I have to thank you. You did a great job gathering all the ingredients. All I have to do is make a few changes to the ritual."

The zebra's words pierced Alexei's heart. He felt the doom and hopelessness of his situation. A sad smile slipped across his lips, and he looked away, trying to hide his weakness.

But in the next moment, again seized by rage, he rushed forward, trying to break the chains that bound him. No matter how hard Alexei tried, however, nothing happened. The chains remained unshakable.

Saada's triumphant laughter echoed throughout the cave.

Chapter 14 - Loyalty

"So you planned this from the beginning?" the already calmed man asked.

"Of course," the zebra grinned, waiting for the ritual to activate. "You think fourteen years of your lifespan is enough to gain all my knowledge? Dream on."

The man nodded upon hearing this. There was no point in asking about the rest. He already understood how she'd pulled it all off.

Under the terms of the contract, she couldn't lie to him or hurt him. Zebra hadn't lied. The ritual worked exactly as she'd described it four years ago. He had personally verified it when he finished his training in rune inscription. On top of that, they had worked together to create the final version.

Then, while he was out of sight, she applied some additional runes modifying the ritual on top of the array. Zebra did not break any conditions, activating the runes after the contract was already complete.

The man could recall many recipes for rune inks that only manifested after an infusion of mental energy. She must have prepared the ink back in Canterlot while he was asleep.

The man sighed as he watched the flashing runes getting closer and closer to the center. The ritual would begin as soon as the runes touched the crystal.

"What do you feel?" the zebra asked suddenly. "Do you hate me? Despise me?"

The man looked at her and shook his head.

"No," he answered briefly. "I can understand why you did that."

Zebra scrutinized his face and finally nodded satisfied.

"That's exactly why I respect you," Saada said seriously.

Her attention turned to the runes flashing near the crystal. The ritual was about to begin.

"Farewell, Alexei," Saada smiled. "That was... really fun."

The man answered nothing, watching hopelessly as the last rune lit up. The crystal began to hum as the runes touched it.

Suddenly, a multitude of runes appeared on the surface of the crystal, and Saada was pulled inside the crystal.

The entire array flashed and went out. Then the runes began to light up again one by one, moving closer to the center. The countdown began anew. The ritual reset, and the additional runes left behind by the zebra disappeared.

The chains that had held Alexei down scattered into the air. Alexei stretched lazily, feeling a lightness in his body. He looked indifferently at the shocked Saada, trapped in the crystal like an insect in amber.

A slight smile slid across his lips, but he didn't say a word as he headed for the potion bags. He needed to prepare for the real ritual.

"Impossible!" Saada finally shouted. "I've been watching you the whole time! How did you do it?"

"Have you forgotten already?" the man shrugged. "Luna taught me that mind-splitting trick."

"Even if you hid your thoughts - I always kept an eye on surroundings," Saada didn't believe it. "Who helped you? Did you conspire with Luna?"

The man only smiled, continuing to rummage through his bags.

"Wait... something's wrong," the zebra muttered, quickly analyzing the last four years.

There had only been one brief period of time when she had been weakened by injuries and her attention had worsened - the battle with the nightmare in the surgery room.

The zebra's eyes widened with shock when a certain possibility crossed her mind.

"Motherfucker!" Saada roared, staring fiercely at the human. "You set yourself up for that attack on purpose!"

The human's grin grew even wider, confirming the zebra's suspicions.

The whole picture formed in Saada's mind. The human had set himself up for a nightmare attack and manipulated her, knowing she wouldn't want him to die until he paid everything on the contract. His desperate battle with the nightmare, his seeming weakness, it was all just part of the show the man had put on. Then, while she slumbered, he took advantage of her weakened vigilance and applied runes to the crystal.

The zebra could only stare fiercely at the human. She had already tried to break free - it didn't work. These crystals held nightmares easily, surely they would hold the ghost as well.

"How long have you been planning this?" Saada asked in a cold tone, thinking about the terms of the contract.

When they had made the contract - the man had fiercely defended the point that he would transfer the lifespan gradually. His demands had seemed reasonable then, but now she was growing suspicious.

"To kill you?" the man replied, drinking a few potions. "From the beginning. You know too much."

Saada frowned and was silent for a while, putting her mind in order. Now was not the time for anger. She needed to bargain for her life.

"We can make a contract for a hundred years," she finally suggested. "You'd get confidentiality and all the rest of my knowledge. I haven't told you about many secrets outside of alchemy. It's a good deal."

"A good deal indeed," Alexei smiled, looking at Saada. "But my plans have changed since I found out about the nightmares. I already have everything I need."

The zebra shuddered as the meaning of the man's words came to her.

Nightmares and ghosts were similar in essence - entities composed of mental energy. Zebra and the human had spent a lot of time together, and she fed off his lifespan - there was already a certain compatibility between them.

The human was going to use her as an ingredient to increase the chances of merging with the nightmare!

Saada wanted to say something several times, but stopped herself each time. She realized there was no point in bargaining, begging for mercy, or cursing. The man didn't care about any of that.

"How ironic," the zebra laughed sadly, finally giving up. "We are indeed alike. From the very beginning, we planned the betrayal."

"You're wrong," the human shook his head. "We were both loyal."

"What?" the zebra asked incomprehensibly, sometimes the human said strange things.

"Don't you know?" the human laughed, his laughter sounding shrill and cold, like a winter wind. "Loyalty to others is betrayal to oneself.

"Betraying others is loyalty to yourself."

Saada's pupils dilated with shock. What kind of logic is that? How could betrayal and loyalty be considered the same thing?

Looking at the man, her body began to tremble as she finally came to a realization. The scariest thing about the man was not his intelligence, cunning, or strength. The scariest thing about him was his mindset.

A demon. A true demon stood before her!

Looking at the shocked zebra, the man only grinned. He quickly threw off his clothes, then taking the knife in his hand, headed towards the center of the array.

Sitting down in a circle of runes in front of the crystal, the man began ruthlessly making cuts all over his body. Blood trickled down his skin, but he paid no attention to it. His non-magical nature was constantly getting him into trouble.

The runes began to approach the crystal and the man looked up, looking at the zebra.

Finally, the crystal rumbled. The black haze surrounding Saada released a multitude of tentacles that began to consume her. All this time, Saada did not utter a word, stubbornly looking into the man's eyes.

The entire array glowed and shook, and the cave was filled with a powerful overwhelming force. Columns of black smoke began to pour from the crystal, which, obeying the runes, moved towards the man. The smoke, finding the least resistance, penetrated the cuts on his body.

The man clenched his teeth, feeling a surging wave of pain tearing him from the inside out. The smoke seemed endless, relentless in its quest to fill all space.

With each passing second, the effect on the man's mind grew. He felt that his consciousness was on the verge of destruction. This smoke possessed a huge amount of mental energy, it was the energy that was causing this unbearable pressure.

But the man did not give up, he continued to endure. Soon, the smoke filled the entire cave and kept on coming. All this smoke, obeying the array of runes, was drawn into the man, as if trying to unite with his essence.

The man's head began dizzy as he approached his limit.

Finally, unable to bear it, he lost consciousness, sinking into a world of darkness and pain.

With his eyes wide open, Alexei gazed at the landscape that appeared before him.

He was standing on a plain, completely naked, surrounded by rolling hills, with huge mountains looming over him in the distance, and a lake not far away.

However, these views were strikingly different from the usual natural scenery. The entire land was covered in rotting flesh and organs, as if it was one large piece of decaying meat.

The hills protruding around it were a jelly of rotting meat and incomprehensible remains, creating a gloomy and disgusting sight. Huge bones stuck out of them, covered in mucus and rot. Their surface was covered with bumps and growths, as if they were afflicted with some disease.

Every movement, every step across these lands evoked a sense of abomination and the piercing odor of decay.

Not far away was a lake of blood and pus, gurgling with bubbles and emitting vile miasmas. Every wave that rolled onto its shores was like a cascade of rotting flesh. Bloody scraps and pieces of flesh floated on the surface, creating a gruesome sight.

The whole air, soaked with the disgusting odor of rot and decay, would make most people vomit from just one breath.

However, what struck Alexei was not the disgusting sight before him, but the amount of information coming at him with unexpected force.

He was sensing the world around him on a completely different level!

"This is... mental energy?" the man muttered. "So the ritual was successful? If I succeeded, where the fuck am I anyway? Are these the depths of the Dream World?

"Why am I here? Is it just my mind that got here, or did my physical body get here too?

"Could it be that I'm just hallucinating or have nightmares consumed me?

"Is all this real or not?"

Many thoughts went through his head as he tried to comprehend the new sensations. It was strange and unfamiliar. It was as if he had a sixth sense, opening up a world invisible to ordinary people.

Now he understood what the other creatures felt. He had been blind compared to them, but now everything was changed.

"All that's left is to figure out how to get out of here," Alexei chuckled, pushing the negative thoughts away.

He bent down to the ground and picked up something resembling intestines to look and listen to his new sensations.

"This isn't real flesh," he finally concluded, then shook his head. "No. It's real, but it's filled with mental energy instead of magical energy. What's even real and what isn't?"

He felt that his body was also filled with mental energy. Was this the result of the ritual or was it just his mind here? He couldn't figure it out.

Alexei concentrated and the dagger he used in nightmares appeared in his hand. The man looked at the dagger and it disappeared. All of this only added more questions.

Tossing the intestines away, the man rubbed his temples.

"There's no point in thinking about it," Alexei finally decided. "My past life could also have been an illusion, so what? All that matters is what I feel. Perhaps I don't have much time - I need to hurry."

He froze, immersed in his thoughts. Not knowing what to do next, he was left with only theories and guesses.

Suddenly, a loud slurping sound broke the surrounding silence. Alexei turned his head and his heart sank.

He had just had time to notice a semi-transparent thing crawling out from behind a mountain of flesh in the distance when his mind instantly collapsed.

He fell to his knees, laughing uncontrollably, and blood flowed from his eyes, nostrils, and ears. The next instant he vomited, but he could not close his eyes or take his sight away from this gigantic creature. The man couldn't even see it clearly - he could only see a translucent writhing mass.

The only thought left in his mind commanded his body and the man slapped himself violently across the face, breaking visual contact.

Falling to the ground, he immediately crawled away on all fours, hiding behind a pile of rotting innards.

"What the fuck is that?!" the man's mind screamed, filling his head with anxious thoughts.

Breathing heavily, Alexei was trying to get his mind in order when his gaze fell on the his hand. The man's pupils dilated as he examined his body and saw the signs of decay that covered his flesh.

"Calm down," the man ordered himself, biting his lip. "Perhaps this is all just a nightmare. I won't give them any food."

Every hair on his body perked up as a certain thought entered his mind.

Concentrating, Alexei began to listen to his senses. Finally, he breathed a sigh of relief - that thing paid no attention to him and was crawling away somewhere to the side.

Looking around carefully, the man calmed down a bit and began to think. He needed a plan that took into account all options. There was an urgent need to escape from this place.

"Mental energy," Alexei muttered, coming to a realization. "I need mental energy. Nightmare or reality, it doesn't matter. I can push myself out of here by getting enough of it.

"I can't really absorb mental energy like nightmares do, but I can force it into myself.

"It'll be enough to get me kicked out of here."

Looking at the rotting flesh around him, the man shook his head - it was clearly contaminated. He would go insane if he started eating it.

"Scavengers!" the man suddenly had an insight. "There definitely must be scavengers here."

Ducking low to the ground, Alexei began running from one hill of rotting meat to another, looking for scavengers.

Eventually, he spotted one strange creature with black tentacles digging through a pile of innards. He squinted, scrutinizing the tentacle and assessing its strength. He realized that he could handle this creature.

Creating a new dagger, Alexei lunged at the creature and severed the tentacle. Picking it up, he bounced back and began to eat it.

The owner of the tentacle hissed and jumped out. The creature was like a flattened jellyfish, about the size of a pony, with a shell and had many tentacles like an octopus.

Alexei continued chewing on the tentacle, looking at the strange creature with interest.

With a wave of its tentacles, the creature jumped at him.

Alexei snorted, ducked under it and slashed with his dagger, cutting the soft flesh in two. At this place, the only thing that matters was the amount of mental energy.

Without wasting a second, Alexei pounced on the creature, not giving it a chance to recover, and began gutting and greedily devouring it.

Soon he felt his body fill with energy. It didn't belong to him and was quickly leaving his body, but all he needed was an external push.

The world around him began to ripple as darkness enveloped his mind.

Alexei woke up and found himself lying on the cold stone floor. Listening to his senses, he felt a magical energy around him that filled the air. This was without a doubt the real world.

The man had no magical energy of his own - the ritual he had undertaken had only targeted mental energy. But now he could feel that energy just like all the other inhabitants of this strange world. From now on, the man could create potions and use a few spells on his own.

Rising from the floor and guided by his senses, Alexei walked over to one of the spare lamps and lit it. The bright light illuminated the cave, revealing the corroded walls and ceiling.

Alexei frowned at the sight and began to examine his body. There was nothing wrong with his body, he felt better than ever. Taking the knife, the man examined his face in the reflection of the blade.

All the wrinkles and gray hair were gone, he looked young and vigorous again, as if he was only twenty years old. By killing Saada and consuming her, he had regained seven years of life that she hadn't had time to digest. But that wasn't the point - the phoenix tears he used had rejuvenating properties, even if it was only a side effect of the ritual. Unfortunately, it could only be used once in a lifetime.

However, his musings were interrupted by a rumbling in his stomach and a sharp pain that made him crouch down. Suddenly, he was vomited out a mass of black tentacles that began wriggling on the floor of the cave. But in the next moment, they scattered in black smoke and disappeared.

Alexei quickly put a hand to his stomach, listening to his sensations. He breathed a sigh of relief - there were no more surprises in his body.

Glancing at the spot where the tentacles had just been, he shifted his gaze to the corroded walls of the cave. Alexei's eyes twitched, but he tried to remain calm.

"It's best not to think about it," he muttered in a tired voice. "Nothing surprises me anymore."

Alexei still had no idea what had actually happened to him. He assumed it was the depths of the Dream World, but whether he was there with just his mind or whether his physical body was also present, he didn't know.

Pushing aside all these pointless thoughts, Alexei concentrated and black smoke began to rise from his body, taking the shape of a man. It was his own nightmare. Alexei blinked at the new sensation - he was looking at himself through the eyes of a nightmare.

The man and the nightmare looked at each other and smiled in sync. After scrutinizing the nightmare once more, Alexei pulled the smoke back into his body. The nightmare was a part of himself, and he could easily manipulate it as if it were his own hand. The nightmare had no consciousness of its own, it was completely filled with the will of the man.

"Now for the final test," Alexei thought, looking around for a suitable object.

His gaze fell on a small stone lying on the floor of a cave in the distance. He reached out his hand as if trying to grab the stone.

The stone began to bounce on the ground and after a moment, threw straight into Alexei's hand.

A wide smile appeared on his face. Telekinesis was the primary ability of all beings based on mental energy, and now he too could utilize that power.

"I will find a good use for this ability," thought a happy Alexei. His mind was buzzing with the many possibilities that were now open to him.

However, the man shook his head, interrupting the flow of thoughts. First, he needed to leave this cave. The burst of energy he had created could attract unwanted attention. It was too dangerous to stay here.

Quickly dressing, gathering the necessities and destroying the evidence, Alexei left the cave.

He had barely taken three steps away from the cave when the air hit him in the face and two alicorns, Princesses Celestia and Luna, as well as all six Elements of Harmony, appeared in front of him with a flash of teleportation.

The man reacted instantly, reaching for his rune rib, but a golden light enveloped him and blocked his movements.

He tried to open his mouth, but the light squeezed it, preventing him from uttering a word.

"You don't have to," Celestia said in a cold tone. "We've had enough of you."

The looks cast at the human by the ponies were quite different. From Elements' puzzled looks to the anger glowing in Celestia's eyes. Luna's gaze was particularly complex - it reflected resentment, anger, concern, and understanding, all of these emotions intertwined with each other.

Celestia's horn flashed, and the man was stripped of his dagger, his rune rib, his potion bags, and all other items. Celestia snorted, examined the rib and soon it all burned in a flash of flame.

At that moment she teleported a furiously squeaking rat right in front of him.

"Is this abomination your work too?" Celestia asked, her voice sounding furious.

The man recognized her as Alice at a glance. She was supposed to stay in Canterlot, but apparently she had been discovered.

The rat was engulfed in fierce flames and instantly turned to ash. A startled squeak from a certain pegasus was heard behind.

All this time Luna looked at the human, but didn't utter a word.

"Stay here," Celestia ordered Elements while she and her sister headed into the cave.

All the while the man hovered in the golden light, trying to use his mental power. But all his efforts were in vain, it was as if he was struggling against an unstoppable wall. He couldn't even summon his nightmare.

After a few minutes, the alicorns returned and cast harsh glances at him.

"Use the Elements of Harmony," Celestia ordered without further ado.

The six ponies nodded, and light began to surround them.

The man's eyes widened with shock - he knew the power of the Elements. Was this really the end of him? He knew it was, but his mind remained calm.

"I tried my best," the man mentally sighed. "I have nothing to regret."

In the next moment, he was enveloped by a ray of light that penetrated the very depths of his being.

Consciousness floated in an empty space flooded with bright light. A multitude of questions tormented his mind.

"Who am I? Where am I?"

"I don't know."

"Does it matter?"

"I guess it doesn't? Otherwise I'd know, right?"

"Then what's important?"

The consciousness went into deep thought, trying to find some answers.

"Nothing is important."

"Then I'll invent what's important on my own."

"But what do I want?"

Consciousness looked around the empty space, which had nothing but light in it.

"I want to see interesting things."

"So I need to go on a path?"

"The path... Why do I feel it's important?"

The space around him began to fluctuate violently, but consciousness was immersed in its thoughts and didn't notice it.

"I think I was going somewhere... But where?"

"The path... I... I want to..."

There was a cracking sound as a rift appeared in the space in front of the consciousness. In that rift, it saw a small bipedal figure composed of black smoke that was being violently burned by the light.

The consciousness, without knowing why, rushed towards the figure and held it tightly against itself, protecting it from the light. Somehow this seemed important.

Everything around it began to crack and rip at the seams as the consciousness' thoughts cleared. Space collapsed in the same second.

"I want to live forever!" the burnt man roared, rising from the ground.

All the surrounding ponies were at a loss for words as they looked at the staggering man covered in burns. He was weak and barely on his feet, but his eyes were as blazing as ever.

Celestia squinted and imprisoned Alexei in the golden light again, holding him in place.

"Why didn't it work?" Twilight asked perplexed. "Why is he burned?"

"He's a creature from another world," Celestia replied, quickly realizing the situation. "The Elements of Harmony only bring things from our world into order. However, he is already tightly entwined with the energies of our world through his vile ritual. The Elements wanted to remove the nightmare, but they failed. Hence the burns."

Celestia frowned, scrutinizing the man staring steadily into her eyes.

Suddenly, Celestia felt a touch and turned, looking into Luna's eyes. It took Celestia a moment to realize that look, and she sighed. She understood what her sister was thinking. This man's path was very similar to Luna's. Luna saw him as herself and her redemption. If she could fix him, it would be good for her.

"Okay," Celestia thought, nodding to her sister. "If she wants to play with him so badly, let her play with him, but he stays in the dungeon."

"There is another option," Luna broke the silence. "The Tree of Harmony."

Celestia looked at her in surprise and thought for a moment. Indeed, that option could work. Finally, she nodded to Luna, agreeing with her decision.

"Then I'm off to the Tree," Luna said firmly. "We'll have to create a portal, a human cannot be teleported. Heal his wounds, sister."

Spreading her wings, Luna took off and began teleporting short distances time after time, heading in a certain direction with tremendous speed.

Celestia sighed as she looked her way. This was all getting too complicated.

Glancing disdainfully at the immobilized man, she was about to use a healing spell, but stopped when she noticed that he had already recovered on his own. With a snort, Celestia teleported shackles of shiny black metal covered in runes onto each of Alexei's limbs. A similar headband appeared on his head.

Taking the man out of sight, Celestia made herself comfortable, watching the arguing Elements.

After a while, Celestia felt a signal from Luna. She instantly stood up and lit her horn, emitting a bright light. In the air, she began to create intricate strokes that slowly morphed into a future portal. The small dot expanded until a full-fledged passage was formed. Beyond the portal, a picture opened up that Celestia had seen before - Luna was standing in front of a huge tree.

Celestia picked Alexei up and let the rest of the ponies pass ahead, then walked through the portal herself, which closed with a hiss, leaving them inside the cave.

It was a huge space filled with streams and waterfalls that made a melodious noise. In the center of the cave was a huge meadow covered in greenery, and above it towered the Tree of Harmony. Every branch and leaf was imbued with magic, radiating warmth and tranquility.

The eight ponies and Alexei, hovering in a telekinetic grip, quickly approached the Tree.

"What do we have to do?" asked Twilight. She still didn't fully understand what was going on, but she trusted her mentor.

"You already have a connection to the Tree of Harmony," Celestia said, addressing the Elements. "All you have to do is wish."

"Wish for it to help a human," Luna added, looking at the Tree thoughtfully.

The Elements looked amongst themselves and approached the Tree. Closing their eyes, they focused on their wishes. Suddenly, the tiara and the five amulets shone brightly and soared into the air, hanging on the branches like fruits.

However, nothing happened. The Elements looked at the princesses in bewilderment, waiting for an explanation. But suddenly there was a rumbling sound. Thin vines burst out of the ground and began to rapidly approach Alexei. They embraced his body and dragged him somewhere deep into the Tree.

Alexei fiercely resisted, but the shackles that still encompassed his limbs suppressed all his new abilities. He gritted his teeth, feeling something trying to invade his mind. Blood streamed from his nose as he struggled hard against the Tree.

But the forces were not equal. Everything began to blur in front of Alexei's eyes as he fell into darkness, enveloped by the giant roots of the Tree.

The man found himself standing barefoot on a path of stones in front of a huge tree in a small meadow. Aside from the meadow and the path, there was nothing but bare ground.

The man frowned at the Tree in front of him. For the first time since arriving in this world, he was actually angry at something. This was the second time this thing had messed with his head.

Closing his eyes, the man inhaled and exhaled, calming his mind. When he opened his eyes, his indifferent gaze settled on the Tree in front of him.

However, something had changed - there was a pale blue sphere floating in front of the Tree, with streams of energy bursting out of it. The man raised an eyebrow, feeling the Tree's mind connect with his own.

What surprised him even more was the Tree's offer - it was willing to provide him with a soul and magical power along with it. The Tree demanded nothing in return.

The man looked at the Tree with disdain. By accepting this soul, he would lose his freedom and become obedient to the rules of Harmony. He didn't even want to imagine what this Harmony would do to his personality if he merged with this soul.

Hearing a sound behind him, the man turned around and saw the ground swallowing up the path as if it had never existed.

"Strange," the man thought, not understanding the Tree's actions.

The land around him seemed endless. The presence or absence of the stone path made no difference.

The man examined the land around him and, finding nothing strange, stepped off the path.

Suddenly his foot fell through the mud and the man cried out in pain as his flesh was torn by the thorns hidden at the bottom. Not only did they cause physical pain, but they attacked the man's mind as if tearing it to pieces. Even for him, who was used to severe hardships, it was something unimaginable.

The path continued to disappear behind him, as if pushing him towards the Tree. The man felt the pressure building on his mind from this mysterious and powerful tree. He resisted this pressure with all his being, but it grew stronger and stronger.

"Forcing me?" the man said contemptuously, glaring at the Tree, and then he laughed.

Gritting his teeth, the man stepped off the path and began to walk through the mud, moving away from the Tree. Each step attacked his mind with waves of pain, but he endured and persevered, continuing forward.

All he saw in front of him was an endless swamp of mud with no end in sight. Such a scenery brought on hopelessness. There was nothing but despair and pain ahead.

The man only snorted at the thought of it. Tree was deeply mistaken if it thought it could surprise him with just that.

Ever since his arrival in this world, he had been in constant despair and pain. Nothing had changed even now. It was hard to go his own path.

Clearing his mind of unnecessary thoughts, the man concentrated on one thing - to keep going. And so he walked, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

Seconds. Minutes. Hours. The man began to lose track of time, but he kept going.

He had already realized that this was going to be a battle of endurance between him and the Tree. After moving a fair distance away from the Tree, he was already trying to stop and take a break. However, as soon as he stopped, the mud began to pull him down like a swamp, unwilling to let him go.

He couldn't stop. His mental abilities were blocked by the Tree. All he could do was keep going.

For a moment the man frowned, sensing the change. A mist was rapidly forming around him, soon swallowing him whole.

"Wake up, please wake up," some female voice wailed pitifully, bringing the man back to consciousness.

The pain in his head forced him to open his eyes and an incredible sight appeared before him - a purple unicorn.

The creature's eyes widened with joy and it jumped up, hugging the man who was lying on the bed.

The man froze in shock, contemplating the situation. The hug was certainly nice, but this was a freaking talking unicorn! What the hell was going on in this world?

"Wait. Where am I anyway?" the man thought confusedly. "What's my name?"

The man pulled the unicorn away from him and examined the creature closely. It didn't look like a costume. A real unicorn indeed. A talking one, also purple in color. How strange.

"Who are you?" the man muttered, looking perplexedly into the unicorn's face.

It seemed to be the wrong question. Tears came to the creature's eyes and it ran out of the room, nearly knocking the orange pony at the door.

Sighing, the pony walked over to the man and began her story. Her name was Applejack, and she told him the incredible news.

His name was Victor, and two years ago he had come to this world by pure accident. Twilight, the same one who had just run away, was his girlfriend. The man fell into a stupor, trying to comprehend all these events and his personal life.

Next, the orange pony gave out even stranger information. The man was one of the Elements of Harmony, the Element of Determination. According to Applejack, he was the strongest of all the Elements.

But the most shocking news was that a chaos god named Discord had broken free and taken over Equestria, the land where the ponies lived. It was in a past fight with him that the man had been injured and lost his memory.

Applejack continued to give him all the details until she finally left him to rest. Exhausted by all this information, the man fell asleep.

His body recovered from his injuries for three days, with Twilight by his side, caring for him.

As time passed, the man's memory really began to come back to him. He remembered everything Applejack had said.

He remembered his feelings for Twilight, their first kiss, and how sweetly embarrassed she was when he showed his feelings. The only thing that remained a blur was his past life before arriving in Equestria.

But did that matter now? Saving Equestria was his main goal, and he was determined to do it.

Once the man recovered, despite Twilight's protests, he began to train hard to regain his strength.

The Element of Determination really suited him. As long as he had enough determination, he could ignore even death and keep moving forward. His physical abilities surpassed his wildest fantasies. He felt like a superhero, and together with his friends, they were invincible. But their opponent, Discord, was also incredibly strong.

Responding to his determination, his friends also began to train with him.

After regaining their strength, they once again engaged in battle against the forces of Chaos. The battles went on for months, then years - the god of Chaos had many minions - but the man was not discouraged. Each difficulty only strengthened his determination. He grew stronger and stronger.

Finally, the Elements of Harmony faced the god of Chaos himself in Canterlot.

The entire city was shaking from this epic battle. If it wasn't for the man - the Elements would have lost long ago. He shared his endless determination with all his friends, increasing their strength.

The Lord of Chaos had infinite power, but the man's infinite determination was not inferior in the slightest!

The battle continued throughout the day, and finally, at sunset, the Elements of Harmony gained victory and destroyed the malevolent spirit of Chaos forever.

The entire city erupted in joy and admiration, singing of the heroes who had saved Equestria from Discord.

Princesses Celestia and Luna, realizing their overwhelming fatigue and desire to enjoy peace, decided to pass the crown to a new worthy ruler, Twilight.

They planned the wedding of Twilight and Victor, who was now to become the Prince of Equestria.

At this moment, the man stood on the balcony of the royal bedroom, his eyes fixed on the singing crowd gathered below. The man could hear the cheers and songs addressed to him, but in the back of his mind he felt a kind of dissatisfaction.

"We're getting married tomorrow, dear," Twilight said lovingly, hugging him from behind. "Are you happy? I'm definitely happy!"

"Yeah, I guess so," the man mumbled thoughtfully, his gaze still fixed intently on the crowd.

"Hey! What's with the uncertainty?" laughed Twilight, but turned serious when she saw the look in the man's eyes. "Is something wrong?"

"It's just all this..." the man frowned, mulling over his feelings. "No, nothing."

"You can tell me," Twilight replied, stroking his shoulder affectionately.

The man didn't answer, sinking into deep thought as Twilight waited patiently for her lover's words.

"I feel empty inside," he finally said.

"Emptiness? What do you mean?" Twilight wondered sincerely. "Look how much everyone loves you!"

"Love me?" the man laughed, but his gaze turned cold. "They love my power, status, and wealth. They love a convenient hero who will solve all their problems instead of them."

"Honey? Are you all right?" Twilight asked with a shudder. "Your words worry me a little."

The man turned his head and looked at her seriously.

Swallowing, Twilight started to stare back, his gaze worrying her.

But the man ignored it and continued to gaze into her face. He really did love her, but something was keeping him off balance.

The man remembered all the time he had spent in this world and his face frowned even more.

"What am I doing here?" the man asked, looking over his royal robes. "What have I even been doing all this time?"

He looked at the crowd, his gaze filled with despise.

"Was it all just for this?" the man asked perplexed, turning to a terrified Twilight.

In that moment, the whole world collapsed.

"Go on. Just go," Twilight said, unlocking the dungeon. "Leave Equestria and don't come back. Settle down somewhere, have a family, and live happily ever after. Don't try to get revenge. You're no match for her."

"You know I can't just move on," the man growled. "Not after everything she's done to me!"

Twilight sighed and held out a backpack to him.

"I kept all your things as you asked," she said in a calm voice. "There's only so much I can do. The choice is yours."

Alexei picked up the backpack and looked inside. His eyes sparkled when he saw the revolver. Checking the drum, he found three rounds in it.

The man's lips curled into a smirk. This revolver had been his faithful companion since the beginning of his adventures in this world, and no one still knew its secret.

He had been dragged into this world by the local Chaos god, Discord. He also fell at the hands of a man.

This revolver could kill a god. Wasn't it capable of killing some alicorn?

"Go," Twilight repeated tiredly. "There's a wagon waiting for you outside, they'll take you out of the city."

"Thank you," Alexei replied sincerely, looking at the unicorn in front of him.

Alexei followed Twilight's instructions and left Canterlot.

All the while, he was replaying the memories of the past five years in his head, fueling the hatred in his heart.

Upon arriving in this world, he encountered Discord, who decided to play with him. Alexei killed him.

After wandering through the forest, he finally stumbled upon Ponyville. He expected the worst, but he was warmly welcomed. He stayed with Twilight and told her that he was from another world. She promised to find a way to bring the man back to his family. Alexei felt hope, but everything changed when Princess Celestia learned of his existence.

Feeling threatened, she threw him into the dungeon. They were never able to get inside his mind, so they used more down-to-earth methods - torture.

Celestia firmly believed that Alexei was an alien spy and that his people would soon attack Equestria. With all her might she tried to get this information out of Alexei. She refused to admit that he didn't know anything. She only called him a liar and the torture continued.

He spent over four years in the dungeon until Twilight took the opportunity of the princess' absence and freed him.

He craved revenge on Celestia, and realized that to do so he would need not only a revolver, but allies and powerful artifacts.

And so his dangerous game began. Alexei gathered and united those disgruntled with Celestia, eliminating anyone who stood in his way. Mountains of corpses were left behind him, but he paid no attention to it, continuing his path forward.

He and his supporters went in search of ancient ruins where they hoped to find artifacts and weapons. It was there that he met a unicorn named Luminous Nova. Luminous was one of the archaeologists involved in the exploration of the temple they had entered.

It could have ended in bloodshed, but thanks to Luminous they were able to avoid that.

Was it love at first sight? Of course it wasn't.

They met at a few more excavations and gradually grew closer.

Luminous won his heart with her kindness and understanding. They spent more and more time together, even though Alexei had to hide his other life from her.

Sometimes doubts flashed through his mind, and he considered giving up on revenge and just being with Luminous.

But he chased those thoughts away - he couldn't forgive Celestia.

Why couldn't he have everything? He was going to kill Celestia and finally be happy with Luminous.

That's exactly how it was going to be!

Alexei continued to gather supporters, and finally he was ready. Of course, Luminous didn't know about his plans.

Having invaded Canterlot, Alexei and his companions infiltrated the palace, starting a real massacre on the way to the main hall. However, Alexei barely participated in this bloody battle, conserving his strength - he had the most important role.

He had spent one bullet in all these years, and now he only had two left. He only had the right to make one mistake.

Bursting into the throne room, a squad of guards appeared in front of them, holding up a powerful shield. Behind the guards stood Twilight, looking sadly at Alexei. And sitting on the throne was Celestia herself, eyeing him contemptuously.

"A futile attempt," Celestia said indifferently, rising from her throne and stepping forward.

Alexei smirked, the princess was arrogant and he had expected just such a reaction. From his pocket he pulled out a worn crystal sphere covered in patterns and smashed it on the floor.

Instantly, an invisible force enveloped the entire hall. The unicorns' shield collapsed, and no one in the palace could move or even turn their head.

Alexei, however, could move freely. He was not a magical being, and it was magic that this artifact attacked. He had a limited amount of time, but those five minutes were quite enough.

"Let's see if you can dodge it now," Alexei smiled coldly as he took out his revolver.

Celestia frowned upon seeing the revolver. This thing was giving her an unsettling feeling.

Suddenly her eyes widened as she noticed a familiar figure hidden under the hood.

"So you've dragged my daughter into your revenge as well," Celestia laughed sadly. "I admit, I didn't expect that."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Alexei asked perplexed, following her gaze.

As he approached the figure, he ripped off her hood and was stunned. Standing before him was his beloved, Luminous Nova.

"I wanted to find out what you were hiding, so I followed you," Luminous replied, averting her gaze. "Forgive me."

"Are you really Celestia's daughter?" the man asked calmly, his voice sounding tired but a storm of emotions raging inside him.

"Yes," Luminous replied briefly, looking up. "I just didn't know how to tell you this."

Disappointment and pain flashed in the man's eyes.

"So you've been toying with me all this time?" the man asked coldly. "Your feelings for me are just fake?"

"No!" Luminous screamed, and her eyes filled with tears. "I love you!

I knew nothing of the enmity between you and my mother!

"I was afraid to tell you who my mother was because I thought you would treat me differently!"

The man gazed intently into her eyes, trying to discern the truth of her words. He was experienced enough, able to recognize a lie, and there was sincerity in her voice.

Luminous really did love him.

"I was wrong about you," came Celestia's voice from behind him. "I admit my mistake and sincerely apologize.

"I will not harm my daughter's lover.

"Let's make a fresh start."

"Don't believe her!" his fellows shouted. "Kill that vile bitch!"

The man's face frowned at those words. He hadn't forgotten that they had all suffered at the hands of Celestia as well as himself. That was why they had followed him. Together they had become loyal companions, united by a common desire to avenge their pain and suffering.

Hearing a sob, the man turned and looked into the pleading eyes of Luminous.

If he killed her mother - it would be over between them. How could he kill her mother?

But how could he not kill her? It was Celestia who was the source of his pain and the suffering of his companions. He would never get that chance again.

"Kill her!" his fellows chanted, looking hopefully at the man.

Luminous was crying, and Twilight was looking at the man tensely.

The man felt dizzy.

Love and hate, selfishness and duty, all these feelings mixed in his mind, tearing him apart. He felt the pain in his heart as the opposites collided within him and tore him apart with contradictions.

"Please stop," Luminous pleaded.

"Kill Celestia!" the crowd chanted. "Why are you hesitating?"

Time was running out. The man had a decision to make. But which one? He was on the verge of madness.

Suddenly, all the struggle and indecision vanished from the man's face. He looked around at everyone and laughed.

"What's so funny?" frowned Celestia.

Had the man lost his mind under the pressure of the situation?

The man didn't answer. Pulling the trigger, he shot Twilight in the head, another shot and Luminous collapsed to the floor.

There was dead silence in the throne room.

"Love and hate, friendship and enmity," the man said, looking at Celestia mockingly. "It's all so boring, don't you think?"

The whole world has collapsed.

"What's on your mind, Andrei?" the mare asked affectionately, stroking the man's palm.

The man blinked as he looked at the mare in front of him, with whom they were sitting at a table in the cafe.

A smile slid across his lips as he reached out his hands and began to caress the mare's cheeks, which purred with pleasure.

"My name is Alexei," the man said coldly as he snapped her neck.

There was momentary silence in the café, and then the ponies leapt from their seats in horror and scattered with shrieks.

"What this time? A romantic comedy?" Alexei grinned, glancing around the holiday Canterlot. "I don't like that genre."

He concentrated and tensed, feeling the power surging through his body. Soon his familiar dagger appeared in his hand, flashing. Alexei laughed and dashed after the fleeing ponies, unleashing chaos and death in his path.

Every time the Tree touched his mind - the man touched the Tree's mind. Over time, his restraints loosened.

With a sweep of his dagger, Alexei grabbed and killed a unicorn that ran past. The man's eyes glittered with cruelty and indifference.

Soon there were only corpses around.

Alexei marched through the streets of Canterlot, destroying everything in his path. He killed everyone indiscriminately, ignoring their pleas for mercy.

At one point he found himself in the middle of a lake of blood in the main square of the city, littered with corpses. After finishing off the last survivor, he turned his gaze to the mountain of corpses, from which black smoke began to ooze.

A wide smile appeared on Alexei's face as he felt the familiar sensation of world collapse.

The next second, he stepped out of the fog, finding himself on a familiar plain of gray mud. The fog dissipated quickly, and soon disappeared.

Alexei rubbed his temples - all the memories from the illusions hit his mind at once. He had lived decades of false lives, but now he was free of them.

Turning back around, Alexei saw a trail of his blood begin to erode the mud.

A slight smile appeared on his face as he looked at the giant tree that had reappeared in front of him. The Tree was trying to change his personality, fix him and win him over to its side, throwing him into all these fake lives.

"No matter how many times you try, it won't work," Alexei said mockingly. "I have lived and will continue to live according to my true feelings.

"I am true to my nature.

"I am a true person."

Thunder rumbled in the sky and the tree branches swayed.

"Are you mad?" Alexei asked with a smile.

The eight shocked ponies looked at what was happening in front of them with horror and bewilderment.

Luna, skilled in dream magic, had created a powerful screen that gave them access to the inside of Tree's mind. They could see everything that was happening to the human inside.

Suddenly, the branches of the Tree trembled, a shrill screech was heard, and black smoke poured from beneath its roots. Several roots twisted and threw the man outward, as if spitting out something vile and disgusting.

Eight pairs of eyes turned, watching the rising man.

He staggered, but still managed to get to his feet. His eyes showed defiance as he took a few steps toward the alicorns. He felt no fear of them. What could they do to him? Kill him?

The alicorns flinched and spread their wings, their horns blazing with magical energy.

However, in the next moment, the man collapsed to the ground unconscious. He had already surpassed his limits several times today. It was truly a crazy day for him.

Celestia relaxed and looked at her sister. Seeing the expression on Luna's face, Celestia sighed. Even after seeing all of this - Luna still wanted to fix him.

"Just another headache I don't need," Celestia thought gloomily.

Meanwhile, deep beneath Canterlot, a small crack appeared on Discord's statue, from which a small copy of the Chaos spirit crawled out. The crack instantly closed.

"Well, at last," Discord grinned, looking in a certain direction.

He looked at his statue, covered in chains, and sighed. His main body was still sealed, but it wouldn't be for long.

With a wave of his claws, transparent symbols appeared in the air and swiftly flew towards the runes on the wall. Soon, a small passage between the protective runes appeared. With a flick of his claws, Discord turned into gray smoke and dove into this passage.

The passage slowly disappeared and the dungeon fell back into silence.

Chapter 15 - Insignificant characters

"What has become of you, Alexei?" murmured Luna, looking through the window in the dungeon door.

She observed a man dressed in a simple linen shirt and stained pants. The man's overgrown hair and beard were messed up, giving him a wild appearance. Runic shackles were attached to his arms and legs, and a runic headband gleamed on his forehead.

The man was sitting on the stone floor of the dungeon, spreading bread crumbs in front of him in a strange order that only he could understand. Several rats ran around him, trying to grab the bread crumbs, but he drove them away by flicking them on the nose.

Hearing the princess' words, the man perked up and looked up at her.

"Alexei? There he is running around down there," the man said cheerfully, pointing to a particular rat. "Catch him and he'll tell you everything."

Seeing that there was no response from the princess, the man jumped up on all fours and began chasing the rat all over the dungeon.

Finally, he caught it and with a wide smile, he brought the squeaking rat towards the princess. The rat bit and gnawed furiously at the man's fingers, but he didn't seem to mind it.

"Alexei is you," Luna spoke in a tired voice.

"Yes, I'm Alexei," the man agreed easily and immediately lost interest in the conversation.

Stepping aside, he stared at a certain section of the wall for a while. The rat, taking advantage of his distraction, broke free of his grip and ran deep into the chamber.

The man ran his fingers gently along the wall, and then anger flashed across his face and he began to scratch furiously at the wall with his fingernails. Soon his nails came off and he continued to wipe his fingers against the wall, leaving bloody marks.

Luna sighed and turned away from the window, heading towards the exit of the dungeon.

Several times they tried to bind the man, but it only made him worse. Thanks to his regeneration, he couldn't do permanent damage to himself, though he tried.

The man had been in this state for six months now. His mind could not stand the challenge and he went insane.

After the ritual he underwent that gave him mental energy, his mind became vulnerable to being invaded by spells. Luna entered his mind several times, but only chaos reigned there. The man still had no soul, so Luna could not look into his memories.

All this time she tried to find a way to help him, but to no avail. With ponies and other intelligent creatures in this world, the cause of insanity usually lay in the soul. But what about a man without a soul?

Somewhere in the back of his mind still lurked a nightmare, but she couldn't push his mind too hard in fear that it would completely break down.

She had made little progress on the problem in these six months, but she wasn't giving up. She wanted to heal the man. Then give him a good kicking and ask him a lot of questions.

Nodding to the bowing guards, Luna stepped outside and teleported into the castle, heading straight for Celestia's room.

Celestia sighed as she saw her sister enter - she already knew what the conversation would be about.

"Alexei can't stay in the dungeon any longer," Luna said, looking Celestia in the eye. "He needs to be transferred to a mental hospital."

"No," Celestia flatly refused. "I've already made concessions to you, removed his chains and moved him to a more comfortable cell. The man will remain in the dungeon, end of story."

"But why?" asked Luna incomprehensibly. "He has lost his mind, and the shackles completely block his abilities."

"I still suspect he's faking it," Celestia replied with a frown. "I'm not going to risk my ponies sending him to the hospital. He's already been seen by a psychiatrist, hasn't he?"

"He's not faking it," Luna shook her head. "You've read the reports from the guards, haven't you? How could such a proud man, sink to such a thing?"

Celestia grimaced, remembering some of the reports. Indeed, the man had not an ounce of dignity left.

Celestia remembered that look filled with defiance that he had thrown at her at the Tree of Harmony. Such a proud and arrogant man could not be so degrading. He had definitely lost his mind. That was why she had made some concessions, but she wasn't going to take any chances.

"No," Celestia refused again. "He'll stay in the dungeon. There's no point in moving him to the hospital. Besides, he won't have his little friends there with him."

Luna frowned when she heard that - Celestia was talking about rats. The human really liked messing around with them.

Originally, Luna was going to order them all to be captured and their burrows patched up, but then she changed her mind. The man became more and more restless when the rats started disappearing. He already had few positive things in his life, Luna didn't want to deprive him of his last joy.

Luna was about to say something, but stopped herself. She understood her sister's fears.

They had learned some truly frightening things from the memory of the diamond dogs. But she could also understand the human. She too had done some equally horrible things in her time.

She even felt a certain envy. Unlike her, Alexei had nothing, but he still succeeded.

And yet he had such a sad ending for him.

Sighing, Luna said goodbye to her sister and headed to her chambers where she continued her research.

"Dinner time, fucker," came a gruff voice from behind the massive wooden door as three unicorns entered the chamber.

The man sitting on the cold stone floor looked up and froze in surprise for a moment, as if he didn't recognize any of them.

"Come on, get him up," the unicorn smiled, nodding to the other guard.

A magical aura enveloped the man's wrists, lifting his arms to the ceiling and holding them in the air. Then another aura easily removed the shirt over his head and tossed it aside.

With a crunch of its neck, the unicorn approached the man and swung a hoof into his stomach, knocking the air out of him. A series of swift blows to his sides followed, leaving a trail of hoof prints on the man's torso.

Despite the pain, the man chuckled and dangled in the grip as if enjoying it.

"Ugh, really relaxing," the sweating unicorn smiled and looked at the human. "And what would we do without you?"

"Played out?" the second guard joined the conversation. "Let's get him up against the wall. I want to test out a new spell."

"Maybe take his pants off?" the third guard asked uncertainly. "It heals like a dog on him, but it'll be bad if it leaves marks on his clothes."

"Don't," the unicorn waved it off lazily. "I'm sharp, and besides, I don't want to see his bare butt."

"I would," the first unicorn muttered quietly.

But his words were heard by all. The other two unicorns stared at him in disgust.

"Don't even fucking think about it," the second guard looked at him sternly. "He's self-injuring and doesn't react in any way to the pain, but no sexual assault. If something clicks in his head because of this and Luna finds out about it, we're all fucked."

"I fucking get it," the first unicorn blurted out. "We've already agreed on all of this. You think I'm stupid?"

"I think you're a horny motherfucker turned exotic," the second unicorn replied with a challenging look in his eyes. "So keep your junk to yourself."

The first guard gritted his teeth in response, but looked away after a few moments.

"Finished measuring dicks?" the third guard asked, pulling the man back against the wall. "Let's make this quick. I want to finish reading the article."

The second unicorn snorted and lit his horn.

Soon several lightning spheres appeared in front of him and instantly flew towards the man. There was a hissing sound and the smell of burning flesh, and the man's body twitched from the electrical shock.

"Ooooh," the man exclaimed in surprise as he looked at the smoke rising from his burnt flesh.

"Not bad," the unicorn muttered. "He has no magical energy, but his resistance to magic is still impressive."

"He has mental energy," the third guard said lazily. "It, just like magical energy, can resist the effects of other's energy. What did you even learn in school?"

"I know," the second unicorn snarled. "Just surprised."

"Are we done?" the first guard asked, looking at his companions. "I'm thirsty."

The third unicorn glanced at the second and received an affirmative nod. He let go of the man, who collapsed to the floor in surprise.

"Here's your lunch," the first unicorn snorted, tossing the plate of food onto the dirty stone floor.

The three unicorns then turned and walked out of the cell, closing the massive door behind them.

They peered through the window and saw rats scurrying around the man, beginning to bite off the burnt flesh. The man didn't mind, as if this was a regular occurrence for him.

The unicorns grimaced at the sight. They had seen the man feed his flesh and blood to these rodents several times before.

"Fucking lunatic," the third unicorn shook his head and headed for the guard room.

The other two unicorns nodded in agreement and followed him.

"Twilight, I'm going to bed," Spike said, looking sadly at the purple unicorn with the disheveled mane. "Maybe you'll finish reading tomorrow already?"

He didn't understand what was going on with Twilight lately. She used to love learning and exploring magic, but now it was as if she had become obsessed with books.

"I'll be there soon," Twilight smiled tiredly, looking away from the page she had just been reading. "Good night, Spike."

Spike went upstairs and headed for his bed. His thoughts were filled with worry. Wrapped in the blanket, he stared at the ceiling for a long time before sleep finally overcame him.

Time passed quickly, and deep night engulfed the Golden Oak Library.

The entrance to the library was in the trunk of a tree, but the Golden Oak was an unusual tree. Its trunk and branches formed an ornate system of corridors and rooms, like a labyrinth where each turn revealed new book treasures.

The bookshelves, stacked with volumes on a variety of subjects, seemed to come alive in the darkness, opening their pages to those who were ready to immerse themselves in the world of knowledge. The subdued light of the moon shone through the windows, creating a play of light and shadow on the polished oak floor.

The scent of antiquity and magic hung in the air like the breath of the library itself.

Twilight sat at the desk, surrounded by the stacks of books she had already gone through. She gazed intently at each page, as if hoping that the answers to her questions would appear before her like magic.

But so far it was all in vain.

As she finished reading another book, Twilight looked at it with a blank stare. Anger flashed in her eyes, and she flung the book off the table. Her sides bulged with frequent breathing.

"There's nothing," Twilight muttered doomily. "Why is there nothing!"

The events at the Tree of Harmony had changed her life forever.

The words of the man she heard that day never left her mind.

"I want to live forever!"

That cry echoed in her mind, making her seriously think about death.

She hadn't thought about it before, immersed in her studies, in all the silly worries and trying to earn her teacher's recognition.

Twilight knew that with magic power like hers, she would live a long time. Perhaps even a few centuries.

She remembered the story of her nanny, Cadence, becoming an alicorn. It was something incredible, as if fate had chosen her for it.

Alicorns were eternally young beings, capable of living for a very long time.

Twilight suspected that with her power and the mark of Magic itself, she had a good chance of becoming an alicorn. The prophecy about Nightmare Moon, her training with Princess Celestia, and her teacher's reticence all added more suspicion.

However, the thought made her uneasy. What would happen to her family, to Spike and her friends?

Even if she didn't become an alicorn - she would outlive all her loved ones.

She didn't want that to happen. She wanted them to stay with her. Forever.

Twilight studied every source of information available to her, but nowhere could she find an answer to her question. No clues, no guidance.

"What should I do?" thought Twilight, feeling herself sinking into a swamp of gloomy thoughts.

A certain scene she had seen at the Tree of Harmony came into her mind.

A man walking through a swamp of despair and pain, with no hope of escape, but still continuing on his way. It seemed he could keep going forever.

Twilight despised the man, and felt nothing but disgust and horror for him. After hearing his brief history, she was at a loss for words - a heartless monster, no different. She knew that the worst things had been kept from her, but that was enough for her.

Still, she couldn't help but feel a certain admiration. She was ashamed to admit it - how could one admire such a monster, and yet she did.

His perseverance and fortitude had made a lasting impression on her. Now she was constantly comparing herself to him.

He had nothing and yet he had accomplished the impossible time after time.

Twilight thought back to her life and chuckled bitterly. Everyone idolized her as a genius and even she herself believed it. However, everyone had forgotten how much of that was due to luck.

Rich noble parents, the fate mark of Magic itself, the best school for unicorns, learning from Princess Celestia.

How many of her successes were truly her own?

"It doesn't matter," Twilight shook her head. "I've run into one difficulty and I'm already on the verge of despair. That's the difference between us."

Twilight felt disgusted with herself at that moment.

The man kept going forward no matter what. Why couldn't she as well?

Why couldn't all her loved ones be with her forever? Why couldn't they all be happy together?

Because it's against the laws of nature and Harmony itself? Because it doesn't allow it, I can't do it?

Twilight frowned harder and harder as she pondered these limitations. Images of those she cared for flashed before her eyes.

She hadn't even asked their opinion yet, too afraid of the answer. It was all just her selfish desire. And yet...

"What am I willing to do for my desires?" Twilight thought, plunging into the depths of her mind.

She didn't like some of the answers she found.

Night shrouded Canterlot in its darkness, and dawn was only hours away.

A man sat in the center of his chamber, head bowed and staring at one point, muttering to himself.

A rat slipped out of a small gap in the wall, which was not surprising, for there were many of them here. However, there was something strange about the rat. It was holding a vial of mysterious liquid in its paws. It was followed by another rat, also carrying a vial. Then another. And another.

After glancing around their surroundings, they ran up to the seated man, who idly stretched his legs out in front of him. Several rats jumped on top of his head and began climbing all over him. The man paid no attention to this and continued to mutter to himself.

The little rodents ripped out the plugs with their teeth and began pouring the contents of the vials onto the shackles that bound the man's legs. The rats on his head did the same with the headband. The metal began to sizzle and melt under the influence of the unknown liquid, and drops of acid fell on the man's flesh, causing burns. But the man remained indifferent to what was happening.

Soon the shackles and hoop fell to the floor, and the sound was absorbed by the straw on the floor.

The man stood still for a moment, stopped muttering, and listened to the sounds around him.

Then he placed his hand on the floor and slammed his knee down on it with force, dislocating his thumb. The blocking obstacle disappeared and he easily removed the shackles. Putting the thumb back in place, the man repeated the same with the other hand.

All traces of madness vanished from his face, replaced by his usual expression of indifference.

Rising from the floor, he went to the door and tapped quietly with his finger. A muffled squeak and the scratching of claws on wood came from outside. A few moments later there was the sound of a key turning.

The man pushed open the door and stepped out into the hallway. On the other side of the door, several rats were hanging on the key, trying to climb down.

Alexei smiled as he watched this amusing sight.

He had been feeding these rats his flesh and blood, now filled with mental energy and nightmare fragments, for months. Many of them showed no change, others lost their minds, but some were able to adapt and their intelligence improved. It took a few more months to train them.

They were now his loyal assistants, stealing potions from alchemy shops from all over the city.

Unlike Alice, these rats showed no signs of insanity. They gathered around the man, squeaking and jumping, happy for his freedom.

"Time to leave this place," the man smiled, glancing at the chamber behind him. "I've had enough of this crazy man role."

He headed for the exit, taking his small pack of rats with him.

Meanwhile, a few yawning unicorns sat around the table trying to kill time.

"Should I make some more coffee?" a unicorn muttered thoughtfully, swinging a cup on the table.

"Make me some too," the other unicorn perked up, taking a break from his journal. "I still have to go to the clerk's office after my shift."

"When are thestrals going to take over the night shifts already?" a third unicorn asked unhappily.

"They're still integrating," the unicorn replied, picking up cups and getting up from the table. "Not everyone is happy about it.

"What do you think, brainy?"

"I don't care," the unicorn with the magazine replied indifferently. "If it gets rid of my night shifts, I'm all for it."

Suddenly, a rustling sound came from the direction of the chambers and the unicorns turned sharply at the sound.

Their eyes widened with shock - a man was approaching them with a smile on his face. He wasn't wearing any shackles and a small pack of rats were happily galloping around him.

The unicorns reacted instantly - the protocol for dealing with such situations was hardwired into their heads. One of them began to create a shield, another was about to send out an alarm, and a third lit a horn, ready for battle.

However, as soon as their horns were lit, a sharp pain pierced their bodies and they collapsed to the floor before they could finish a single spell. They tried again and the result was the same. As soon as they used a lot of magical energy - their bodies were pierced with pain and the energy went out of control.

"What the..." one of the unicorns hissed, trying to get up.

"It's poison," the human prompted, calmly entering the room.

The man's hand stretched out towards the weapons rack and immediately a spear leapt into his hand.

"No! Wait!" the unicorn screamed with fear looking at the man.

Immediately his skull was pierced by the spear. The others tried to crawl away or beg for mercy, but it was all a futile attempt - they met the same fate.

Alexei cast aside the more unnecessary spear and looked at the corpses, listening to his feelings.

After a moment, he nodded satisfied. Even though they had tormented him all this time - he felt no hatred for them. There were still the guards from the other shifts, the alicorns and the Elements that had gotten him here.

He wasn't going to take revenge on anyone. He already had a heavy burden on his shoulders, he didn't want to carry these senseless things on his back.

The longer he walked, the more unnecessary things he discarded. He knew that one day he would discard his humanity as well.

A few rats dragged a pouch of powder and a large vial of potion from somewhere in the burrows. Seeing the potion, the man smiled - he couldn't use transformation potions before, but after the ritual, everything had changed. Things would become much easier now.

Suddenly, the man felt something outside and frowned, concentrating on his sensations. His eyebrows rose in surprise - he already knew who was behind the door now.

A few seconds later, the door swung open and a diamond dog with a huge charred hole in her chest burst inside. The man already knew they had been captured earlier, but there was no way he expected to see one of them, Vatia, here.

Seeing the man, a wide smile appeared on the dog's face, her eyes sparkling with joy like two diamonds.

She rushed toward him, but her legs failed her and she almost collapsed to the floor. The man managed to pick her up, however, and despite her protests, laid her gently on the floor, examined her wound, and sighed. Vatia was doomed.

Even with Canterlot's best healers sitting in the next room, she would still be dead. All that sustained her now was the Diamond Dogs' innate ability to regenerate, but even it couldn't save her from this mortal wound.

"Don't," Vatia waved the man away, her smile weak but genuine. "I know I'm going to die. I thought I could free you, but it seems you did just fine on your own. I'm just glad I was able to see you."

"I'm glad to see you too," the human smiled back, stroking the soft fur on her face.

"Hehe, don't lie to me," Vatia laughed sadly. "What am I to you? Just a minor character?"

The man didn't answer.

"But you know what?" Vatia grinned. "We're all main characters, but we're also minor characters at the same time.

"I know you want to ascend above the alicorns. How insignificant are we all compared to them?

"I'm the only one who made it here, the rest are dead. Will you fulfill my selfish request?"

"I'm listening," Alexei said seriously.

"Live for me," Vatia smiled widely. "Keep living, keep persevering.

"There is no point in crying for us insignificant characters - no one will hear our cries. We can only persevere until we become someone significant.

"It's either that or death.

"Keep persevering, Alexei."

The man's body trembled with emotion - he was truly moved at this moment.

Looking Vatia in the eyes, Alexei nodded. Words were of no use here - she could see everything in his eyes.

Vatia smiled and tried to say something, but her strength left her. Her gaze unfocused, and then she died with a smile on her face.

The man stared blankly at Vatia's body. His face was completely unreadable - no one could tell what he was thinking right now.

Alexei was brought out of his trance by the squeak of rats.

Blinking, the man picked up the vial of potion and stood up. Taking off his clothes, he drank the potion.

After a few moments, his skin began to swell with lumps and his bones began to crack. The man collapsed to the ground and began to peel off his peeling skin.

In all this time, he did not make a sound.

While the man was squirming on the ground, the rats ran around and scattered powder from the pouch.

After a few minutes, an earth pony without a fate mark rose uncertainly to his feet. The pony closed his eyes, concentrating, and after a moment his aura changed dramatically. The same magical energy began to radiate from him as it did from all the creatures in this world.

At least, that's how it seemed if one didn't examine this pony too closely.

Taking a few tentative steps, he headed for the door and the rats followed.

Once outside, he looked around and stared intently at one of the lamps. In the same instant the lamp fell to the floor and the scattered powder burst into a fierce flame. The flames illuminated the pony's face, reflecting in his eyes.

Turning around, the lone figure wandered down the street.

There was almost no snow left in the city, and it was getting warmer by the day.

Spring had come to Canterlot.

Chapter 16 - New Hope

"Well, that's pretty good," the unicorn muttered, raising his gaze to the gray pony in front of him. "There are a few rough edges, but the editor will deal with that. I like the idea. We'll publish your story."

The stallion's green eyes sparkled with joy upon hearing this. The unicorn only grinned seeing this - it was good to be young.

"Thank you, Mr. Ivory!" the pony said with deep gratitude. "It really means a lot to me."

"No thanks necessary," the unicorn smiled, but his serious look softened a bit. "How much do you want for your work?"

"I'll trust you on that one," the earth pony replied easily. "I am more interested in experience first and foremost than money."

Ivory looked at the pony carefully and nodded satisfied - he liked this young stallion's attitude. Even though he looked rather poor - he wasn't obsessed with money.

"Standard pay, then," Ivory nodded. "If the readers like your story - we'll come back to the matter. What's your name again?"

"Flint Dustcloud, sir," the pony replied politely.

"Good, then... come back on Tuesday," Ivory thoughtfully coaxed. "We'll see how your story is received."

"Thank you, sir," the earth pony thanked again, bowing to the unicorn.

Saying goodbye to Ivory, Flint left the magazine's office. With a satisfied smile, he walked briskly toward his home on Grape Street. His story was indeed going to be published. The horror genre was not very popular in Canterlot - the nobles preferred novels - but Flint wanted to write horror.

Besides, the genre had become quite hot lately.

Recently there was a big fire in one of the dungeons. Immediately someone leaked information revealing what happened. According to rumors, Princess Luna's bipedal friend turned out to be a terrible monster who kidnapped ponies and conducted terrible experiments on them. It was for this he had been imprisoned in a dungeon.

The human had indeed not been seen in the city for over half a year, which matched the information. However, the Crown rejected all these rumors and repeated its version - the human had died during an expedition to the Everfree Forest.But few people believed this official statement. This whole fire story looked too suspicious. Whether it was a human or some other monster was only of concern to the nobles who were once again pouncing on Princess Luna. The main thing was that no one knew if it had survived the fire.

The monster might be roaming around Canterlot right now. The guards had searched the town several times, but found nothing. It was rumored that they were now setting up posts around Canterlot, expecting the monster to move back to Everfree.

Flint's story was precisely about this very human monster. He even hoped that one day he could publish his collection of short stories that would make readers shiver with fear.

Upon reaching home, Flint saw Silver Breeze, from whom he rented a room, carrying a load of bags. The light lavender unicorn mare was always cheerful and energetic despite her age. Quickly running up to her, Flint took all the bags away from her despite her grumbling.

"Why didn't you tell me you were going shopping?" he said grudgingly, looking at the mare.

"I'm perfectly capable of going to the store myself," Silver muttered. "Not falling apart yet."

Grinning, Flint opened the door and carried the bags inside, quickly running around the kitchen and arranging the groceries in the cupboards. Looking at him, Silver couldn't help but smile. Contrary to her grumbling, she was already starting to subconsciously treat him like the own grandchild she didn't have. Flint was a real hard worker. He did all the household chores, worked in the garden, and repaired almost everything that needed fixing. But most importantly, he never complained. He asked nothing in return, but only, as he said, repaid her kindness and trust. She liked this respectful and hardworking stallion.

And not just her. He made friends easily with all the neighbors, even the grumpy nag from across the street. Silver remembered her first doubts when Flint had answered the ad for a room. But now all doubts had completely dissipated. He had taken on so much work that Silver felt so energized lately.

Even her sleep had improved.

"How did it go?" asked Silver, looking around the cupboards.

"My story is getting published," Flint replied cheerfully. "It doesn't pay much, but I'll write more soon."

Silver only shook her head, smiling. She wouldn't kick him out even if he stopped paying rent. And of course, he would never agree to such a thing.

"Then we're celebrating tonight," Silver smiled sincerely. "There'll be pancakes for lunch. You need to eat more, you look more like a unicorn than an earth pony."

"I'll try to eat as much as I can," Flint smiled widely.

"And when are you going to get your mane in order already?" the mare rebuked, examining his shaggy black mane. "You'll never find a mare if you're like this."

"I've already found a beautiful mare," Flint replied, winking at Silver.

"Flatterer," the mare snorted, turning to the cabinets. "Now get out of here before you get a cup on your forehead. You know how I can be when I'm cooking."

Chuckling, Flint headed for his room. Taking off his bag, he sat down at his desk and began looking through his papers.

After a while, a black rat jumped out from behind the bedside table. It looked around and quickly ran towards Flint. It jumped on his shoulder and began to squeak something in his ear. A smile appeared on the pony's face as the rat finished its report.

"Tonight is going to be fun," Alexei thought, stretching.

He was still getting used to his new pony body, finding it not very comfortable. But it was a great disguise. The transformation didn't give him any of the abilities of earth ponies, he was still human inside. If he had been scanned with a spell or blood drawn for analysis, the results would have shown him to be human. It was only his appearance that had changed. Thanks to a spell that made it seem like there was magical energy, the man was easily lost in Canterlot while being searched outside the city.

This spell was of his own design. It utilized mental energy like all nightmare spells. In the six months he had spent in the dungeon, he had only been able to create this simple spell. He couldn't test spells while wearing those shackles. Even one spell was already a great result. Although it could be revealed with a scanning spell, Alexei didn't worry about that.

No one walked around Canterlot throwing scanning spells in all directions.

Each mage had their own unique methods and secrets. They were something sacred and untouchable. They were one's strength, confidence, and effort - no one would like it if someone tried to pry them out. What if someone with bad intentions found out their secrets? Other mages could come up with countermeasures to suppress them completely. Each spell could be blocked or neutralized with another spell. Just like how the griffins and pegasi had easily countered his pain spell earlier. Though they had been very lucky.

The man could refine his spell and bypass the griffins' defenses. And so on ad infinitum.

In Equestria, as elsewhere, such actions were considered an attack. Anyone exposed to such a spell had the right to self-defense. It was not uncommon for the overly curious to be killed, but that was considered excessive self-defense. Of course, everything depended on the status and strength of the opponents, but in general it was like this.

The royal guards could stop, arrest and interrogate using scanning spells. However, they needed at least some reason to do so, and they didn't scan everyone.

Alexei was distracted from his thoughts of the night ahead when Silver Breeze's voice came from the kitchen.

"All set!" she called out.

Alexei smiled, thinking about his relationship with Silver. She treated him like a grandson, even though he was technically twice her age. He'd lived fourteen false lives inside Tree's mind before he'd managed to free himself by slaughtering Canterlot. He had over seventy years of memories, and his mental age had already passed a hundred. It was a pity, but most of those memories were useless. If one added Saada's memories from his alchemy training, the number was impressive.

By connecting with the nightmare, his mental capabilities had improved noticeably. Without it, he wouldn't be able to withstand so many memories at once. However, he was still barely on his feet when he came back to reality.

The Tree wanted to change him, but in the end, the man was even more firmly established in his life path.

"Coming!" he exclaimed joyfully as he rose from the table.

At that time, the black rat stealthily disappeared behind the nightstand.

The flapping of wings pulled Twilight away from her book, and she looked up to see an owl flying away to hunt. The pony's gaze shifted to the sky, which had already turned into a dark canvas studded with stars.

"Is it night already?" Twilight thought in surprise as she saw the owl off with a glance. "Have a good hunt."

She set the book aside and stretched lazily. Her mood had improved noticeably lately. She was still puzzling over the problem set before her, but she wasn't about to give up all the joys of life. She was even ashamed of the outbreak of obsession into which she had sunk for several months. If she kept it up, she would end up as a human. The human wasn't obsessed with his desire, though. He seemed to genuinely enjoy the path to the goal itself.

Twilight frowned, thinking about the human. She couldn't understand him - he had too extreme a personality. Which of the things he showed were true and which were false? He managed to fool even the princesses by pretending to be a lunatic. Now he's escaped and roamed free. Though no trace of him had been found so far, Twilight was sure he was alive. He had definitely survived.

The princesses seemed to think the same, having put guards on her. Twilight thought it unnecessary, but she didn't argue. Ponyville was also patrolled by several squads. Shaking her head, Twilight pushed the thoughts of the human away - she didn't want to spoil her mood.

A smile slid across her lips as she remembered the fun they'd had at the Grand Galloping Gala. The happy faces of her friends flashed before her, and immediately she felt a pang of conscience.

She never got to talk to them.

Twilight sighed. Perhaps she was unnecessarily rushing things and falling back into obsession. Her habit of planning was playing tricks on her now. She wanted to talk to them and get a concrete answer she could work with. On the other hand, she was afraid of hearing rejection. She also realized that she was in too much of a hurry, but it was hard to break old habits.

"Calm down," Twilight told herself. "We have plenty of time. There's no reason to rush."

One day she would talk to them.

Her thoughts drifted to her conversation with Princess Celestia after the holiday night. There was so much she wanted to learn from her about the Elements. She had more and more questions lately.

What is Kindness? Kindness comes in many forms and can be contradictory.

What about Loyalty? It comes in different forms too.

Isn't it all subjective?

Then who defines the Elements they use? Themselves or Harmony?

They talked for a long time, but she never got concrete answers to many of her questions. The princess insisted that some things she had to figure out on her own, and for others it wasn't time yet.

Twilight sighed and looked at her Magic mark. Had she gotten it because she liked magic or was she into magic because she was fated to get the mark of Magic?

What is fate?

Her gaze shifted to the night sky and she sat like that for a while, looking up at the stars.

"Why do we live?" Twilight asked the sky.

The two unicorns stood in front of an abandoned building, inspecting their surroundings carefully. Noticing several approaching figures their horns shone brightly, preparing for a possible battle.

"Who is it?" one of the unicorns called out.

Anxiety swept over them when there was no answer to their question.

They were about to raise the alarm when figures stepped into the light - just a few beggars without fate marks, which immediately relaxed the sentries.

Such ponies were commonplace in these slums. Ponies without fate marks often became outcasts, or if they were unlucky enough, ended up on the streets. Homeless, hookers, addicts - there were plenty of ponies among them who were unlucky enough to be without a mark.

"Just a few coins, kind sirs," one of the beggars smiled ingratiatingly. "Very hungry."

The unicorns' faces wrinkled in disgust. They couldn't stand all those beggars. What annoyed them even more was that the three beggars were also unicorns. Their kind had sunk to such a low level. It would be better if they died and didn't defile this city with their existence.

"Get out of here before I break your legs," one of the unicorn sentries replied irritably.

He was eager for the end of his watch and perhaps a meeting with the mare afterward, but certainly not a conversation with this trash.

The beggars only smiled sadly and, bowing, turned around.

In the next instant, however, they attacked the sentries.

One of them died instantly, but the other one managed to put up a shield and resisted the barrage of attacks.

He was much stronger than these beggars, but there were three of them. Not even a couple seconds later, the shield collapsed. The unicorn gritted his teeth and blood dripped from his nose - the interrupted spell had backfired and hit his body. He tried to create a new shield to protect himself from repeated attacks, but he didn't have time. Something glinted in the air and pierced his head. The unicorn collapsed to the ground, dead.

A group of dirty ponies without fate marks were quickly approaching the building. Leading the way was a gray earth pony with several hatless nails hovering around him.

Four ponies standing in the distance on four sides of the building activated rune wands. A transparent shield enveloped the entire area around the building, blocking sound and the spread of magical fluctuations.

Several unicorns jumped out of the building, but they were quickly driven back inside by a barrage of fire.

"Begin," Alexei said, and the ponies scattered into position.

Several unicorns surrounded the building, ready to follow any command.

Meanwhile, Alexei pulled a pouch from his bag and headed towards the building while his comrades covered him, firing through the windows. Tossing the pouch inside the building, a moment later a massive explosion rang out, blasting out the rest of the windows.

After receiving the signal, the unicorns created a shield around the building. At the same time, acrid purple smoke began to pour from several crevices inside the building as the rats worked off their food. The shield kept the smoke inside, preventing it from dispersing. Of course, the unicorns inside could block it with their shields, but the explosion should have destroyed their shields, so they definitely got a few breaths of smoke.

A few ponies and griffons ran out of the building, but they couldn't break through the shield and soon fell to the ground.

Alexei waited for a while and signaled. The three stallions and the mare drank the potion and put on their masks.

"Let's go in," the man said briefly, nodding to the unicorns maintaining the shield.

An opening formed in the shield, through which the four ponies quickly slipped and ran into the building, spreading out. The opening in the shield instantly closed.

Immediately, all sorts of magical projectiles flew at them, revealing the three surviving unicorns hiding under the shield. The unicorns created their own shields, and Alexei chose to dodge.

Finally the stream of attacks ended and it was time for the beggars to attack. The beggars didn't need to keep maintaining their shield to protect themselves from the smoke, so they went on the attack completely. Alexei was waiting for a good opportunity at this time. It soon appeared. A small crack formed on the surface of the shield. At the same second, a nail flew into the crack. By some miracle, the unicorn managed to dodge the fatal blow - the nail only slid across his skull. It was enough to make him lose his concentration. An instant later, the shield collapsed.

Immediately, electric spells flew at the trio of unicorns. Two, already unconscious, were thrown back into the wall, while the third was writhing convulsively on the ground.

"Who the fuck are you?" the unicorn hissed, trying to blare a horn.

"Newcomers," Alexei replied, telekinesis disrupting the forming spell. "But with potential."

Taking a cloth ball from his bag, Alexei squeezed it and quite ordinary black smoke poured from it. Mixing with the violet smoke, it reacted with it, causing all the smoke to begin to rapidly shrink towards the ceiling, and soon spilled a slightly murky water.The shield that surrounded the building disappeared, and behind them they heard the stomping of all the other ponies rushing into the building.

The gray pony's eyebrow rose as he saw the change previously hidden by the smoke. Where the unicorn that had dodged his nail should have been lying now lay a strange hybrid of pony and insect.

"A changeling?" thought Alexei in surprise. "What's he even doing here?"

He had heard about this race, capable of taking on any form, from Saada.

However, changelings were very secretive and not much was known about them. They lived somewhere in hives underground, could camouflage themselves well, kidnapped intelligent beings and fed on love. Alexei didn't even know if they fed exclusively on love or if it was just some supplement they needed. He was open to the possibility of meeting the changeling in some brothel, but what was he doing in this drug-dealing gang?

"I'll find out later," thought the slightly interested man.

Walking over to the changeling, he poured a sedative into his mouth.

"Kill everyone but these two," Alexei said, nodding at the leader and the changeling.

His companions immediately set about carrying out his order, twisted smirks appearing on their faces.

While the others went about their business, Alexei and a few ponies began searching the den.

Finally, they found the room the leader was using. In the center of the room was a vault covered in a web of runes. A square with many interconnected runes decorated the front wall of the vault. Alexei knew that activating the runes in the wrong order could trigger a trap or destroy the contents of the vault.

Back in the main hall, Alexei used his powers to telekinetically grab the swearing unicorn and drag it to the vault.

"Password?" Alexei asked, turning to the unicorn.

"Fuck you," came the brief reply.

Alexei mentally sighed. Was all of this really necessary? Couldn't they just tell him what he needed to know?

He looked toward the door, and it closed with a slight creak. Black smoke poured from Alexei's body. The unicorn's eyes widened in horror as the smoke rushed towards him and entered his nostrils.

After a minute and a half, the unicorn graciously agreed to provide the information Alexei was interested in.

"F-fourth, twelfth, seventh, ninth, second and fifth!" the unicorn spat out, foaming at the mouth. "Kill... kill me... please!"

"A little later," Alexei nodded, approaching the vault. "I still have a few more questions."

The unicorn first tried to trick the man by slipping in a false sequence, but soon realized his mistake.

"Do me a favor and pour energy into the array,'" Alexei said, turning to the unicorn. "But no funny stuff, okay?"

A flicker of incomprehension flashed in the unicorn's eyes, but he obediently lit his horn and began to transfer energy into the array.

Gradually, activating the runes in the right sequence, Alexei opened the safe. There was a pile of gold inside, but it wasn't the money that interested him. He pulled out some tattered ledgers and began to look through them. A smile appeared on the man's face when he discovered the list of business partners coded in those books. There were definitely nobles and some entrepreneurs among them.

The man was interested in some form of cooperation with them. He wanted to set up a charity organization for the homeless, and through the nobles he could launder money.
Right now, he was a bit broke. Previously, he had left several stashes of gold all over Canterlot, but after Alice's capture, he didn't even dare to go near them.

He still had to come up with a name and symbol for the future organization. Alexei didn't care about such trivialities, but he understood the point. The name and symbol increased the feeling of belonging, which increased the loyalty and engagement level among the members of the organization. One day they would wear the symbol proudly.

Wiping away the blood dripping from his nose, he only sighed - the nightmare's rejection process had recently begun. He knew time was working against him, but he wasn't about to give up. Alexei drank a bunch of supporting potions and fed the nightmare to its fullest, delaying the inevitable. For now, he had time, which he used to find a solution.

Calling a few ponies over, they put the gold into bags and together returned to the main hall, where they found a cart loaded with sacks.

"Look what we found, Flint," the green earth pony announced cheerfully.

"Destroy it all," Alexei shook his head.

He didn't want to deal with this. It was all too problematic.

Alexei had created the organization for two reasons: spreading rumors and gathering information. He was going to use his own hands, or rather hooves, to create an urban legend about a horrible human monster and become a bogeyman for the locals. His nightmare, unlike the others, could not roam freely throughout the Dreamworld. There was a certain range. So he was going to turn Canterlot into his hunting grounds.

Of course, doing this under the nose of the Dream Princess was a bit brazen, but in essence, it didn't change anything. She was free to roam the entire planet's Dreamworld, even though she was only helping ponies with nightmares.

There was also a problem with Luna. After the ritual, she could enter his dreams, so he couldn't sleep at night anymore. The worst part was that if his nightmare was destroyed, he would lose all his abilities.

So he had to target only those who slept during the day.

"Why don't we keep some for ourselves?" the green pony suggested.

The man glared coldly at the pony, and the pony backed away, swallowing fearfully.

"Remind me the rules of our humble organization," Alexei said, looking intently at everyone present.

The beggars looked at the green pony with displeasure. He should have pissed off their boss.

"Be sober," came a chorus of voices. "You want a drink, drink at home.

"You want a mare, make a house call.

"Don't attract attention.

"Keep your mouth shut."

Alexei nodded contentedly. He would have preferred to ban alcohol altogether, but they needed to relieve stress too. Let them drink, but only within the confines of their headquarters.

"I hope you are also mindful about consequences for breaking the rules," the gray pony smiled as he watched the reactions of those gathered.

Oh yes, they remembered perfectly well.

"Now let's get to the pleasantries," Alexei said as he opened the bag of gold.

A wide smile spread across his face as he saw the gleam in the beggars' eyes.

Many people thought these mark-less beggars were complete wretches, but he saw great potential in them. Success in life was not determined by any abilities, but by one's mindset. These ponies had the right personalities for his purposes. Angry and rejected, poor and deprived. He gave them more than gold, food and a roof over their heads. He gave them hope.

The man grinned, remembering a story. It seems to have been during the Roman Empire.

There were captured slaves laboring in a mine. Conditions were terrible, the food was poor, and the work was dangerous - dozens died every day. Of course, riots broke out all the time. Then the mine manager disguised some newly arrived overseers as slaves and sent them into the mine. They began to tell the slaves stories that a certain great general was coming here on a war and freeing all the slaves along the way. Soon he would free them too.

Immediately all the riots stopped. Having been given hope - the people already had something to lose, and they didn't want to take any chances.

And so they continued to die daily.

"New Hope," Alexei finally decided on a name. "That's what our organization will be called."

Chapter 17 - Love and purity

With a slurping sound, the last piece of chitin separated, revealing the changeling's brain before Alexei's eyes. The man, using telekinesis, carefully lifted the brain and began to scrutinize its structure. An unusually large cerebellum immediately caught his eye.

"About like that of a pegasus?" the man speculated, but his attention quickly shifted to another part of the brain. "Is this it?"

Alexei had already performed autopsies on various creatures of this world and had some experience in studying their anatomy. Earlier, he had even tried to compare the structure of a pony's brain to that of a human's, but he had quickly abandoned that idea. Even though he had seen a human brain in live - he had no medical education, so his observations were quite amateurish.

Speaking of the unicorn's brain, apart from its slightly different shape, the main difference was the frontal lobe. The circle standing out against the rest of the brain's surface caught his attention. This was where the horn connected to the brain through connective and neural tissue.

Seeing it for the first time, the comparison to the third eye immediately came to the man's mind. He had once read about Tibetan monks making a hole in the skull at the forehead to gain the gift of clairvoyance and achieve enlightenment.

He had expected to see something similar on the changeling, but found a small spherical bulge. It was from here that he felt the response when he scanned the still living changeling with his mental energy.

"So their telepathic connection comes through physiology rather than magic?" the man muttered thoughtfully.

Licking his lips, Alexei picked up the scalpel with his telekinesis and began separating the hemispheres.

Dropping a potion from several vials on the mysterious bulge, he reactivated his mental scan.

He soon confirmed what he already knew - it was this part of the changeling's brain that was responsible for the "hive mind".

Of course, it would be better to run such tests on a still-living changeling for more accurate results, but the man feared that he might send a signal to one of his kin. Alexei was unsure of his methods of blocking mental energy against a creature he had never dealt with.

Sighing, Alexei stepped away from the table and slowly lowered himself to the floor, leaning against the cold wall that seemed to be his only support at this moment. His mind was busy thinking about how to get out of this messed up situation that fate had put him in.

Despite all his attempts to interrogate the changeling, Alexei never managed to extract any valuable information from him. It was not about the man's persuasion skills, but about the changeling himself, whose memory had been skillfully distorted by someone else. He didn't remember why he had joined the gang, didn't know their plans, didn't remember past encounters with other changelings, and his own name had been lost somewhere along the way.

The only thing at his disposal was the task of gathering information and waiting for instructions on the next meeting. Surely he had other tasks, like promoting that drug they'd found in the bags, but all those memories were already drowned in the currents of oblivion.

There was no way to get anything out of him, and the man dared not even think of trying to enter his mind with a nightmare. The telepathy abilities inherent in these creatures from birth made them part of the collective consciousness.

What would happen if a changeling tapped into this network while the human was poking around in his head?

The nightmare would be instantly destroyed and a counter-attack ensued. Good if it only ended in the loss of the nightmare - coma, dementia, or death were more likely outcomes. Though, during the entire interrogation, the changeling hadn't tried to send any signals - the man was still wary.

He understood that the changeling was being cautious for fear of exposing the others, but how would he behave if the man got inside his head?

He shouldn't exclude possible traps and protection spells left on the changeling by whoever had edited his memory. All in all, the changeling's interrogation had failed.

The idea of using the changeling's blood for a transformation potion to leave Canterlot with their help now seemed impossible. The transformation potion did not grant the magical abilities of the creature being transformed into, but it did copy its physiology down to the smallest detail. That meant that Alexei's brain would be altered as well, which was unacceptable.

By turning into a changeling - he would immediately unconsciously tap into their telepathic network and be instantly exposed. There were some ideas about deliberately damaging that part of the brain, but even for Alexei that was already beyond insane. The plan to disguise himself as a changeling had also failed.

He had another idea, to use the changeling's blood for a potion to suppress the nightmare's rejection. Given the innate changeling's magic built around alteration and transformation, the idea sounded reasonable.

However, after a few tests, the man realized that nothing would work. At most, what such a potion would be able to do was temporarily slow down the rejection. And the blood of a regular changeling wouldn't work. He used the Luna's blood in the ritual, so the changeling's blood would have to match. He needed the blood of an alpha changeling, a royal.

Were there alicorns or something similar among changelings? The human didn't know.

Even if he found a royal, what next? He didn't have time for a long preparation and it wouldn't be as easy as what he had pulled off with Luna.
It was all just impossible dreams.

And that was what the man needed most right now - time and a safe way to leave Canterlot. He couldn't stay here any longer. His grand plans had fallen apart in just one day.

Security measures in Canterlot had increased dramatically. A bunch of guards with some kind of analyzing artifacts roamed the streets and took samples of magical energy from anyone suspicious. If there were any problems with the result of the analysis - they were immediately scanned.

The locals didn't have any problems passing the energy analysis, so no additional scanning was required and there was no particular discontent.

The human would fail the first test - he had no magical energy whatsoever.

The only good news for him was that it looked like they weren't looking for him specifically.

At other times, he might have just laid low and waited for the storm to clear, but the circumstances were different now. In the current situation, such behavior seemed like suicide. His body was rejecting the nightmare, and the matter was getting worse by the day.

Previously, he had planned to sow the seeds of fear in Canterlot, gather enough energy within himself, and then forcibly merge with the nightmare. It was far from an ideal solution, but he had no other options.

In the history of this world, no one had ever attempted such a symbiosis with a nightmare. At least, the human had never heard of such a thing. The story of Luna and Nightmare Moon was a mere obsession, but not an interdependence. For the native beings, such a ritual would be mostly pointless - they already possessed both types of energy from birth. So why would they do it?

The lack of predecessors meant that humans had to forge a path on their own. Rough fusion was the only way he had at the moment. That plan had also collapsed

He could not expand his organization now because of the heightened security measures in the city. His literary plan collapsed next - arriving at the publisher's office with a new story, he found that someone was already waiting for him.

Most likely it wasn't an ambush on him specifically, but someone sent from the palace to convince him to delay publishing stories about the human. Perhaps they were only suspicious. Alexei preferred not to take any chances and stopped showing up there.

His main task now was to escape from Canterlot, and that was very difficult. He hadn't left the city after escaping from the prison not only because of a daring plan to merge with the nightmare under the noses of the alicorns - he simply couldn't leave it. All entrances and exits of the city became tightly controlled. Of course, spatial magic was also controlled - otherwise he would have escaped through the portal long ago.

"Celestia still hasn't taken me seriously because I'm sitting quietly," the man pondered. "Also, she doesn't want to make a fuss and set her sister up, so she's acting carefully. She really has nowhere to rush - I can't escape the city, but I'll become reckless if I'm cornered. She has some insight into my personality. She must also have noticed the disappearance of the drug gangs. I didn't attack any common ponies or touch any honest businesses. I specifically targeted the gangs exclusively.

"Knowing her character - she should be pleased that I killed them. There's even a possibility that she's already anticipated my actions and is waiting for me to contact the nobles to dispose of them. One thing I know for sure is that she is preparing something to find me and capture in an instant."

The comfortable life with Silver Breeze also had to be abandoned - Flint Dustcloud's identity had been compromised.

He now lived in the basement of a dilapidated building in the slums of Canterlot. The beggars knew his name and it was only because of an unfortunate coincidence - one of them had seen him with Silver when they were shopping. However, they didn't know the identity of the mare, the address of their home and his visits to the publisher - the man had checked that out thoroughly.

He could give up a comfortable life for his safety, but he didn't want to give up his newly formed gang - they were too important to his plans.

Celestia also began to suppress all the rumors that his friendly company of beggars and strays were spreading. Or perhaps it was Luna?

The gray pony's face frowned at the thought of their last encounter with Luna. It had happened a while ago. In the Dreamworld.

Luna had already guessed he was alive and hiding from her, avoiding sleep at night. Luna started changing her sleep schedule and sleeping at random times to catch him off guard.

That's how she stumbled into a unicorn waiter's dream, falling asleep after a night shift in which the man had thrown his own banquet. He'd managed to slip away from her, but it had been very close.

"If I hadn't been so vigilant, and she had already fully recovered - it would have ended very badly," the man hummed.

Just another instance where he'd nearly lost everything. Things like this hadn't touched the man's heart in a long time - he was constantly walking a tightrope.

Right now, he was watching all his plans in Canterlot crumble and there was nothing he could do about it.

It didn't work? He would just try again, ten, a hundred, or a thousand times. Not a thousand or a million failures could derail him from his path. It wasn't just about the goal of his path, or even about perseverance.

How could he give up his path if only in this world, he felt so alive? He finally felt like he belonged.

There were no doubts, no regrets - he was on the right path. He would keep moving forward no matter what.

He could no longer go back to his past life - it made no sense to him.

There was no going back for him, and most importantly, he didn't want to go back.

Celestia lay on a blanket in a secluded corner of the Royal Garden, enjoying the rays of sunlight that played on her white fur like dancing stars. Her multicolored mane shimmered with all sorts of hues, reminiscent of the northern lights, and her violet eyes sparkled with a mysterious light.

Usually she spent this time with her sister, but today Celestia wanted to be alone, to take a break from the usual rush and enjoy a moment in solitude.

No meetings in the morning, no plans for the evening, and just her alone in this park. Needless to say, her mood was just great?

If it weren't for all the pre-holiday hustle and bustle that she would have to immerse herself into again tomorrow, her mood would be even better.

It was not a small matter - she had to present the new alicorn in front of the whole country, and all this during the wedding of this very alicorn. Preparations for the event were held under the strictest secrecy - only a chosen few knew what was being prepared in Canterlot.

"Cadence knows how to be persistent," Celestia said thoughtfully, her voice sounding quiet in the silence of the park, but a smile played on her lips. "As befits an alicorn of Love."

Though she didn't think Cadence was ready to go out into the world yet, she couldn't postpone the wedding date again - love could be quite reckless and crazy.

As soon as Cadence ascended - she immediately disappeared from all radars, and only a few ponies knew that she had become an alicorn. It couldn't have been otherwise.

Upon learning of the young alicorn's appearance, there would be plenty of those who would want to take advantage of her. The intrigues of nobles and kidnapping for ransom were just the tip of the iceberg of possible problems.

Magical experiments, breeding experiments, alchemy - every part of an alicorn's body was considered a high-end magical ingredient - and various rituals.

Celestia didn't even want to think about what might happen to a young alicorn captured by a rather curious unicorn devoid of moral restraints.

Celestia frowned slightly as the face of a certain creature that had already taken advantage of the alicorn flashed through her mind. She took a deep breath in and exhaled, regaining her composure - this was the second time she had been slapped by that arrogant creature.

"I promised Luna," Celestia repeated to herself, taking another deep breath.

Luna wanted to capture the human with her own efforts, and Celestia had promised not to interfere.

Earlier, she had expected the human to be a convenient tool to heal Luna's soul, but things had gotten out of control at some point.

Besides the obsession with the idea, all those little sister's old complexes came back.

They aren't fillies anymore. Why couldn't they just work together? What and who did she want to prove?

"Luna slept through this entire thousand years of imprisonment," Celestia reminded herself. "To her, it all happened as if it were yesterday. She's already doing the best she can. I shouldn't put any pressure on her.

"But this can't go on any longer."

Finding a non-magical creature in Canterlot without major search operations was proving to be quite a problem. They even had samples of human flesh and blood, but it was all useless. All matter in this world was filled with magical energy, and spells interacted with it as they were used.

How to search for a creature living outside the usual laws of magic?

There were some powerful large-scale scanning spells that might yield some results...

But after that, she would have to fight off a pack of nobles howling about their privacy being violated.

And yet magic remained a flexible and powerful tool, capable of warping reality at the mage's will. The problem was not the magic, but the spellcasters who could not figure out how to use the tool in this situation - after all, non-magical creatures had never existed on Equus.

Coming up with a search spell specifically for humans was only a matter of time.

Arcane had already found a way out of this situation. He had created a unique blood magic spell capable of tracking a human's location in Canterlot. Although it was only a prototype with a limited range for now, Arcane assured that he would soon complete the final version capable of covering the entire city.

The best part of the new spell was its hidden nature - it only worked with the target's life energy. In densely populated Canterlot, no one would notice such minor fluctuations in life force, making it the perfect tool for stealthy searching.

Celestia rose from her blanket and carefully looked around the park around her. With a faint smile, she created an impenetrable shield, shielding this part of the park from prying eyes.

Then she fell onto her side and began rolling around in the grass, sinking into childhood memories.

Bursts of joy and carelessness filled her heart as she recalled her adventures. She loved running away from her parents into the woods, where she had many secret glades hidden in the dense thicket. Of course, they always knew where she was, but sometimes pretended they couldn't find her, playing along with their daughter's amusement.

Relaxing on the grass, Celestia spent some time reminiscing, letting the light spring breeze play with her mane. But soon she opened her eyes and snapped back to reality.

"Periodically giving in to your impulsive urges is the basis of good mood and mental health," Celestia quoted the man as saying. "Your advice really does work. You know, I can teach you something too.

"In the face of absolute power, any crafty scheming is useless."

With a glance at the sun, Celestia felt it was time for her to head back to the palace. But she still had a little time left.

"If Luna finds you before the spell is ready, so be it, she will decide your fate," Celestia thought nonchalantly, looking up at the sky. "Otherwise, I'll come after you myself.

"I want to see your face when a little sun bursts inside you."

A gurgling sound coming from the half-rotten table interrupted the man's thoughts as he contemplated his escape from Canterlot.

Several working plans were swirling around in his mind, but all of them were quite extreme in its methods. The odds were not in his favor. Even worse: by doing so, he wouldn't just provoke Celestia - she'd be truly furious and personally go after his head.

He walked over to the table and stared into the bowl of blood, in which floated a tangle of pale red creatures that looked like thin leeches or worms, but had rows of sharp teeth that made them horrifying to look at. It was one of his side projects.

After making sure the creatures were fine, Alexei smiled satisfied and dipped his foreleg into the bowl. The leeches immediately burrowed into his skin, beginning to chew their way inside his body. Soon they disappeared inside him, and his wounds healed.

It was a blood magic spell based on alchemy that he created himself. The leeches could reproduce inside his body by feeding on his blood. He could command them to jump out and burrow into his opponent. After drinking other's blood, they would return, digesting it into life energy and speeding up the host's regeneration process.

The spell was a side part of his research into the possibility of converting one energy into another.

The effect sounded fearsome, but in reality it was very pale.

The leeches were fragile, and their attack power was negligible - they couldn't even get through the shield of a four-year-old unicorn. They needed time to digest the blood. The regeneration effect was unimpressive and was just the cherry on the cake for someone who not only possessed a regeneration tattoo, but had greatly improved this aspect after the ritual. The same phoenix tears should be thanked for that.

Many would say it's a pretty crappy spell, but the man didn't see it that way. And not because he was its creator.

There was no such thing as the strongest spell, only the strongest spellcaster.

The leeches had one very nice characteristic - they consisted of his blood and were concealed perfectly in his body. They were almost impossible to detect. Even if he was completely scanned - the leeches would remain undetected.

They could be used not only to collect other's blood, but also to store small items - leeches had rather large and stretchable stomachs. A few balls of poison would easily fit inside a leech. And no, he wouldn't get intoxicated by his own poison - they could provide a high level of containment. The items were also difficult to detect while they were in the leeches' stomachs.

Finished with the leeches, the man took the potion from the table and drank it. There was a hissing sound and his fur began to change color. Black smoke billowed out of his body and he glanced at himself from the side - a pony with white fur, dark blue mane and tail, and blue eyes.

The city was full of unicorns with such colors and he, with his physique, could very well impersonate the son of some unicorn and an earth pony.

He could turn into a unicorn, even if only in appearance, and blend in completely with the crowd, but the man didn't think that was a good idea.

Didn't the ones the royal guards were looking for think the same way? According to the information from the beggars and his rats, it was the unicorns that were checked most often.

Taking a pair of small bags with potions, the man put on a tattered scarf that hid a rib.

Finished with his preparations, the man left his temporary dwelling and headed towards the center of town - he needed to restock his ingredients and visit the bookstore.

Carefully looking around and listening to his senses, Alexei, in the guise of a white earth pony, deftly maneuvered through the streets of the city, avoiding encounters with patrols of royal guards and heading towards the shopping districts.

An alchemy store owned by a gryphon appeared in front of him. A rather odd choice of profession for a griffin, but it didn't bother the man - he liked dealing with griffins. They didn't ask unnecessary questions, and the human didn't ask about the origin of the goods in the store.

"Please stop for a moment, sir," came a voice from behind him.

Alexei flinched slightly - he hadn't felt anyone approach him. That was a bad sign. A very bad sign.

Turning around slowly, he saw two unremarkable unicorns with a tired look. Outwardly, they looked like ordinary clerks who had skipped their morning coffee, but their gazes told him that the conversation was going to be anything but ordinary.

"Lost, guys?" said Alexei with a smile. "Where are you from? Manehattan? Tell me where you need to go and I'll guide you. I won't take much. I swear."

"We're here for work," one of the unicorns replied dryly, pulling a token out of his bag.

Alexei looked at the token with Celestia's insignia radiating solar energy and the smile disappeared from his face.

"'Oh. Did I violate something?" he asked worriedly. "I was just on my way to buy some healing herbs. Gryphons are quite the hustlers, sure, but their prices..."

"No, no," the other unicorn shook his head denyingly. "You haven't violated anything. Just a formal inspection."

His partner had noticed the white pony, finding his gait and body language somewhat odd. He hadn't noticed anything of the sort himself, but he trusted his friend's opinion.

Meanwhile, the second unicorn retrieved a golden plate with runes from his bag and held it out to Alexei, holding it by telekinesis by the corner without the runes.

"Put your magical energy into it," the unicorn said demandingly.

The white earth pony relaxed somewhat and smiled again, reaching out a hoof towards the plate. The hoof touched the plate and the unicorn shifted his gaze to the runes on it.

In the next second, he screamed in pain.

The pony, with a bone sticking out of its neck, spun around sharply and delivered a powerful kick with its hind legs at the unicorns, throwing them back into the wall.

There were shouts of Canterlot citizens rolling around in agony, but Alexei paid no attention to them. He rushed toward a familiar alleyway to the left of the store.

Suddenly something hit him in the back, the fur on his body hissed and began to change color rapidly - the effect of the potion had been destroyed.

Glancing back, he saw that the unicorns were already rising to their feet, and one of them was signaling an alarm.

Without stopping any longer, Alexei ran into the alley. But after a few meters, he felt his body begin to itch and his muscles began to cramp. He could feel his disguise starting to fall apart and he would soon revert back to the human form.

"It destroyed both potions?!" Alexei exclaimed mentally and put all his mental energy into action, trying to counteract the effects of the spell.

The reverse transformation slowed down, but he couldn't stop the process completely.

Visualizing a map of the area in his mind, Alexei rushed towards the city canal. There were several entrances to the sewers there. He just had to make it in time.

After running a few blocks, the man heard the flapping of wings somewhere behind him. A moment later, four pegasi in light metal armor appeared above him.

The man activated the rune bone again, but it had no effect on the pegasi, only their armor glittered, blocking the man's spell.

Grabbing a few vials from his bag, he was about to throw them at the pegasi when a sharp pain pierced his mind and his telekinesis was interrupted. The rejection came at the worst possible moment.

Gritting his teeth, the man forcibly activated his telekinesis, picked up the falling vials and threw them at the pegasi.

One of the pegasi flapped his wings, creating a powerful blade of wind that scattered the explosion to the sides. None of the pegasi were hit by the blast.

The human didn't react in any way, continuing to run while the erupting flames provided cover for a few moments.

Alexei's body took a hit after the failed telekinesis, he was feeling dizzy and unable to use spells in such a state.

"Thirty... no, twenty seconds will be enough," the man thought as he ran out of the alley into the street and looked around the surroundings.

When he saw the window of a house, the man ran full speed toward it and smashed through the glass, flying headlong into someone's house.

When he got up, he looked around the living room and saw that the owners were also there.

There were two unicorns hugging each other on the couch, looking at the unexpected guest with wide-open eyes. The guest's appearance was matching - torn ears, shredded face, blood streaming from its nose, and a wild look.

"Hostages?" a thought flashed through Alexei's mind, but he dismissed it immediately.

He had a chance to escape as long as he kept his pace. Getting stuck with them here was just delaying his death.

The unicorns, meanwhile, made no sound and, as if paralyzed, continued to stare at him with unblinking eyes.

The man, too, remained silent and still, unwilling to bring them out of the shock they were in.

A drop of blood from his face fell to the floor, breaking the silence. In the same moment, the unicorns screamed in unison, and the stallion lit his horn and covered himself and the mare with the shield.

After standing for a few more seconds, the man listened to his senses and nodded in satisfaction, rushing across the living room to the opposite window. Once out of the house, he was immediately confronted by the pegasi, bringing the full force of the wind down on his head.

Wiggling in all directions and dodging spells, the man pretended not to notice he was being surrounded.

Waiting until all the pegasi were in range, the man telekinetically ripped out his left eye and threw it into the air. The eye glowed red and spun in the air as if looking around. In the same second, the pegasi's bodies were covered in scarlet light and they collapsed to the ground, unable to move.

The scarlet light collided with the armor and it sparked violently, but the armor couldn't seem to completely offset the effect of the spell.

"Should last about a minute," the man quickly estimated, already rushing away. "Good it worked at all."

Opening his bag, he pulled out a vial and took a sip on the go. After a few moments, his heart pounded furiously and he sped up. He caught a glimpse of the fur peeling off his legs and sped up even faster. He had no time at all.

Feeling bursts of teleportation-like energy somewhere a few blocks to his left, the man abruptly changed course and took a detour.

"Now the housing blocks will end and I'll come to the main street," the man thought, checking the mental map. "It won't be too far to the canal there."

Once he reached the street, he jumped over the café tables, causing a commotion and screams among the customers. Across the street, a unicorn standing outside a store lit its horn and rushed towards him. Perhaps he wasn't part of the guards, but only wanted to help.

But Alexei didn't have time to sort out the details. Grabbing the flower vase with telekinesis, he threw it at the unicorn's face and instantly rushed into the alley.

Rushing through the narrow alleyways like a whirlwind, Alexei was already at the exit to the street where the canal flowed when he suddenly froze.

Between him and the saving water, a group of royal guards appeared in a flash of teleportation. They were mostly unicorns, but there were some earth ponies among them. One of the unicorns held a metal net with runes in its telekinetic grip, the mere sight of which made the man frown.

The stomping of hooves and metal clanking somewhere behind only added to the tension.

"Stop," the leader of the guards spoke in a steady voice. "You are surrounded and there is no..."

The unicorn didn't have time to finish his sentence.

The gray pony's eyes twinkled and his left foreleg flashed with scarlet veins. In the next moment, his leg disintegrated into scarlet energy, which streaked towards the unicorns after being drawn into a sphere.

It happened so quickly that only a few of them had time to raise their shields.

There was a powerful explosion that threw the guards aside and made way for Alexei, who rushed toward the water on three legs.

"Ugh, fuck," the unicorn mumbled, unconscious for a few seconds, and tried to get up, but to no avail.

He had been hit hard by the blast, and was also covered in rubble from the collapsed building wall. Had it not been for the magic shield built into his armor, he might never have gotten up.

Concentrating, he looked around and made sure that all of his teammates were alive.

Some lay unconscious, but most were already regaining consciousness. The two earth ponies in his squad didn't seem to be impressed by the blast at all - they weren't hurt at all.

Now, using their innate earth magic, they were quickly getting everyone out of the wreckage, keeping an eye on Alexei. They might not have been hurt thanks to the unicorns' shields, but the magic shown by this gray pony was quite worrying.

What if he sacrificed his entire body at once? They weren't going to attack him without the unicorns' support. It was already a matter of more than just their safety.

Squinting his eyes, the unicorn looked towards the culprit who was now standing right by the water.

Some sort of red worm had emerged from the gray pony's neck, from which he extracted something and added it to the potion vial. Shaking it up, he tossed the vial across the canal into the iron grate. The liquid that hit the metal began to hiss and melt the bars.

Gritting teeth, the unicorn began to rise to his hooves.

The man, meanwhile, jumped into the canal and swam towards the bars.

Actually, there were several grates leading to the sewers on this side of the canal, but all of them were reinforced with runes. He had marked this one, which had not been repaired in a long time, and had memorized it for just such occasions. He didn't want to lose another limb by breaking the rune grating with brute force.

When he reached the other side of the canal, he kicked a few of the acid-damaged bars with his hoof and pulled himself up and began to crawl inside.

Suddenly, he felt something behind him and rushed in, but not in time - something stabbed him in the right hind leg.

With a hiss of pain, the man crawled away from the entrance. After moving a dozen meters forward, the man was able to rise to his feet and look at his leg, where a thorn of some plant was sticking out. Plucking the thorn out and throwing it away, he was about to continue his escape when he saw something disturbing - the veins in his leg were swollen and green.

"Poisonous plant, earth pony magic," the man immediately recognized it.

There were no antidotes in his bag. And judging by the speed of the poison's spread, regeneration would not save him.

The situation seemed hopeless.

"There are no hopeless situations, only people in despair," the man thought coldly as he looked at the pegasi hovering in front of the entrance.

A smirk slid across his lips as the veins on his poisoned leg glowed red.

The following explosion shattered the entrance to the sewers, cutting him off from his pursuers.

Losing his balance due to the loss of another limb, the man fell to the ground and continued crawling. After a couple minutes of movement, his skin began to peel off and his hooves split open, preparing to transform back into arms.

His whole body itched and scratched, his muscles cramped, but the man continued to crawl.

"Honey, are you all right?" the mare asked worriedly, fanning the sweating unicorn with a napkin. "Should I get you some water?"

"No need, I'm just... a little stressed out," the unicorn tried to grin casually, but no one would believe his bravado.

Brave Heart, despite his name, had been horrified by the sight of blood since childhood. The bloody pony that had swept by earlier, bringing with it a primal brutality and violence, had driven him into a panic attack. He was still recovering, and his eyes were still rippling in front of him.

Good thing he had his understanding mare, Misty Aurora, by his side, who had always been a support to him.

"Did you suffer an attack, sir?" the azure stallion was asked by a guard who approached.

"No, it's just..." Brave looked even more confused.

"My husband has a big and kind heart," Misty joined the conversation. "After seeing such mayhem and the destruction that followed, he can't stop worrying about the lives of the common citizens of Canterlot."

"We are doing everything we can to catch the culprit, ma'am," the unicorn frowned slightly, sensing an implicit jab at the competence of the royal guards.

"I'm not accusing you of anything," the mare smiled sincerely. "We're just a little worried. But I believe that soon, through your efforts, the culprit will be brought to justice."

"You can rest assured that he will, ma'am," the guard replied seriously, and then pulled two gold plates from his bag. "I need to analyze your magical energy."

"Why test random witnesses?" Brave asked incomprehensibly.

"It's part of formal procedures, sir," the guard spat out the standard phrase.

"Seems like a waste of time," Brave Heart continued indignantly. "Aren't you supposed to be looking for the criminal? Do you need me to point out where he ran off to?"

He didn't actually remember where Alexei had run off to - the unicorn was so scared he didn't even remember what he looked like. He just wanted to drown out his embarrassment with passive aggression.

"Stop it, Brave," Misty said sternly, touching the plate with her magic. "He's just doing his job. You should apologize."

"I don't..." Brave started to say, but stumbled under his wife's gaze. "I apologize, officer. I didn't mean any of that, it was all nerves."

Nodding silently, the guard handed him another plate.

After checking the results, which showed that the couple was fine, the guard thanked them for their cooperation and went to the other ponies.

"Going back home?" Misty asked her husband.

"Didn't you want to go to the museum today?" Brave asked perplexed.

He didn't want to go anywhere anymore, but for his wife's sake, he might as well be patient.

"So much has happened," Misty shook her head. "Let's put it off for another time."

Brave looked gratefully at the mare and energetically nodded his head.

The couple headed for their home, a quick fifteen-minute walk from the cafe.

To Brave's delight, the journey home was uneventful.

"What should I make for dinner?" Misty asked as she closed the front door and headed for the kitchen.

"Your choice," the unicorn shrugged, plopping down on the living room couch.

Even though they hadn't had time to eat at the café - he didn't have much of an appetite.

"I'll make something up," the mare sang out, returning from the kitchen with a glass of orange juice.

Brave gratefully accepted the cold drink and drank it in a volley.

"Rest up," the mare said gently, taking the empty glass. "I'll be in the kitchen."

Brave nodded and made himself comfortable on the couch. After the adrenaline had left his body, he felt a little drowsy.

"Why not take a nap?" the unicorn thought. "Misty will wake me up when everything is ready."

Closing his eyes, he relaxed and unexpectedly quickly fell into sleep.

A few minutes later, Misty appeared from the kitchen, looking at her sleeping husband. A smile spread across her face and she headed to the basement of the house where they kept pickles and stuff.

Turning on the magic lamps, Misty walked past the shelves and made her way to the farthest corner.

On the cold basement floor lay a bound, snow-white unicorn mare with a light green mane and tail. Her mouth was glued shut with some green slime and her horn was broken off.

The sharp light and hoofsteps had woken her, and now she stared in horror at the mare before her. It was an exact copy of her.

"Wake up already?" Misty smiled. "Such a rush, we didn't have time to finish."

In a flash of green light, a halberd appeared in the air.

The dark wood shaft was adorned with two curved blades on the sides of the tip, and two smaller blades twisted in the opposite direction. Such a design resembled the silhouette of some sort of beetle.

The material of the blades looked a lot like bone. Here and there, the blades were covered with cracks and jagged edges, and the end of the shaft was tied with several strings of beads.

The weapon looked extremely primitive and decrepit, but Misty didn't seem to care. She gazed lovingly at the halberd in her telekinetic grip. A certain moment from the past flashed before her eyes, and her smile grew even wider - her arrogant mother had been struck down by that very halberd.

Turning her gaze to the mare weeping on the floor, Misty's eyes squinted, and the halberd swung, piercing the helpless captive.

Not a single drop of blood fell to the floor as the halberd vibrated and, like a ravenous beast, began to suck the life force out of the mare.

A few moments later, the dry mummified remains with the halberd sticking out of her chest were lying on the floor.

At the owner's wish, the halberd returned and pressed its shaft against her side. The mare's back arched and she moaned in pleasure as all the energy gathered by the halberd rushed into her body.

"Ah, wonderful as always," Misty exhaled, throwing her head back and savoring the moment. "You never disappoint me. No sex or drugs ever came close to this feeling."

It was a feeling of progress, a feeling of her growing strength.

What could be better than this? Nothing.

Even though she'd killed her mother, it was only because of this beautiful weapon - she still had room to grow.

"And with a little help from one pink alicorn, I will transcend the species," Misty thought with a smirk. "You never even dreamed of that, did you, mother?"

Breaking away from her pleasant thoughts of the future, she glanced at the mummified corpse.

Misty thought of a couple options on how she could dispose of the body. Not that it was such a problem, but there were guards around, and she had to be careful. Excessive cautiousness had never failed her before.

The creatures' bone and flesh contained magical energy, and it would take effort to destroy them. Turning a corpse to ash with a powerful burst of flame was easy, but it could attract attention. Thinking of a suitable method, Misty picked up the corpse with her telekinesis and dragged it upstairs.

Brave awoke to the pleasant smell of stewed vegetables hitting his nose. Stretching sweetly, he rose from the couch and headed for the kitchen. A pot of cooking lunch was bubbling on the stove, but Misty wasn't in the kitchen.

Brave sighed - he wanted to stealthily walk over to her and give her a surprise hug.

Suddenly his nose smelled something else. The odor was very subtle and almost imperceptible, but Brave always had an excellent sense of smell.

"What does it smell like?" the sniffing unicorn thought incomprehensibly. "Like damp and mold, but there's something else. What is it?"

Stepping out of the kitchen, Brave sucked in air a few times and began tracking down the source of the odor. Investigation led him to the bathroom.

As he approached the door, it suddenly swung open and Misty stepped out of there.

"Oh, you're awake already, honey," Misty smiled, kissing her husband on the cheek. "Lunch is almost ready. Did you dream anything good?"

"I dreamed some meaningless nonsense," Brave hummed. "Something about a kingdom of giant mice worshipping a cat that lives on the moon."

"Mouse kingdom?" Misty laughed heartily. "You can tell me about it at lunch. Will you help me set the table?"

"Sure," Brave replied and was about to turn around when he remembered why he'd come here in the first place. "Honey, what's that strange smell? I think it's coming from the bathroom?"

"Huh?" Misty tilted her head in wonder, but then her eyes sparkled with understanding. "I bought a new cleaner made from natural ingredients."

"Is it that good?" the stallion asked doubtfully. "The smell is really weird..."

"Very good," Misty nodded seriously. "It doesn't leave a trace of dirt."

Shrugging, Brave turned around and headed for the kitchen - his wife was smart enough not to fall for some bullshit marketing trick.

Misty turned around and looked at the tub, where brown liquid was bubbling beneath the green foam.

Throwing a glance at the melting hoof sticking out of the water, she closed the door and headed for the kitchen, purring some clingy Canterlot motif.

Chapter 18 - Indifference of stars

Pushing aside a few small rocks with her telekinesis, Luna stepped into the passage leading into the gloomy sewer. She was followed by a thestral mare with a scattering of stars on her side. Each star was adorned with strange markings that, when viewed from a distance, formed a hoofprint. It was her talent for finding tracks and stalking. Her coworkers didn't understand what the stars on the mark had to do with the mare being a bounty hunter in the first place.

Star Seeker was not going to satisfy the curiosity of her colleagues and mocked them, giving out a lot of philosophical nonsense, which had already become her trademark. There was even a kind of tradition - to send a newcomer to her and compare her explanations with the previous ones. Star Seeker never once repeated herself. But everyone waited for it to happen and placed bets. The mare only snorted at the stupidity of these fools - she was secretly betting too. One day, she would ruin them to the last bit.

She was actually an astronomer, but it turned out there was a much better price on the heads of criminals. When she learned of Princess Luna's return, she traveled to Equestria and joined the Intelligence Corps. And she didn't regret it one bit. She had found the star she had been looking for all her life.

What she didn't like was where her princess was headed now.

The Lady of the Night, soiling herself with the stench of those day ponies' shit? To Star, it was blasphemy and a defilement of the sacred. But she dared not speak of it aloud - her princess knew better what to do. The only thing that reassured her was the presence of a shield around the entrance. The last thing she needed was for those unicorns to start spreading unflattering rumors about her goddess.

Wrinkling her nose at the smell, Star looked around carefully, searching for any non-obvious details that might have been missed earlier.

The passage to the sewers was narrow and dark, the walls lined with rough stone, and the ceiling covered in a layer of dust and cobwebs. A strange odor of rot and dampness hung in the air, creating an atmosphere of pressing mustiness.

"This is where he lost his leg," Luna muttered, examining the bloody stain on the floor of the passageway. "Begin, Star."

Thestral nodded and, after looking over the stain, followed the stretching bloody streaks.

Soon the trail of blood began to break off, which surprised thestral somewhat.

"Did he use a potion or a healing spell?" Star pondered as she continued down the tunnel. "Then why didn't he use it right away? More like his natural regeneration. If that's the case, it's quite good."

These thoughts swirled in her head as they emerged into the main part of the sewers.

There were grates stretching along the corridor, with murky water flowing out from underneath, making squelching sounds. A wide channel ran down the center of the sewer, through which the sewage water flowed leisurely, reflecting the light from the flickering magical lamps hanging on the walls. The light from the lamps was pale and uneven, illuminating only part of the corridor.

But that light was enough - it didn't take a tracker to spot the trail of someone crawling across the stone floor.

Still, Star took the matter seriously and went completely into work mode, even forgetting that the princess was walking behind her.

Luna didn't mind at all. Once they were out of the lamp-lit area, she lit her horn, illuminating Star's path, and silently followed her. Thestral navigated perfectly in the dark, but only because of their innate talent for sound magic. Their night vision wasn't all that impressive.

After about a hundred meters, Star's path was blocked by a side stream of sewage flowing into the main stream. The trail went off to the right, to a stone bridge over the flow. Star crossed the bridge and followed the trail, which curved to the left, returning to the main flow.

After walking a few kilometers, she began to wonder how much longer this was going to go on? Wasn't this creature on its last breath? Just when she thought to fly up and accelerate, she noticed a chaotic scene in front of her.

Many huge five-toed and four-toed footprints could be seen on the floor, and everything around it was splattered with scarlet blood. Here and there were scattered pieces of wood, which Star identified as the fragments of a crate left behind by the workers.

"What happened here?" came Luna's cold voice, causing Star to flinch in surprise.

Bowing quickly to the princess, Star began to look around.

"There are five toes on the back paws and four toes on the front paws," thestral concluded. "And what is that?"

She had tracked and hunted ponies and griffins, sometimes diamond dogs and minotaurs, but not some monsters from the sewers. All her knowledge of magical monsters was limited to which ones she should run away immediately and which ones she shouldn't be afraid of. Well, and the prices for body parts of rare monsters.

Carefully looking over the tracks, she roughly estimated the weight of the creature and its center of gravity. A portrait of the supposed monster began to emerge in her mind. It appeared to be some sort of huge frog or toad. Stark vaguely remembered that toads seemed to live on land. A frog, then?

Walking to the edge, the mare lay on her belly and stretched her wing toward the water. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on her senses, and circles followed the surface of the water. After a few seconds, she stood up and, raising her head, screamed. At least that's what it looked like. There was no sound at all. The mare stood like that with her head up, immersed in her thoughts, occasionally shaking her wings as if probing for something invisible in the air.

"Nothing," thestral thought with a frown. "No monster or human within a kilometer."

And as luck would have it, the man's trail ended here. Either he had covered his tracks skillfully, which Star doubted very much, or he had been eaten by that toad. Considering the man's condition, that was the expected outcome.

With a flap of her wings, Star flew further down the corridor, hoping to find some clues. The mare was followed by a sparkling ball of light, illuminating everything around her with a pale blue glow.

A few minutes later, Star returned with empty hooves - there was nothing.

"So?" Luna asked, pulling a red jagged crystal from under her wing.

The princess' horn lit up and the crystal began to emit waves of scarlet light. Reacting to the light, some of the blood on the floor and walls began to glisten. Star easily determined the nature of the spell - blood mages were frequent guests on the wanted flyers. Glancing at the glistening blood spatter on the wall, she immediately realized the effect of the spell - it showed whose blood belonged to the human. Hence, the crystal the spell was applied to was also made of human blood.

"I couldn't find anything, Mother," Star said in an even voice, bowing her head and exposing her neck. "I will accept any punishment."

Luna cast a quick glance at thestral and mentally sighed. Even in ancient times, they didn't punish such things with death. Well, except sometimes.

"That's unnecessary, Star," Luna said as she continued to use one spell after another on the traces of the battle. "Tell me what happened here."

Thestral raised her head, admiration and devotion sparkling in her eyes. Her goddess was generous and merciful. Not only did she not punish Star, but she gave her a chance to show her worth. Even though her princess probably already understood everything, she still asked.

"The beast jumped out of the water here," Star began to recount, pointing to a certain spot. "You can tell from the tracks that it was something like a huge frog weighing about eight hundred kilograms. I am not familiar with this type of beast, Mother, so I..."

"A toad," Luna corrected her, causing thestral to blink in surprise. "They also lay eggs in water and sometimes make their way into the sewers. Go on."

"Beast and human fought here, but the outcome of the fight is unclear," Star continued, trying to deliver dry facts. "There's a lot of blood, but the tracks break off here. There are no bodies in the area."

"Your opinion?" asked Luna, breaking away from the bloody picture.

"The man was in no condition to pose a threat to the beast," thestral began to ponder aloud. "After being wounded - the beast would have been enraged and wouldn't have let him go. Even if he miraculously won - where is the beast's body? Without two limbs, he wouldn't be able to swim away. This whole thing..."

Star faltered when she saw Princess Luna's cold stare. She clearly needed to be more succinct.

"I think the human was devoured," Star said with a gulp.

Luna only shook her head upon hearing that. Even if everything pointed to that - there was no way she would believe the man was dead.

"He's too crafty," Luna thought as she looked at the man's blood on the wall. "They say you can't cheat death, but he probably could."

The man's cunning had been bugging her lately. He understood her too well and played easily on the strings of her soul. She had been somewhat confused since her release from confinement, and his deception could have been blamed on her weakened vigilance. But he had deceived her twice.

She had even considered the possibility that he had been influenced by Nightmare Moon or had gotten a piece of her memory.

Those spheres, one of which had brought him to this world, had been made by her when she was already under Nightmare Moon's influence. They could very well contain echoes of the nightmare. However, after carefully considering this possibility, she realized she was simply looking for an excuse for her naivety.

If he could already interact with mental energy, how did he survive that outburst? If there really were echoes of the nightmare there, why would they stay in the sphere for a thousand years? Most likely, the echoes of Nightmare Moon had immediately gotten out and started affecting the remnants of the cult in an attempt to save the main body.

The princess didn't completely dismiss the possibility, but recognized that it was highly unlikely. Still, the thought was a little unsettling. The echoes of the nightmare didn't frighten her, but a human having a piece of Nightmare Moon's memory...

Luna really wouldn't want them to get to Celestia. Some things were better left in the past. Only after she caught the human and thoroughly searched his entire memory could the matter be put to rest.

If the man had known about Luna's thoughts, he probably would have laughed. Nightmare Moon's memory? If he had even a scrap of knowledge of the powerful nightmare - would he be in this situation right now?

He had considered the question of being affected a long time ago, when he had first made a deal with Saada. The flash of mental energy had definitely affected him, but it had been a tiny change. Back then, he was too foreign to this world. Only after the constant influence of the world, the long interaction with the ghost, and the ritual - he could barely touch the mental energy. Even now, he still felt inferior compared to the other inhabitants of this world. Magical energy wasn't worth talking about - it was all blank there whatsoever.

"I can scour the entire sewers," came Star's voice, noticing that her princess' face was frowning more and more. "There might be some traces to be found."

Hearing that, Luna only shook her head. Star must be kidding. The sewers ran through the entirety of Canterlot. It may have been incomparable to the city's size, but it was very close.

"No need for it. Even with his regeneration - it'll take him a month to recover," Luna replied. "The wedding is in three days and you have enough work to do. We'll continue the search after it."

Thestral bowed silently, accepting her princess's will. Surprisingly, her Mother thought, the human was still alive. Most importantly, she was still going to rely on her skills!

A slight smile slid across Luna's lips - the joy of thestral did not escape her gaze. The princess wasn't actually relying on her. Luna was working on her spell to find the man. And she had a huge advantage. The man was a non-magical being, but now he had a connection to the Dreamworld. Logically, as the self-proclaimed Queen of the Dreamworld, she should have been able to find him easily. Her sister, who had no experience in dream magic, thought that Luna was simply weakened and needed time to recover. That was only part of the truth.

Luna had spent all those thousand years in nightmares, though she didn't remember most of them. At first, Nightmare Moon tried to use her to influence the creatures of Equus through the Dreamworld to break free from her imprisonment. However, she quickly discovered that this was impossible. Even though the power of Harmony couldn't completely cut off their dreams from the rest of the Dreamworld - it was able to suppress any interaction with it, creating strange interference.

When Nightmare Moon's plan failed - she began systematically destroying and distorting Luna's memories, wanting to get rid of potential internal threats. Of course, Luna fought back desperately and Nightmare was only able to destroy bits and pieces of her memory. Realizing that the blunt approach was ineffective - Nightmare changed tactics and began distorting and shuffling her memories. She attacked everything related to dream magic especially fiercely.

In the end, Luna was still trying to unravel the tangle of her memories. She was very glad when a human wanted to learn dream magic. Because she could study with him without arousing her sister's suspicions. She didn't want Celestia to know about it. Not only did it put her in a vulnerable position, there was also the matter of Celestia's reaction if she found out that Nightmare Moon had gotten so deep into her head. Could Celestia be sure that her sister was even in front of her? No, no, all of this should remain forgotten. It was worth it to answer the man's endless questions.

It had to be said, sometimes the human asked such tricky questions that she herself was unsure of her answers. The most important qualities for dream magic were: willpower, imagination, flexible thinking, understanding of psychology and the amount of mental energy. His last point was zero, but in all the others he probably surpassed even her.

"Did he intend all of this originally or was he driven by desperation after hearing my negative answer?" Luna pondered.

It wasn't that there weren't options for the man at all - she could find them or create them personally. Magic was very flexible and there was always a way out. It was just that she realized she would have to experiment on the human as the only suitable test subject, so she turned him down. Who could have known that he would turn out to be so crazy that he would experiment on himself? Surprisingly, he ended up succeeding. Luna wasn't sure if it was pure luck or the man's talent.

"There's no point in thinking about it now," Luna shook her head, beckoning Star to teleport away. "In fact, there's no point in my chasing after him either. Perhaps Sombra really was right."

"Her father is just horrible," the pink pony sighed, tossing the book aside. "How could he do that to them?"

"Well, he had his reasons, Cadance," the white unicorn lounging on the couch next to her stretched out thoughtfully. "The political climate was rather unstable and it could have provoked..."

"So you're on his side, Shiny?" said Cadance in a voice full of disbelief. "He has separated lovers! There is no forgiveness for him! How can you justify him? You trait..."

Snorting, Shining slapped Cadance in the face with a pillow, interrupting her feigned angry tirade. Cadance wasn't timid either and retaliated. The situation was quickly escalating and threatened to spill over into the other half of the huge living room.

Sighing, Celestia watched the local conflict with pillows and some dirty spells that should have been declared illegal.

"I'm actually trying to work," Celestia thought doomfully, lazily batting away a few random projectiles. "Well, it's better than listening to endless talk about love."

The only thing that pleased her was that it was only temporary. Eventually Cadance would calm down. Celestia, back in her day, also chattered nonstop about the sun.

Celestia stretched and decided to take a short walk around the palace, checking on the preparations for the ceremony. With another glance at the heated up local conflict, Celestia smiled and left the room.

As soon as the door closed behind her, a multitude of runes erupted. Adding a few more spells just in case, the princess headed towards the throne room. Her room was one of the most protected places in the castle. Even if Discord showed up in his peak state, it would take him some time to get in.

Cadance's safety and secrecy was her number one priority. Aside from Celestia, Luna, and Shining Armor, no one even knew she was already in the castle. Cadance had spent the last few years in a remote, carefully hidden and shielded part of Equestria. The coordinates of this place were known only to Celestia. She had arrived here through a dimensional gateway placed in the princess's chambers. Celestia had listened to Cadance's complaints a thousand times, but it was necessary.

It wasn't that Cadance was isolated. She had been visited by many teachers, and yes, she had met with Shining often. Of course, the teachers' memories were later edited.

Bumping into one of the maids in the hallway, Celestia remembered it was the end of the day and nonchalantly wished her a pleasant evening.

"Thank you for your kindness, Your Majesty," the maid bowed low.

After waiting for the princess to leave, the maid raised her head and went back to work - she had a few more small errands to finish.

After taking care of the chores, the maid neatly put away her uniform and left the castle.

Upon reaching a certain apartment building in the center of Canterlot, the maid froze at the door. After a moment, the door opened slightly and an orange pegasus peeked out of the house. The pegasus and unicorn looked at each other in silence for a few moments, as if communicating telepathically, and then the pegasus stepped aside, opening the way.

The maid made her way deep into the house and reached the living room, where a large table littered with all sorts of diagrams and blueprints was occupied by a motley group of individuals. Pegasus, thestral, griffin, earth ponies, unicorns, and even one minotaur.

At the head of the table sat a snow-white mare with a light green mane. She was known as Misty Aurora in Canterlot, but here she was referred to exclusively as Queen Chrysalis.

"There you are," Chrysalis nodded in satisfaction. "What kept you?"

"Celestia's nephew made a mistake with a spell, my queen," the maid replied in an even tone, bowing. "I volunteered to help the other maids, following the usual behavior of the original owner of the identity."

"Blueblood? Is it something serious?" Chrysalis asked with a raised eyebrow.

Not that she cared one bit about his health, but she was used to considering the smallest details.

"Localized smoke and light damage to the interior, my queen," the maid reported. "Blueblood himself was unharmed thanks to a defensive artifact. Judging by the distorted parts of the interior - he was trying to learn a teleportation spell."

Chrysalis nodded, brushing aside the unnecessary details - this incident didn't deserve her close attention.

"Screw formalities," Chrysalis waved her hoof, pointing to a vacant seat. "What about the room? You've been near her chambers more often than any of us."

"Impenetrable," the maid replied simply, settling into a chair. "Even if you destroy the entire castle - Celestia's chambers remain untouched. The space is locked, and only she has access - Luna was only able to enter after she was let in."

"Well, nothing new," Chrysalis summarized, not the least bit upset.

Of course, it would be nice if some sort of breach was discovered so they could directly take Cadance and leave Equestria, but that was only a wishful thinking.
They already had a plan ready and the presence or absence of a breach didn't change anything.

However, the wealth of Equestria surprised Chrysalis somewhat. Celestia's chambers alone must be worth as much as the entire castle. The treasury was a separate story altogether. It wasn't their target, so they didn't gather information purposefully, but even the pieces were enough to surprise Chrysalis.

There was no treasury in the castle. There was only a gate that, when activated, led to an isolated piece of space compressed into a point where the treasury was located. The gate itself was made of some alloy unknown to her and reinforced to the highest possible limits. Her subject had been right: even if the entire castle was wiped to dust, the gate and Celestia's chambers would remain unharmed. It wasn't that space-expanded artifacts were that rare, but this was a whole different scale. The treasury was clearly much larger than a room.

But the precautions at Canterlot didn't impress Chrysalis at all. Magical analysis, scanning spells, mental vibration detectors - it all seemed like child's play to her. Equestria had lived in her world for too long without seeing the real threat. The changelings, on the other hand, never stopped refining and improving their methods, under constant external pressure.

No methods available to the unicorns could reveal their disguise. Whether it be scanning spells or blood testing.

Many high ranking changelings even had protection on their souls and minds. Basically their mind had multiple layers. If someone were to go into their memories, all they would stumble upon was a fake identity. It probably wouldn't stop Celestia or Luna, but it would fool any unicorn.

It still wasn't without some unexpected situations, though. Several regular changelings sent to local gangs died and there were some rough patches with getting into the palace. One died due to an accident, two others fell into the clutches of a now dead dark mage. The fourth, however, had died at the hands of a human.

The changelings had only just gotten on the trail of his gang when the man was caught by the royal guards. Chrysalis had known of him before, back when he had arrived in Canterlot and made a fuss. She was even aware that he was not from this world. He didn't really interest her or matter to her plans, but it was still a creature from another world - she wanted to dissect and study him.

However, the timing wasn't right - the man was constantly hanging around the alicorns, and she didn't want to ruin all the preparations with one careless action. Now she could capture him too - the changelings had already infiltrated the beggar gang and were waiting patiently for the man's return. They would leave Canterlot after the wedding, and she didn't care how much noise they made here.

But this human-made poison really surprised Chrysalis. Its effects caused mental confusion and severe damage to internal magical energy. A changeling exposed to this poison must have had a seizure and instinctively dropped its disguise. Such poisons were quite rare. The reason for this was simple: an alchemist creating such a poison would be highly likely to suffer damage himself.

A human with no magical energy didn't care about it, of course. Neither was his subordinates' health.

She was also aware that the man had captured the changeling alive and interrogated him. But the changeling didn't have any important information, and it couldn't shake her plans.

"What about the Elements?" Chrysalis asked the brown earth pony, putting the human out of her mind.

"We're watching their every move," the perturbed pony replied. "We can capture or kill them at any moment. You only need to give the order."

"Happiness is truly in ignorance," Chrysalis mentally grinned, but her face immediately frowned. "If any of the Elements die - that damned thing might wake up."

Chrysalis looked at a certain point on the wall, but her eyes seemed to be looking much farther away. Chrysalis' gaze gradually filled with pure distilled hatred, and the surrounding changelings glanced around, afraid to make an extra movement.

Soon, Chrysalis' rage disappeared, but her gaze expressed deep thoughtfulness. The changelings remained still, unmoving, afraid to interrupt her musings.

"Your rule would lead us into a dead end, foolish mother," Chrysalis thought with some sadness. "By merging with the alicorn of Love, we will transcend Their design. Then we can escape from this shitty world."

Night fell on Canterlot, enveloping the city in its gloom like a blanket of darkness. The narrow streets turned into ominous corridors, and the starry sky shone bright like diamonds on black velvet.

A man's head appeared between the bars hiding the entrance to the sewers. His remaining eye was staring outward, carefully scanning his surroundings. A small puff of smoke crawled out from his body, which instantly turned into a black butterfly that left the hiding place. The man waited patiently inside.

Soon, the butterfly returned and fused with his body. After a moment of thinking, the man began to climb out. Unlike the previous ones, these bars were old type and, albeit with difficulty, the man was still able to squeeze through. Standing on one leg, Alexei jumped up and grabbed the edge of the canal with his hand. Tensing his muscles, the man began to pull his body up. Even though he was in good shape on Earth, he would not have been able to pull himself up with one arm. But that was all on Earth.

After a long life in the forest, endless battles, a lot of strengthening potions and rituals, his body had already risen to the level of professional athletes, and his regeneration had far surpassed human limits.

Following him, several rats appeared from behind the bars and crawled upward, clinging to the stones.

He looked around and crawled toward the abandoned building. Rats were scurrying around him, feeling anxious for their master. Alexei slipped through the trash and made his way inside the building.

After hiding from prying eyes, the man fell on his back - he was very tired. But even now he could not rest - loud music and drunken shouts from the neighboring street disturbed his peace. There was nothing surprising about it - there were tons of entertainment venues around. But he couldn't blame them, he'd chosen this place on purpose - thestrals would get a migraine if they flew here too often.

The rats circled around and rubbed against him, sensing his exhaustion and trying to cheer him up, but he paid no attention to them. His gaze settled on the starry sky through the holey roof, as if searching for answers to his inner questions.

"Fuck!" the man growled suddenly, hitting the floor with force.

Shards of shingles flew in all directions and the rats scattered frightened.

Ignoring this, the man stared fiercely at the night sky as if it were his sworn enemy. His sides rose and fell with suppressed anger, but there was no more action - this punch had drained him of his last strength.

First an escape from the guards, then he'd crawled several kilometers through the sewers, then he'd stumbled upon that damn toad.

Jumping out of the sewers, it had taken him by surprise and judging by the throbbing appendage at the bottom of his abdomen, the toad appeared to be a male. It didn't particularly want to eat the human, but it was interested in getting to know him intimately. The human was not happy with such a relationship. It eventually ended in violence.

After a short fight, the man stuck a piece of wood in the toad's eye and, while the toad was trying to pull it out, he jumped into the canal and retreated. There were a few planks from crates destroyed by the toad's attack floating around, on which he could drift through the flow of sewage.

Such creatures in the water were the reason he had persisted in crawling on land. But now he had no choice - he had lost too much time thanks to the toad.

Apart from a few minor skirmishes nothing else happened and he even met almost all of his rats along the way, but right near his destination some chameleon lizard with a spiky tongue pounced on him.

Five rats sacrificed themselves so he could escape. Given his past losses - he was left with eleven rats. He couldn't subdue them indefinitely. The maximum he could have was twenty rats. Not to mention the fact that it took quite a bit of time to train them.

Now he only had half of them left.

But it wasn't the death of the rats or even the loss of limbs that irritated the man.

Restoring limbs wasn't that big of a problem. He had lost his right arm in the forest after an encounter with a manticore, but had been able to regenerate it in a few months. With his current regeneration, even without potions, his limbs would regrow in a month. There were ways to speed up the process, but a high price would have to be paid.

The reason for Alexei's anger was something else.

He had been chased around Canterlot like a rabid dog, beaten to a pulp, and then crawled through shit for several kilometers. His own weakness was pissing the man off: reality had slapped him in the face again, showing him his place. And it wasn't just about today.

He had been in this world for almost five years now, and all he had been doing was groveling before the powerful and hiding.

He hoped that at least in this world he could be himself, but he constantly had to wear many masks and pretend to be someone else.

He suppressed all these feelings and ignored his pride - it was necessary for survival. But still, he was a man - he couldn't help but feel irritated. His stress was constantly building up.

Celestia was arrogant? The man was even more arrogant.
The alicorns and this whole world in the man's eyes were nothing more than a stepping stone to his goal. And his goal was even higher, and even he recognized that it was hardly even attainable.

But he still intended to keep going towards it. Of course, he was arrogant.

Suddenly, unrestrained laughter erupted throughout the building. History was repeating itself - the man was once again laughing at himself, at life, and at the world.

"I'm really pathetic, huh?" the man asked the sky, still laughing. "But who isn't?"

The starry sky answered nothing.

"Then witness my words," the man's firm voice rang out. "I swear. This is the last time anyone will make me struggle with death for my life. From this day forward, I will be the cause of others' struggles."

Chapter 19 - Royal wedding (1/3)

With a deep sigh, Alexei opened his eyes and slowly stretched his neck, feeling very tired.

“That's it,” the man thought contentedly, looking up at the stone ceiling of the sewer.

He had just finished removing the last bit of unnecessary memories. For the past month, every time he had a free moment, he had been erasing the unnecessary memories he had acquired in those illusory worlds within the Tree. Initially, Alexei had some hopes for those memories, but gradually he realized their uselessness. They were filled with nonsense incompatible with his own life and reality.

Even the combat experience he could have drawn from these memories was untenable. Most of his previous selves had been righteous heroes acting according to some fictional rules. To Alexei, who was used to fight without restraint, their fighting style seemed simply ridiculous and completely ineffective.

Alexei realized that these memories could do more harm than good. He destroyed most of them, keeping only a few useful fragments.

They had to be destroyed, otherwise one day, at a crucial moment, he might make a mistake that would cost him his life.

If it weren't for the fear of exposing himself to Luna - he would have deleted them long ago. They were still useful, though - he'd hidden his memory deep inside, and put all that jumbled nonsense outside. Luna didn't dare to push his mind too hard for fear of breaking it, and could only poke around on the surface.

Making himself comfortable on the cool surface, the man closed his eyes and let his mind rest for a while. His method of removing unnecessary memories didn't require much mental energy, but it did strain his mind.

“Things would be so much easier if my nightmare had a core,” he thought, grinning at the thought. “I'm too greedy. The fact that it hasn't collapsed yet is already a good thing.”

Every creature in this world was born with energy distributed throughout their bodies that allowed them to use spells or innate abilities.

However, the real journey in magic began with forming a core. Only after that the energy became of high enough quality to use complex spells. In addition, their maximum possible energy reserve increased.

There was another advantage to having a core. Creatures without a core restored their energy solely by absorbing it from the outside: nightmares fed on fear, ponies breathed air and ate food filled with magical energy, like all matter in this world.

Creatures with a core, in addition to absorbing from external sources, could produce energy on their own. In addition to increasing their energy recovery rate, they became independent of their environment.

For example, what would happen to a pony without a core if he came to Earth? After a while, he would lose all magical energy and be unable to use magic. Even here on Equus, it was still an advantage - there were some desolate places with low levels of magical energy.

The only ones that broke out of the general logic were magical beasts. They were born with strong and sturdy bodies that could withstand the pressure of magical energy. Their energy increased and condensed on its own as they lived. Everyone else had to develop with the help of the core. The benefits of being magical beasts were so appealing that human had once even considered options for chimerization - Saada's research was exactly in this area. Unfortunately, this venture had failed.

The requirements for creating a core were quite simple - one had to reach a certain level of energy, whether by training or expensive potions, and then compress it into a single point. After that, a crystallized energy the size of a small grain would appear inside the body, producing high quality energy - the core.

But the process itself was by no means simple. All available energy was used in the compression, and if an ambitious mage failed to control it during the formation of the core, everything ended sadly. If he was very lucky, he would never be able to use magic again, but it usually ended in death. Of course, there were some ways to make it easier - rare artifacts or the support of a strong mage. But how many people had that luxury? Mages were dying like flies.

The situation was even worse in the early days of magic, when mages were just figuring out methods of development and experimenting on themselves. The path of magic was littered with corpses and soaked in blood.

After forming a core, the creature would continue to train, increasing its energy until at some point it condensed it back into a core, increasing its quality and moving on to the next level.

Training methods were not only different for each species, but varied even within the same race. There were thousands of them, though there was a common pattern. For example, earth ponies meditated on nature, pegasi had a special dance with the wind, and unicorns turned to their minds while using complex chains of spells. The human called this “magical reflection” when he first heard unicorns practicing. All of these methods of development also carried some danger, but it was inadequate to what a mage went through when forming or improving a core.

Though a few simple and commonly available methods were known to the man, he wasn't particularly interested in the subject. These methods of development were not suitable for a nightmare at all. Even using them for inspiration was questionable - all of these methods were for developing magical energy. Saada had strong innate mental energy, as all zebras did, but went the route of magical energy. There were a few simple methods in her memory, but they didn't fit as well.

The mental energy of nightmares, and some other creatures, was different from the rest. The mental energy of nightmares was much more powerful and carried the attribute of fear. Due to this qualitative difference, nightmares could use any magic, just like unicorns. This was why Alexei was so interested in nightmares.

The core could be created from either magical energy, the standard way of mages, or mental energy, but one couldn't have both due to the conflict of energies.

Though mental energy was used during the use of magic energy based spells, it was a fairly small proportion of it. It didn't cause any problems when one of the energies in the body was dominant, but if one developed two at once, things would end sadly.

Of course, this wasn't some ironclad rule. Magic was extremely flexible, and the world was filled with geniuses.

The man knew that Luna had both a magical and mental core, and she had no conflicts - she had told him so herself. Alexei had played dumb then and asked how she did it, to which he had gotten a certain look. Luna had warned him never to ask such questions of other mages.

Every mage pursued the truth. Whether earth pony or unicorn, they all learned the world around them in their own ways. Prying into other people's secrets was the quickest way to die.

Pushing the unnecessary thoughts away, the man opened his eyes and examined his hand. It had already grown to the wrist and the fingers were about to start growing back. The leg was lagging a little behind and the eye had already fully recovered.

The red worms darted back and forth, diving into the toad's body and then into the man's, bringing a new dose of life energy. At this moment, the human was just lying on the belly of a huge toad that was in a coma. Considering the circumstances, it was even surprising - there was a steel rod sticking out of the toad's head. This toad's vitality was unbelievable. It was the same toad that had tried to rape him earlier. It wasn't that Alexei wanted revenge - it was just that the blood of the beast was still on him, and the sniffing of rats was no worse than that of dogs. Tracking down this particular toad was much easier.

Now the man had a huge supply of blood, which was digested by a pack of worms, constantly speeding up his regeneration. Many worms were constantly dying from overload, and new ones were born from the man's blood and took their place. If it wasn't for the potions restoring blood loss, he would have turned into a mummy by now. Even now, he was occasionally dizzy.

Not only the worms were suffering from the overload, but also the human body - Alexei was absorbing a huge amount of life energy, forcibly accelerating his regeneration. His body was unable to absorb so much energy in such a short time and was balancing on the verge of collapse. A few support potions and the help of the regeneration tattoo allowed him to survive the experience. Even so, he would still have to pay a price for it - his lifespan would be shortened.

“I want to live forever, but this is the second time I've shortened my life,” the man mentally sighed, closing his eyes again.

At another time he would have ironized the situation, but now he didn't have the strength to even move. He felt as if every muscle in his body had been torn to shreds.

Spending lifespan was easy, but increasing it was extremely difficult. He didn't like it, but he had no other options. If he had magical energy, he would use one of Saada's methods, which were far more effective than his crude methods.

He had been in this state for the second day. All this time, the rats gave him water and fed him what they found in the garbage cans. Mostly baked goods.

The comfort level was poor to say the least, but the man didn't complain. Sure, he still had a gang of beggars, but he had no intention of going back there. Once his identity was revealed, there was a high probability that someone was already waiting for him there.

He had the idea of sending a pair of trusted individuals a note through the rats, stating specific actions they were to take - procuring certain ingredients, contacting certain individuals, etc. It all seemed innocuous, but it was bound to attract the attention of the city guard, which would take the pressure off the hiding man.

He eventually gave up on the idea. Alice had already been caught once, and he didn't want to risk it for a paltry advantage. He completely severed all ties with the beggars and wasn't going to have any more contact with them.

Besides feeding the human, the rats had another important task: they were running through all the stashes and collecting hidden items. Gold could be neglected, but potions and ingredients were essential. He doubted he had the strength to brew new potions, but even the raw ingredients could be used.

He had almost everything he needed: poisons, explosives, all sorts of battle potions, acid, and a few transformation potions. He had even made a few transformation potions from changeling blood earlier. Just in case. He had one idea that could help him avoid being exposed by the changelings, but it bordered on insanity. Alexei would rather not do that.

All of these items would be useful to him very soon.

Recently, the rats had brought him some interesting news: the entire Canterlot was preparing for a grand event - a royal-level wedding. Celestia had personally announced it, and the whole town was in a fever of preparation. The groom was the captain of the city guard, Shining Armor, but the identity of the bride remained a mystery, fueling speculation and conjecture among the residents.

The most popular version was that the bride would be Princess Luna, sparking noisy talk of political intrigue and clashing nobility. Shining Armor came from a noble family with a deep military background, and even ordinary ponies already knew about Luna's conflict with the nobility. Marrying for political reasons was common, so the version looked logical.

However, Alexei only laughed as he imagined Luna in such a role. Considering her character, she would rather massacre the top of Canterlot than make concessions. Perhaps she lacked Celestia's diplomatic flexibility.

Speaking of the Sun Princess: some had the audacity to suggest that Celestia herself was getting married. They were usually beaten up - Celestia had a powerful personality cult. Fights broke out here and there as tipsy ponies discussed gossip and analyzed the political situation in Canterlot.

The whole town was buzzing with life and preparing for the ceremony, and all manner of cooks, decorators, and tailors were scurrying about like rabbits trying to get something done on such short notice.

The man was also preparing.

The grand throne room of Canterlot sparkled with luxury and sophistication. Perched on a pedestal, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, the embodiment of the sun and moon, shone with their divine beauty.

The entire throne room was filled with members of Canterlot's high society in elaborate outfits and eye-catching jewelry. At the threshold of the wedding, the air was filled with anticipation and excitement.

“I swear to Celestia, if you do anything funny again...” came Applejack's stern voice, her gaze sliding over the trio before her. “You won't be able to sit for a week, Applebloom.”

“Why do I have to take the fall for everyone?” snorting perplexedly, the aforementioned filly resented. “It's not fair!”

“Don't worry,” Applejack said holding back a smile. “Rarity and Dash will ensure that justice is done.”

“It'll be fine, Aunt Applejack,” the white unicorn filly smiled. “We promise we'll stick to the plan.”

Applejack sighed and gave the trio a look full of doubt.

“Sweetie Belle is the most sensible of them all,” Applejack pondered. “She's telling the truth, so... It's going to be okay, right?”

Though she was strict with Applebloom, this was the Royal Wedding! She was no longer a simple farmer from a backwoods village - she was the Element of Honesty. She was being watched and her every action was being evaluated. She couldn't embarrass herself, much less embarrass her family.

“So, let's go over the plan again,” Applejack spoke again, causing heartbreaking sighs from the trio. “All you have to do is take out the pillow with the flowers, give them to the newlyweds, and go back in. No pranks, no explosions, no demon summo...”

“You're losing it, Applejack,” the orange pegasus interrupted her with a bored look. “We remember everything perfectly well.”

“I certainly hope so, Scootaloo,” Applejack said sternly, but her face softened. “Alright, have fun for now. Just don't go too far away.”

The trio happily galloped off into the crowd of guests, leaving a pensive Applejack behind.

Something was scrambling at the back of her mind, not giving her peace. Something was wrong, but she couldn't figure out what it was. That unsettling feeling had her repeating the plan of action over and over again.

“Maybe I got the anxiety from Twilight?” hummed Applejack thought. - “Or maybe I'm just not used to Canterlot.”

Applejack rose on her hind hooves and looked around the crowd, searching for her friends.

Twilight was talking to some skinny unicorn, but she didn't seem to care much about the conversation - her thoughts were elsewhere. Earlier, Applejack had accidentally witnessed her emotional conversation with Shining Armor, and Twilight was definitely not cooled off yet.

Fluttershy stood near the window, staring at the floor as if trying to hide from all the commotion.

Rarity, gesticulating vigorously, was chatting with a group of eccentrically dressed ponies.

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were nowhere to be seen.

“Pinkie should be in the kitchen, but where could Dash be?” wondered Applejack. “Well, if she misses the Wonderbolts' performance, that's her loss.”

She was about to go over to Fluttershy when a unicorn burst into the hall. His eyes sparkled with excitement and his breathing was heavy from running. Running up to the princesses, he said something to them and, receiving a nod, walked off in the direction of the musicians.

Applejack, watching from the sidelines, crossed her hooves thoughtfully.

“Looks like the ceremony is about to begin,” flashed through her mind and she began to search the trio of mares with her gaze.

However, her fears were unnecessary - Applebloom waved her hoof as the whole trio headed for the entrance to the hall. They were to enter with Cadance, so they were already waiting outside with the necessary props - a velvet pillow with two flowers on it.

It was an ancient tradition among unicorns. They would find the flower that reflected them best and then pour massive amounts of magical energy into it for months. The flower should have literally crystallized from that amount of energy, but thanks to the unicorns' painstaking work and special methods, it remained alive. If the unicorn who created the flower would periodically replenish the energy - the flower would stay that way forever.

Twilight enlightened her that husband and wife replenish the flower's energy every anniversary, and then give it back to each other again.

Modern unicorns, mostly, had abandoned this tradition and were exchanging rings. They could talk all they wanted about the aesthetics of jewelry and how times were different now, but you didn't have to be an Element of Honesty to realize they were talking crap.

It was all about difficulty.

The creation process could take up to a year, and the slightest mistake would result in the flower being destroyed and having to start all over again. Not to mention that many unicorns were not even qualified for such delicate manipulations.

Applejack listened to Twilight's story with interest - she really enjoyed the tradition. The unicorns were literally exchanging a piece of each other with their beloved. It was much more sincere than some soulless metal studded with stones. Besides, the earth ponies had a similar tradition. Applejack's opinion of unicorns had improved somewhat.

Applejack, immersed in her own thoughts, didn't notice that the music had abruptly changed its tone, filling the hall with a powerful rhythm.

The melody pierced the air like a magic spell, and a wave of goosebumps ran down Applejack's back. Her imagination came alive, conjuring up a thousand images of unicorns in shining armor, marching in formation toward the majestic castle.

And then the hall doors swung open, letting in one of the main culprits of the ceremony, Shining Armor.

To his right walked a stallion in military uniform with an impenetrable face, and to his left walked a smiling mare with a sharp gaze - his parents.

“What are their names anyway?” thought Applejack confusedly, trying to remember the conversation with Twilight. “I think... Night Light and Twilight Velvet?”

Her ear twitched as she heard familiar voices. Turning her head, she saw Pinkie and Dash making their way through the crowd towards Fluttershy.

“So everything's okay here,” Applejack thought with relief as she headed after them. “Then why do I still feel like something's wrong?”

A powerful burst of magic caught Applejack's attention and she looked toward its source, the altar. Princess Celestia's horn blazed and the next moment she disappeared in a teleportation flash.

Applejack's ears twitched as the music changed, as if transporting her to a magical spring forest. In the imaginary surroundings of birdsong and the sound of babbling brooks, she momentarily forgot her thoughts until a petal fell on her nose. When she looked up, she found pink petals floating all around the room, as if guided by their own will.

Frozen in place, absorbed in this beauty, Applejack suddenly heard the door creak open. Cadance entered the hall with her wings open, dressed in a rather simple, to the local unicorns' tastes, nature-themed dress. Next to her walked a smiling Princess Celestia, followed by a trio of fillies carrying a pillow with two flowers.

The entire hall fell silent in surprise, only the music continued to play, filling the space with its melodies. The nobles and other notable ponies couldn't take their eyes off the bride, the new alicorn.

Celestia and Cadance headed down the altar, but Applejack didn't see it - she was too busy looking at the previously pompous unicorns frozen with open mouths and goggle eyes.

“This scene couldn't be better,” Applejack mentally giggled, savoring the moment. “Just perfect.”

Suddenly the smile vanished from Applejack's face. Celestia had already escorted the bride down the altar and began her speech, but the princess' words didn't reach Applejack's ears - she had an epiphany.

“Nobles!” she exclaimed to herself. “They are the cause of this feeling.”

She began to recall all of the few conversations she had in Canterlot this morning. The nobles, aware of her ability to sense lies, had avoided her questions or given vague answers. It was all within Applejack's expectations - she was just amusing herself by causing them embarrassment. But there was something else that she realized only now.

“They were too perfect,” Applejack came to a realization. “They gave exactly as many lies and truths as they needed to appear natural. Even the flaws they showed were presented perfectly and at just the right moment.”

The more she thought about it, the more she felt a shiver run down her spine.
She used to find the game of embarrassing nobles amusing, but now they made her horrified.

“That's what kept me uneasy,” Applejack thought. “Everything about them is one big lie!”

“Now exchange flowers,” came Celestia's voice, interrupting Applejack's anxious musings.

“Damn, I missed Applebloom's appearance,” Applejack muttered mentally, shifting her gaze to the altar. “Huh? What's she doing?”

The flowers were to be personally taken by the bride and groom. Other unicorns, especially the weaker ones, might not even have been able to lift them by telekinesis - there was a gigantic amount of energy in the flowers that would resist foreign energy. Although the flowers seemed light, their magical mass was enormous.

And yet, Sweetie Belle easily held them in her telekinesis.

Suddenly, the flowers flew swiftly towards the princesses and exploded without a sound or flash. The alicorns' horns flashed, but before they could do anything, a spatial fluctuation spread throughout the hall and both princesses disappeared. Where Princess Celestia had stood, only pale green runes remained, flickering on the floor.

The unicorns from the front rows immediately unleashed a torrent of spells on Cadance and Shining. Both had managed to put up protective shields and withstood the attack of dozens of unicorns.

Shining felt dread when he saw his parents unconscious on the ground - they were attacked at the same time as him. Suddenly, he felt the touch of a wing, and then his vision blurred for a moment - just like when teleporting.

However, when his vision cleared, he found himself in the same hall, only a step to the left - teleportation outside the hall had been blocked.

Applejack experienced the same sensation - just now she had been among the guests in the crowd, and now she found herself in a corner of the hall, surrounded by her friends.

“Elements! Quick!” shouted Twilight in a voice filled with panic.

Her horn sparked furiously - she was the one who had teleported everyone to her. Almost everyone. The teleportation had been successful, but not everyone was around. This was the second cause of the nervousness that clutched Princess Celestia's young apprentice's heart.

Whether it was Twilight's strained voice or the teleportation acted like cold water, but her friends immediately awoke from their shock and summoned the Elements of Harmony. They were Guardians and Incarnations of the Elements - of course, they could summon the artifacts at any time.

White light began to gather around the six friends, enveloping them in a noble glow. The gazes of everyone present turned to them and their eyes glittered green.

And then happened a thing that made Twilight's will shake - unicorns emerged from the crowd, holding certain ponies, and not only ponies, in telekinesis.

Among them were Twilight's parents, her faithful friend Spike, and three fillies.

Each of them had curved black blades at their throats, bringing to mind mantis scythes.

“Turn off your light show,” came a mocking voice belonging to Sweetie Belle. “Or do you like them headless better?”

Twilight clenched her teeth, biting her lip until it bled, but obediently stopped. The light began to dissipate.

Sweetie Belle laughed, and green flames ran up her body, bringing back her true appearance. In the next instant, Queen Chrysalis stood before everyone, stretching her wings.

Her body, slender and graceful, resembled a pony, but with unusual features. A curved horn on her forehead emphasized her power, and her black chitin glistened like the most precious gem. Chrysalis had dragonfly-like insect wings, each one seeming to play in the light. The turquoise mane and tail contrasted with the chitin, giving the image a mysterious and alluring quality. Dark green eyes with large feline pupils glittered with a mysterious light, emphasizing the predatory beauty of their owner.

“Oh, that's much better,” Chrysalis sighed contentedly, turning to the two newlyweds still holding the shield.

Despair flashed in Cadance's eyes as she saw the halberd appear in a flash of green light. Grabbing the amulet with her teeth, she threw it at Shining, who disappeared in a golden flash of teleportation.

Chrysalis raised an eyebrow, surprised at the artifact's ability to overcome the teleportation lock. But confidence soon returned to her - Shining was teleported next to the castle.

“Such love,” Chrysalis smiled, thrusting her halberd into the crackling shield. “Too bad he couldn't get far. Wait, they'll bring his head now.”

Cadance's gaze flickered and she lost her concentration, which Chrysalis immediately took advantage of, shattering the shield into pieces. The young alicorn's shield wouldn't withstand even one spell from Chrysalis, but why waste energy? She could win with a few words.

Cadance was hit with a barrage of paralyzing spells and collapsed to the ground. But immediately tried to get up, demonstrating the alicorn's resilience. With a snort, Chrysalis knocked her out with the shaft of her halberd.

A crowd of changelings, still in disguise, ran up and began to tear off their jewels and throw them at the wall. The gems and metals seemed to come to life under their influence, intertwining in complex patterns on the castle wall.

With a glimpse of the preparations to create a long-range portal, Chrysalis shifted her gaze to the Elements. They were already shackled in magic-suppressing chains, stripped of their artifacts, and themselves in a deep sleep.

“What orders do you have for Shining Armor, Queen?” one of the changelings asked through telepathy.

“Catch and sedate him, as you did the others,” replied Chrysalis. “Top priority: they must all be alive. Protect them even at the cost of your own life.”

The changeling nodded and ran out of the hall, going to relay orders to the other squads. The changelings had already interfered with Canterlot's security system and now the entire city was permeated with disturbances preventing teleportation and message transmission. This interference was hindering even the changelings themselves, but it was still worth it.

Chrysalis sighed, glancing at the sleeping Elements. She was annoyed with the whole situation - she would have preferred to feed them all to her halberd.

But she couldn't!

“These kids' psyches are as fragile as crystal,” Chrysalis thought irritably. “If someone close to them dies, they might break and that damned wooden thing will feel it right away.”

Of course, there were many ways to deal with the Elements without killing them. Put them in a coma, break their spine, destroy all magic and senses, drag them to the Hive and put them in a capsule. There were many options, and none of them satisfied Chrysalis. She wasn't sure if these actions would go unnoticed. The Elements of Harmony were just a joke in her eyes, but she was scared to the point of shuddering at what was behind them.

“I don't care,” Chrysalis waved her thoughts away. “Anything as long as that thing keeps sleeping.”

Her ear twitched at the hissing sound of a forming portal. A green-lit cave was visible on the other side, a temporary changeling's camp a thousand kilometers from Equestria. Even if the coordinates of the portal were traced - which was nearly impossible - their Hive would not be detected.

Handing Cadance over to the squad on the other side of the portal, the changelings closed it, then unleashed a hail of spells on the wall, destroying all traces of their presence.

“The main part is done,” Chrysalis relayed through telepathy to everyone in the hall. “Proceed to the secondary tasks.”

The changelings nodded and, picking up the sleeping Elements, began to leave the hall.

In addition to kidnapping Cadance, they had many tasks to complete, including thefts, pony kidnappings, murders, and break-ins. It would be strange not to take advantage of the situation since they had broken into Canterlot and kidnapped the princess.

The changelings also needed real combat experience. The weak would die and the strong would become even stronger.

Their identities as high-ranking nobles and military officers would help them perfectly in creating chaos in Canterlot. The nobles themselves were alive, of course. However, they were trapped and would be there until tonight. Most of the nobles understood how the world worked and spared no resources to increase their personal strength. Guards and bodyguards were a quick way to increase power, but only fools relied on others. It wasn't easy to kill them, especially without causing a ruckus, but Chrysalis didn't want to.

All these nobles weren't particularly happy about the appearance of a new alicorn strengthening the princess's power. After the changelings escape from Canterlot, the nobles would definitely start putting sticks in the wheels of the princesses' search operation. This was what Chrysalis wanted. That was why she wasn't going to touch their possessions, targeting the royal palace exclusively.

Soon, only Chrysalis was left in the throne room, twirling her halberd in her telekinesis.

“What's taking so long?” muttered Chrysalis irritably. “You wouldn't run away, would you, Celestia?”

Chrysalis waited to meet Celestia with a mixture of impatience and anticipation. Ever since she was a filly, she had heard legends of the Sun Princess' might and power, and now was the moment to test their veracity. She was eager to test herself to see how much she had grown and become stronger over the years.

Luna had been sent to an unknown location on the opposite end of Equus. Even Chrysalis didn't know the exact coordinates, that was the drawback of this method of teleportation. Perhaps she could have ended up in a wall or even inside a volcano, but neither of those things would have been able to destroy the alicorn.

Celestia, though, was teleported not far away, as intended. She should have been back in Canterlot by now. And as that thought raced through Chrysalis' mind, she sensed a new presence in the city.

With a smirk on her face, she pointed her horn at the green runes left where Celestia had disappeared. A gigantic amount of magical energy began to gather around Chrysalis, shrinking into one small dot at the tip of her horn.

A few seconds later, right on top of the runes, Celestia appeared in a flash of teleportation. Actually, she was going to appear in the air, but something interfered with her teleportation.

“Well, hello there,” grinned Chrysalis, unleashing the spell.

A lone griffin sat on a bench in the center of Canterlot, biting off chunks of roasted meat strung on a wooden stick. It was probably for this reason that many passing ponies cast dirty looks at him. Though they consumed some protein, they were still herbivores - a scene like this made them feel uneasy. But the griffin cared little for their feelings. He was greedily gulping down chunks of meat and was already reaching for his plate for the next portion.

“Life is good,” he thought contentedly as he looked around at the ponies. “Gryphons really are the best.”

These clever fellows quickly smelled gold and set up several street stalls, selling everything from toys and trinkets to food and ice cream. They were mostly pony-oriented, but a few griffons were grilling kebabs, which he was eating now. It was unlikely that even half of them had a permit to trade, but the Canterlot guards were clearly not interested in them right now.

The zebras were keeping up with the griffins, too, trading potions and talismans, fortune-telling and street performances. He could even swear he saw two zebras with a hookah. However, he did not approach them - if anyone could tell that something was wrong with him, it was the zebras with their keen senses. Under the guise of a griffin was a man, and the corpse of the real owner of this identity was already being eaten somewhere in the sewers.

Now Alexei looked like a griffin with an ordinary appearance - white plumage on his head and around his neck, yellowish-brown fur and golden eyes. What was unremarkable about him was the ragged blue scaled bag hanging around his neck. Despite its modest appearance, it was a low-grade spatial artifact. The inside of the bag was much larger than it appeared from the outside, having roughly a cubic meter of space. In addition, there were enchantments placed on it that reduced the weight of the contents.

It was only a lower class artifact and yet, Alexei had spent almost all of his gold on this bag. And that was despite the fact that he had bought it from some rather murky griffins and it was clearly stolen. But the man was still very satisfied - he had long lacked such a thing. As an alchemist, he used a bunch of potions all the time, but he couldn't fight while being weighed down by dozens of bags. Things would be different now.

He had also come up with a solution to the problem with those scanning tablets - otherwise, he wouldn't have dared to be so relaxed right in the center of Canterlot. He had several worms inside his body with the blood of a dead griffin mixed with a certain potion. If a guard approached him, he would take a tablet and the worm that came out of his claw would spit out that blood and it would be sucked into the tablet. He was confident that he could fool their magical analysis with this method. It was only necessary to slightly divert the guards' attention from his claws.

Based on this method, he created another one that could fool the weak unicorn's scanning. At least the chances were pretty good. The downside was the short duration. If he got stuck on a scan or if he came across a strong unicorn, he would be immediately exposed, but Alexei didn't rely on this method alone. He defined three points for a potential breakthrough, prepared a few distractions and thought of escape routes.

He had plenty of time to think while he lay in the sewers, but the rats did most of the work. They were still running around like mad, spreading explosives and poisons to specific locations in Canterlot. They've been doing it for the last two days. As soon as the wedding was over and the evening festivities began, he would make his move. For now, he would rest and observe the situation in Canterlot.

“Hmm?” Alexei's claws froze over his plate as he felt something strange.

Raising his head he saw something from afar hurtling at breakneck speed towards the royal palace. Squinting his eyes, thankful that he now had eagle eyesight, he saw some flashes of flame. A second later, the flames flashed high in the sky above him and disappeared.

However, he was able to make out the creature that had just teleported away - Celestia. The man immediately shifted his gaze to the royal palace. His intuition screamed that something was about to happen.

The next instant, a massive explosion rang out, and an entire chunk of the palace wall was destroyed by a giant dark green beam. All the ponies around froze with shock and turned their heads to see a smoking hole in the castle wall.

A few pieces of the wall flew even here, falling and injuring several ponies.
The crowd screamed and rushed away from the palace. Several unicorns instinctively tried to teleport, but their spells failed. One was even slammed into the wall of the building and fell to the sidewalk from three meters high. This further fueled the fire of panic.

Alexei, meanwhile, pushed himself off the bench and jumped onto the wall of a neighboring building. Clawing at the wooden elements, he quickly climbed to the roof, mentally thanking the griffins for such a practical body. Even though he couldn't fly, he could help himself with his wings and glide. Even without wings, claws were far more practical than hooves.

Looking at the royal palace once again, he saw a changeling flying out of a hole in the wall. Thanks to the griffin's eyes, he could perfectly see the changeling, which was clearly a female. Due to the distance, it was hard to judge the size, but he was still sure of something.

“Alpha changeling,” Alexei squinted, memorizing her image.

From the top of the building, he could see part of the square in front of the palace. There had clearly been a lot more casualties there, and right now the crowd of distraught ponies who had come to hear Celestia's speech after the wedding were scattering in all directions, away from the dangerous palace.

The lucky ones were the pegasi and griffins - they could just fly away. A few pegasi were helping the wounded, and the griffins were assessing the situation from afar, as was he.

Suddenly flames erupted, and Celestia appeared next to the alpha changeling. Her fur was blackened in a few places, but overall she didn't look injured.

“I would have been atomized by that beam,” Alexei mentally sighed, and his muscles tensed in preparation for further developments.

The changeling immediately attacked Celestia, firing multiple beams and attacking with her halberd. The few beams that didn't hit Celestia hit the city below, causing massive destruction. A sphere of light erupted from Celestia's body, and both mares disappeared to reappear several kilometers above. Immediately, fierce flames erupted and Celestia launched a counterattack.

“They're just testing each other's strength,” Alexei thought as he watched the burning sky. “When they start fighting for real - the city beneath them is clearly going to suffer. And where is Luna anyway?”

Judging by Celestia's appearance - the alpha changeling had sent both of them somewhere. The question is when Luna will return to Canterlot.

Taking advantage of their battle, he could easily leave the city. He knew that the situation would become more dangerous and chaotic by the minute. The royal guards would clearly have no time for inspections.

But he didn't want to leave the city right now. Where there was chaos, there were opportunities. Even if he left the city, so what? He still didn't have a way to solve the nightmare rejection problem.

Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, Alexei began to move closer to the palace.

The streets below him were in complete chaos.
A crowd of ponies were fleeing away from the palace, using every method available to them. Some were trampled, and others were hurt by the spells of others seeking to create an escape route for themselves. Alexei kept his cool, keeping a close eye on his surroundings - he had a certain goal in mind. He was most interested in the alpha changeling's blood, which he could use to slow the rejection, but if the situation allowed, he could also break into the palace.

His dreams crumbled as soon as he fully saw the royal palace. There were changelings flying everywhere, attacking squads of royal guards.

“Why are there so few of them?” thought the man, hiding on one of the rooftops. “There should be many more guards. Did the changelings do something?”

His hunch was correct - the changelings had switched the identities of multiple squad leaders and were able to scatter forces throughout Canterlot. Now, with the lack of communication, the royal guards were in chaos, and many of them didn't understand what was going on at all. They were clearly unprepared for such events and had no real combat experience. All the units that had such experience were guarding the borders of Equestria.

Suddenly something struck a nearby building, and the man was nearly blown off the roof by the blast wave. Moving his gaze to the sky, the man saw Celestia flying at the alpha changeling in a rage.

While he was looking at the situation around the royal palace, he missed a certain event: Celestia, seeing that her opponent was equal to her strength, tried to return to the palace and rescue the hostages. Of course, Chrysalis didn't let her do that - she immediately started attacking the city and civilians. Celestia had no choice but to return and continue the fight.

The man, realizing that it was getting too dangerous around, was about to leave the square when something else happened. Several changelings flew over the square, dropping smoking packages on the remaining ponies. As they fell to the ground, purple smoke poured out of them. Alexei watched the situation, and his face grew increasingly grim.

Several ponies that had inhaled the smoke fell to the ground and began twitching in seizures.

“It's my poison,” Alexei confirmed definitively.

There was a small stockpile left at his former gang's headquarters for emergencies. Apparently the changelings had gotten to it as well.

Mentally cursing those bugs, he jumped off the roof and rushed to the source of the smoke.

This whole thing was a serious problem!

This poison could be considered the calling card of his former gang. Canterlot was clearly not going to fall - the ponies would soon reorganize and kick out the changelings, and after that the investigation would begin. When the poison is discovered, the man will be immediately linked to the changelings and hunted with triple the force, and not just by ponies.

Jumping over the few ponies hurrying to leave the square, the man reached the source of the smoke. Grabbing a few orbs from his bag, he squeezed them and deftly tossed them at the three centers of smoke, helping himself with telekinesis.

One of the support squads of the royal guards, noticing the griffin's strange actions, rushed towards him, assuming his connection to the changelings. But after a few seconds, their fervor faded somewhat: whatever the griffin had done was clearly destroying the purple smoke.

They had already tried several spells, but the smoke was surprisingly resistant to magic. Which wasn't surprising, given its properties. From the griffin's methods, however, the smoke began to disappear, spilling a murky liquid onto the ground.

“What did you do?” the squad leader asked, running up to the griffon.

“You shouldn't give a fuck,” snarled the coughing griffon. “Where's my thanks for saving your pony asses?”

The unicorn frowned slightly at such an attitude. Though he was used to the rudeness of griffons, it was still annoying. However, given the circumstances, he would be more suspicious of those who were excessively nice. Scanning spells were useless - they couldn't detect changelings. Determining who was a comrade and who was an enemy became overly difficult.

“You want to save them?” the griffon asked, nodding at the twitching ponies on the ground. “Then drag them all to me.”

“You have an antidote?” the unicorn asked in surprise.

He didn't have the right skills, and was about to give the order to evacuate.

“Yeah, I'm a fucking alchemist. Satisfied?” replied the griffon sarcastically, pulling all sorts of vials out of his bag. “And tell your guys to put up a shield. I don't want to get my ass fried.”

Nodding, the unicorn began handing out orders. Soon a shield was created around the gryphon, and several guards began dragging in injured ponies. The gryphon quickly assessed their condition and measured out the right dose. The amount of antidote he had was limited, and the healing potions he had were not going to waste at all. At least it should be enough to break down and remove the poison from these ponies. Let the local doctors deal with the after effects of the poison.

Even if he missed something and the poison was discovered, he now had an solid alibi. The identity of the mysterious griffin alchemist who, by a lucky coincidence, had the antidote for the rare poison would definitely be linked to a human. So what? He had already shown his attitude by eliminating the poison and saving the ponies.

While he was treating the ponies, he looked around. It wasn't just that he didn't trust his safety to these unicorns - he was looking for the poison leftovers.

“See that purple powder on the ground?” the griffon asked, pointing to several areas. “It needs to be destroyed. Send in a couple guys skilled in fire spells.”

“We can deal with the aftermath later,” the unicorn shook his head, denying the man. “Focus on healing the victims.”

“Do you even know what the fuck this poison is?!” raged the griffon, casting a furious glare at the unicorn. “Do you know what happens if it reacts with certain spells? No, you don't fucking know. So why the fuck are you arguing with me? Because of you fuckers, I got myself inhaled and won't be able to fly for a week, and this is what I get in return?”

The unicorn was slightly taken aback by the griffon's onslaught, but after pondering the situation for a few seconds, he still gave orders to the suited unicorns to deal with the poison. The gryphon was right - he knew nothing about this poison. Seeing the poison-stricken ponies come to their senses, he had some credibility with the brute.

Alexei watched contentedly as the unicorns destroyed the evidence, finishing off the last casualty. Everyone he had already given the antidote to was evacuated from the shield. The changelings were crushing the royal guards and they had to retreat, soon they would reach this place as well.

Alexei raised his head and looked up at the blazing sky over the central part of Canterlot. While he was dealing with his own poison, the battle of the two titans had already moved there. This was clearly the idea of that changeling queen.

“Come, we'll evacuate you,” came the unicorn's voice, interrupting Alexei's thoughts.

Nodding, the man stuffed the rest of the potions into his bag and ran with the squad to exit the square.

When they were almost to the street, there was a sudden roar filled with pain, despair, helplessness and... duty? Immediately, the entire central district was covered by a magical shield.

Alexei frowned - this was the exact area he was about headed to right now, and now it was blocked off. Glancing at the reaction of the unicorns, who clearly recognized the owner of the roar, the man matched that to the power of the shield and easily realized whose horn it was - Shining Armor.

“Why is he roaming free?” thought Alexei perplexedly. “What are changelings doing?”

Taking advantage of the distraction of the unicorns trying to determine their captain's coordinates, the griffon climbed the wall to the roof and raced toward the central district. Behind him he could hear the shouts of the squad leader, but it was hard to make out anything when explosions were constantly going off all around him.

After a while, he finally reached the edge of the shield. Finding a suitable flat roof where several pegasus corpses were lying, Alexei soaked himself in blood and lay down between them, covering himself with their wings. Cloaked, he shifted his gaze to the battle and began to wait patiently. Sooner or later that shield would collapse under the pressure of two rampaging mares, or Shining Armor would be discovered and killed by the changelings.

It was a shame, but the man wasn't even qualified to watch this battle. All he saw was a sea of flames, a dark green mist, and constant explosions going off all over the city. After a while, he had to look away - all the flashes were starting to cut his eyes.

As he heard a piercing scream, he looked down. A mare with a foal on her back was running down the street, being chased by a changeling. Judging by the fact that he wasn't flying, his wings were damaged. Alexei was about to turn away when a new event happened - a unicorn jumped out of the building and blocked the path of the changeling. The mare didn't even seem to notice his interference and kept running.

The unicorn tried to attack the changeling, but very soon he had to use his shield and go into a deep defense. It took the changeling a few spells to break the shield, and so the corpse of the unicorn fell to the sidewalk, with his head smashed in half.

Regaining his breath, the changeling continued his chase.

“It's just like on Earth,” Alexei mentally sighed, shaking his head.

A woman just needs to be, and she is already valuable to society. A man needs to act and gain respect so that his life is of value to someone other than himself. A man's value depends on how useful he is to society, and the most meaningful usefulness of a man, according to society, is to value women and children above himself.

Heroic self-sacrifice is praised and exalted everywhere from movies to the news. Was this unicorn another victim of imposed morality or did he just think he was a hero? Who knows.

Whether the unicorn became a hero or not is no longer important. He's just a piece of dead meat now. That mare didn't even notice him, and the only witnesses to his act were the human and the changeling that killed him. In a few minutes, they too would forget he existed.

Perhaps the unicorn truly believed that the strong should protect the weak. All these principles were spread by the weak who wanted the whole world to believe this nonsense. Alexei was weak and admitted it, so he behaved as befits the weak: hiding from the strong and devouring those even weaker than him.

If you dig into your moral values, you'll find that most of them aren't “right” but simply favorable to others. Leaders elevate values and morals, but these are merely tools to maintain their power. And yet, it works beautifully.

In the eyes of society, this unicorn was a hero and a worthy stallion, while the man was a madman with dangerous beliefs, a defective product that should be gotten rid of - a villain.

“These fools, restrained by emotion and morality, are everywhere,” Alexei thought indifferently. “They deserve to be used and manipulated. The sad thing is that when they see others not restraining themselves, they jump out and criticize, trying to instill that morality in people, not allowing others to have more freedom than they have. They even enjoy that ridiculous sense of moral superiority.”

He was distracted from the musings he had spent his wait with by a powerful magical fluctuation. Alexei raised his head and tensed, preparing to dodge.

The next second, something broke through the shield and crashed down, destroying a small house. The man squinted, trying to see who it was, but everything was covered in smoke. A moment later, a figure covered in green mist darted overhead, shouting a stream of unflattering things in Celestia's direction. The shield seems to have angered the changeling queen a little, and she swung her buzzing halberd, smashing a huge hole in it. Immediately the entire shield collapsed, and the furious battle in the sky continued.

The man looked around and jumped off the roof, gliding to the opposite side of the street. Once he landed, he immediately ran towards where the alpha changeling had fallen, sharpening his senses to the max - he was now approaching one of the most dangerous places in Canterlot.

When he reached the ruined house, he looked up once more and breathed a sigh of relief - the two mares had shifted slightly again and were no longer directly over his head.

He could feel the powerful energy and purposefully kicked the debris away, heading towards it. Soon he found two small pools of blood of a completely normal red color.

The insects had no blood at all. So changelings, although they had some insect-like features, were still not insects. The changelings also had a skeleton, which the man had already confirmed earlier, so their species identity was still in question.

But these subtleties were of little concern to the man as he quickly collected blood into several rune-enhanced vials. Three small vials were collected, which was not bad.

Looking out of the building, the man saw the changelings approaching from afar. Their advance was blocked by several squads of royal guards, but the odds were clearly not even. It was only a matter of time before the changelings got here.

“They shouldn't have spotted me,” Alexei pondered, hiding behind the wall. “Did they come for Shining Armor? He must be unconscious right now after his shield was destroyed.”

Putting the vials into his bag, he was about to leave when a certain idea flashed through his mind.

“I could...” the man pondered, but soon shook his head. “It's too dangerous. I've already gotten what I want. I need to flee the city.”

But the idea had already taken root in his mind and continued to affect him.

“If I succeed, the benefits will be huge,” Alexei's eyes glittered, but the next moment he shook his head again. “If there is the slightest miscalculation in this plan - my fate will be even worse than falling into the clutches of the alicorns.”

The gryphon began to strut around the ruins, and his gaze grew more and more thoughtful and deep. Suddenly he snorted and stopped.

“An opportunity right in front of me, but I'm too scared to grab it,” Alexei laughed and reached for his bag. “Grand success or miserable death? Hehe, life is one big gamble.”

Pulling out two vials of the changeling queen's blood, he shoved them down his throat, and a few worms helped him and took them down his stomach. Taking out a tiny ball of poison that the changelings had used earlier, he squeezed it and threw it into a corner. After drinking one of the transformation potions, he took a third vial, poured it on his forearm and stuck the limb into the poisonous smoke. The skin immediately began to melt under the influence of the changeling queen's blood, but the poison slightly weakened the destructive power by attacking the magical energy in the blood.

The gryphon, meanwhile, began to transform into something else. Feathers and fur fused together to form chitin, and the eagle wings began to turn into insect wings.

Summoning the nightmare, Alexei ripped a piece of it off and merged it with the hissing blood of the royal changeling on his limb. This piece of nightmare was an important part of the plan - it held a certain mental message. Craning his neck, he ripped off the already formed changeling's wings and tossed it aside. Taking a few steps back, he turned towards the purple smoke and began to watch his transformation.

Moments before the transformation was complete, the nightmare flew into his nose and Alexei dashed into the smoke, hitting the rest of the wall. The wall couldn't hold and collapsed on top of him, burying him under the debris.

Half a minute later, the changeling, whimpering in pain, began to climb out of the debris.

Coughing up smoke, he sensed something in the sky and cried out, hiding behind the opposite wall. As he looked up at the battle of the titans unfolding in the sky, the changeling froze with shock.

“What's going on?!” his mind screamed as the changeling wrinkled his nose at the throbbing headache.

He couldn't remember anything at all. Not how he ended up here, nor his name, much less what was going on.

He began feeling himself start to panic, but suddenly a voice sounded in his head. The changeling's eyes widened in surprise and he shifted his gaze to the burn on his left front leg.

After a few seconds, his gaze came back into focus and picking up his bag, he rushed towards the royal palace.

“I will fulfill this mission, Mother!” vowed the changeling, and his eyes shone with fanaticism.

Chapter 21 - Royal wedding (3/3)

A figure made of black smoke sneered and lunged toward the scientist's body.

The smoke rushed into his nostrils, and soon the changeling, controlled by Alexei, unsteadily got to his feet.

Taking over someone’s body wasn’t easy— the creature's energy fiercely resisted the foreign intrusion. Alexei could control an average pony for a few minutes at most.

As for soldiers and experienced mages? Alexei doubted he had any chance at all. This was one of the two reasons he still hadn't given up his human body and possessed some unicorn.

The second reason: Alexei wasn’t a nightmare. The human was merely linked to it, and this link was growing weaker due to rejection. Yes, he could transfer his consciousness into the nightmare and manipulate it like his own hand, but the nightmare couldn’t stray too far from Alexei. If the link was broken or the nightmare died—the human would lose all magic.

Alexei closed his eyes, concentrating, and lit up the horn.

He had been feeding off the fears of Canterlot’s unicorns for over a month—of course, he knew the basic principles of their magic. Changelings, in their true form, weren’t much different from unicorns when it came to magic.

Soon, a rune appeared before him: a crescent moon with horns pointing upward, filled with intricate patterns resembling planets, like beads strung on a thread. Above the crescent was a full moon with a solar eclipse in the center. From it, intricate curls spread out like rays. Several circles around the solar eclipse depicted the phases of the moon. Though thematically it corresponded to Luna, Alexei associated this rune with some sort of smiling eye, which might have been the inspiration.

The rune flew into the misty patterns covering the shelf, and a hissing sound was heard. But the job wasn’t done—he had only unlocked half of the seal, and if he didn’t hurry, a trap would trigger, forcing him to inhabit another body. Fortunately, both traps were linked to dream magic, and being in the form of a nightmare, he wasn’t too worried about that.

Focusing again, Alexei created another rune, if it could even be called a rune—a caricature of Celestia’s head with an apple skewered on her horn hovered before him. The changeling’s lips twitched into a slight smile—it was his idea.

Luna used this “rune” in her childhood when she hid her things from her sister. After hearing this story, he convinced Luna to use it again, arguing that it would relieve stress. The shelf he was now unlocking was Luna’s storage, where she kept the books she was currently reading. This meant she used it quite often and each time saw this caricature, evoking warm childhood memories.

Alexei used many such small and seemingly insignificant things, slowly influencing Luna’s mental state. You could say that in the restoration of the sisters’ relationship, a fair share of credit was due to him. This was how he intended to earn Celestia’s trust and continue weaving his intrigues. It was a pity that his band of diamond dogs had been discovered, and all his plans fell apart, but such was life—most plans, no matter how well thought out, collapsed when confronted with unexpected variables.

Celestia’s head floated towards the shelf and was absorbed into it. A moment later, the protection vanished, revealing a shelf with completely different contents—four tattered books carelessly lying inside.

Alexei exhaled in relief—the password hadn’t changed after all.

After carefully inspecting the shelf for any issues, he confirmed everything was in order and, using telekinesis, grabbed the books and began quickly skimming through them.

With each book he looked through, the changeling’s frown deepened.

"My luck is just awful," Alexei sighed inwardly, placing the books next to the sleeping changelings.

Concentrating, Alexei began quickly sifting through the memories of the changeling he was currently inhabiting. After learning all the crucial information, the black smoke flew out, and the changeling collapsed to the floor.

Then the smoke entered another changeling, and the search repeated.

After a few minutes, Alexei had searched the memories of all four changelings. While they were under Luna’s trap, he wasn’t afraid to delve into their minds, unlike the changeling he had caught in the gang of drug dealers.

During the process, he had a quick snack, replenishing the nightmare’s energy supply.

"So that’s how they use telepathy," the black smoke figure nodded mentally. "Time to leave."

The loot from the bookshelf didn’t satisfy him, and he could have continued searching the palace, but it seemed pointless.

All the most valuable items in the palace had long been taken by the changelings, and there was nothing more to do in Luna’s room—he didn’t know the passwords to other caches, and they were too complex.

To tempt fate and try to find something else? Given his luck, Alexei wouldn’t have been surprised if some Ancient Evil, disturbed by the battle outside, woke up in the next second and a local apocalypse started. That roar he heard earlier had made him very uneasy. For now, everything was calm, and the changelings in the castle didn’t seem to be panicking, but Alexei decided it was best to leave immediately. He was willing to take risks when the reward was significant, but right now, it just wasn’t worth it.

Adding a few changes to the memories, the black smoke slid into the body of a wingless changeling and was absorbed.

A moment later, the changeling, wincing from a headache and ringing in his ears, got to his feet. Shaking his head, he looked around the room, his gaze sliding over the bodies on the floor.

“These greedy idiots!” the changeling growled, recalling what had happened.

The moment the protection disappeared, they had rushed to the shelf, trying to grab something valuable—it was, after all, Princess Luna’s cache. In the end, they triggered some trap that almost killed him too.

Suddenly, he froze as part of his memories returned. It seemed he had been some sort of junior officer before. Everything was extremely hazy and blurry, but it gave hope that one day his memory would fully return.

He also remembered how to use telepathy and some basic things about magic.

“At least some good came from you,” the changeling snorted, approaching the bodies.

Given what had happened, he decided the memories had returned because of the triggered trap.

Shaking his head, the changeling gathered the books and hid them in a bag. He was about to leave when a burn on his leg stung, and a pleasant, familiar voice echoed in his mind.

The changeling’s gaze unfocused, all his attention concentrated on the voice of the one he once called Mother—Queen Chrysalis.

How could he have forgotten her name?

It turned out her residual magic had saved him from Luna’s trap. And now Mother had new instructions for him.

“Of course,” the changeling nodded energetically. “I’ll do everything, my queen.”

Running to the body of an elderly-looking soldier, he began stripping off the armor. Helping himself with telekinesis, he quickly dressed in the armor and attached a curved blade to his belt.

Casting one last glance at his dying comrades, the changeling stowed the books in his bag and rushed out of Luna’s chambers, heading for the service areas.

Changelings scurried back and forth through the corridors, carrying their loot, and he blended right in with the crowd. Occasionally, passing changelings exchanged a few words with him via telepathy, but he didn’t need to engage in conversation—he had a clear map of the palace in his head.

Reaching the designated spot, he entered a portal and found himself in an artificially created cave with two bored-looking changelings inside. Most of the Hive didn’t participate in the raid, and those who did weren’t exclusively warriors. Medics, scientists, support teams, and everyone else involved in logistics. These two were from the latter group.

This portal was located in the service quarters, and there wasn't much to steal here besides buckets and rags. So, until the full-scale retreat began, they could only watch over the portal and laze around.

Seeing the armored changeling enter, the two jumped up and tensed but relaxed slightly after a brief telepathic conversation.

“You two go to this room and bring everything here,” the armored changeling finally said, passing along all the necessary information.

“We were ordered to stay here and watch the portal,” the two changelings exchanged uncertain glances.

“Now you have new orders,” came the categorical reply. “The situation has changed, and we’ll be leaving soon. I’ll watch the portal myself while I rest.”

“But…” they started to protest, but fell silent when the armored changeling drew his blade.

Faced with this argument, they quickly passed through the portal and ran towards the designated room. Let the commanders decide who was wrong and overstepped their authority. Their own lives were more important.

“What was I supposed to do next?” the changeling left alone in the cave blinked in confusion.

The Queen had given him a clear order to come here, and it seemed like he was supposed to do something else. But what?

He couldn’t remember.

Lost in thought, he didn’t notice his hoof reaching into his bag and pulling out a vial of potion. It immediately threw the vial at the rune-covered wall, right next to the portal. The vial shattered upon impact, and the potion ignited, burning the runes. With a loud crack, the portal collapsed in the same second.

“What?” the changeling mumbled, staring at his hoof. “Why did I do that?”

A chill ran down his spine as he felt something invading his mind, wrapping tendrils around his very sense of self.

“No! Get out!” the changeling yelled, clutching his head with his hooves and falling to the floor. “Get out of my head!”

Rolling on the ground, he desperately tried to fight the intruder but was rapidly losing control of his body. The right side of his face was already taken over, and his lips twisted into a smirk.

“Seems I overdid the realism,” a mocking voice said through the changeling’s mouth, but these weren’t his words.

Whimpering, the changeling made one last attempt to resist, but it was futile.

Soon, his consciousness was swallowed by darkness.

“Damn it!” Chrysalis hissed, struggling to mend the breaches in her many shields.

Around her, a sea of blinding white flames splashed, trying to break through her last layer of defense. Upon contact, her shield simply vanished, incinerating instantly.

Gritting her teeth, Chrysalis forcefully teleported, no longer able to stay in this fiery hell. Reappearing several kilometers away from the inferno, Chrysalis vomited blood—the result of teleportation and the collapse of her shield.

Ignoring this, Chrysalis waved her horn, and a strange aura covered Canterlot. Everyone, including the changelings, felt as if the entire world was losing its colors. Changelings could only absorb love, but Chrysalis was more than just a changeling—she could consume any positive emotion.

Gigantic, multicolored streams of energy began to converge on Chrysalis, quickly filling her with power and healing her wounds. Overload was still a risk, so she couldn’t do this often. But now wasn’t the time for such concerns. She no longer enjoyed the battle as she had at the beginning. Now she thought about how nice it would be to survive.

Chrysalis’s ear twitched when she heard a powerful, deep breath filled with menacing power. This sound made her instantly alert.

Turning her head, she saw Celestia nearby. Bright orange, like molten metal, Celestia’s ribs glowed through her skin, contrasting with her cold gaze.

Chrysalis’s eyes widened in surprise as she realized she couldn’t teleport. Growling, she disintegrated into a swarm of insects, scattering in all directions.

Celestia exhaled, and the sky was torn apart by a stream of fire, turning most of the insects to ash.

One of the bugs transformed into a coughing, smoke-covered Chrysalis, burnt and scorched.

Shaking her head to push back the pain, Chrysalis focused her gaze on Canterlot below. Only by moving the battlefield there could she turn the tide of the fight. She had already signaled her subjects, now she just needed to escape.

But it was not to be.

She only had a moment to see the golden flash before Celestia appeared beneath her. A wing strike, accompanied by a whirlwind of flames, sent her flying upward at incredible speed.

The image of the sun behind Celestia blazed even brighter as two shimmering points appeared above her horn, rapidly spinning and drawing closer together. In an instant, they merged into a tiny sphere, from which rays of light burst forth.

With a casual flick of her wing, Celestia sent the sphere after Chrysalis.

A few moments later, a shockwave swept over Canterlot, making everyone look up. There was indeed something to see—above Canterlot, a second sun shone, with Princess Celestia proudly soaring in its midst.

The changelings were already abandoning their positions and fleeing, but everyone forgot about them.

The Royal Guard and a few random ponies stood frozen, unable to find words to describe their feelings. Pride? Reverence? Inspiration? They didn’t know, but every pony in Canterlot felt that with her around, they could do anything. Something ancient and forgotten awakened within them, igniting a thirst for battle.

Meanwhile, Celestia squinted, scanning for Chrysalis, but in the sky, only the queen’s weapon remained, falling to the ground.

Suddenly, the halberd flared with a crimson light and vanished.

“Do you think you can escape me so easily?” Celestia thought coldly, igniting her horn.

But in the next moment, her gaze softened as she took in the situation in Canterlot.

The Royal Guard had suffered the most. The changelings had mostly left the civilian population unharmed, capturing them alive, but they had taken their full vengeance on the Royal Guard. Many dead and wounded soldiers lay strewn across the streets of Canterlot. Most had joined the Guard for the benefits and access to high-level spells—few had real combat experience. To the changelings fighting for survival, they were like inexperienced children.

Celestia looked down with an unreadable expression, her lips trembling slightly. Her horn began to pulse with a golden light, but unlike in the battle with Chrysalis, this light carried warmth and care.

A beam of light shot from her horn into the sky, and in the next moment, all of Canterlot was bathed in a golden glow. Like gusts of wind, streams of light swept across the city.

A pony with a slashed throat, gasping and desperately trying to staunch the wound, suddenly felt a surge of strength. Removing his hoof from his throat, he was shocked to find his wounds rapidly healing. The clanking sound of weapons being picked up filled the air as similarly injured ponies around him stood up, bathed in the golden light.

Only the dead remained lying on the ground—even Celestia could not heal death.

Casting one last look at the horizon, Celestia teleported inside the castle next to a fleeing changeling.

The changeling didn’t even have time to squeak before his entire body was paralyzed. Celestia leaned in, staring intently into his eyes. After a moment, she nodded in satisfaction and disappeared in a flash of flame.

Regaining his ability to move, the changeling still stared in shock at the spot where Celestia had been. Shaking his head, he tried to regain his composure—he needed to flee. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled, but flames burst from his mouth. His pupils shrank to pinpoints, but he didn’t even have time to scream as he was engulfed in fire.

Only a handful of ashes fell to the castle’s stone floor.

Meanwhile, Celestia stood by one of the portals the changelings had created for their escape. She couldn’t pass through the portal herself, but that didn’t mean she had no options.

The flames around Celestia began to flicker and condensed into the shapes of four birds, resembling phoenixes. Screeching loudly, they darted through the portal one after another.

Celestia didn’t have to wait long—within seconds, they returned, dragging seven changelings with melted horns.

After quickly scanning their memories, Celestia snorted irritably—Chrysalis had done an excellent job of keeping the location of the Hive secret. Celestia could only ascertain that it was somewhere in the Badlands, where transition portals led directly to the Hive. The exact location of the Hive was known only to Queen Chrysalis herself.

Teleporting the changelings to the cells and putting them to sleep beforehand, Celestia's flames flared, sending fiery birds throughout the castle, invading the remaining changeling portals.

However, most of the portals were already closed.

Gritting her teeth, Celestia lit her horn, sending out golden waves in all directions. In an instant, all the remaining changeling portals in the castle collapsed, and the crystals causing interference exploded.

Momentarily closing her eyes, she sent a beam to the celestial bodies and soon received a response. Celestia waved her horn, causing the castle wall to creak under the strain of such immense energy.

Soon, a portal formed, and a stern-faced Luna stepped out.

She had been flying back to Equestria at great speed from the other side of Equus, but the distance was immense. If compared to Earth, Equus was about three times larger.

Had it not been for her lost memories regarding some aspects of dream magic, she could have returned much faster. But now, she had to use the most rudimentary methods.

"Are you alright?" Luna asked, her gaze filled with concern as she scanned her sister. "Earlier, I felt—"

"I'm fine," Celestia interrupted, raising a wing. "Cadance has been kidnapped, and I need your help."

"I'm listening," Luna nodded, deciding to postpone her many questions for later.

"Deal with the remaining changelings in the castle," Celestia instructed, creating more fiery birds. "Preferably capture them alive. And awaken the Elements—the birds will show you where they are trapped."

"They weren't kidnapped?" Luna asked, surprised, but then understood the reason. "And you?"

"I'll go intercept," Celestia said, and flames began to gather around her. "I know this could be a trap. Don't worry, I'll be careful."

Saying this, she transformed into flames and flew out the window.

Luna watched the fiery streak heading east, then looked down. The sight of destruction and death was not new or frightening to her—Luna easily remained calm and collected. However, it brought back unpleasant memories of recent events.

Shaking her head, Luna turned her attention to the chirping fiery birds, inviting her to follow them.

With a sigh, Luna followed the birds deeper into the castle.

"Useless," muttered Alexei, setting aside the last book stolen from Luna's cabinet.

His luck must have run out after successfully infiltrating the palace. All four of these books turned out to be almost entirely useless.

Three of them were beginner-level dream magic works. The irony was that Luna had already let him read them when he asked to be taught dream magic.

"Why did she even reread them?" Alexei pondered, considering the most obvious possibilities. "Reviewing basics? Seeking inspiration? Did something happen to her on the moon?"

There were plenty of guesses and conjectures, but there was no point in dwelling on it. At least, in one of the books, he found numerous unfinished drafts of mental spells that hadn't been there before.

Now, being connected to the nightmare, he could use them. Of course, compared to a real nightmare, he was, to put it mildly, inadequate. Earth ponies had the earth attribute, pegasi had air, and nightmares had fear.

The attribute not only allowed the use of a certain type of magic but also endowed with innate intuition towards that element. Neither pegasi nor nightmares needed to memorize textbooks and create spell formulas like unicorns—they intuitively understood and followed the rhythm of their magic.

This didn't mean they immediately became masters of their element—arduous training, constant interaction, and deepening understanding of their element were required.

Unicorns had a harder time at the beginning of their magical journey, but they possessed neutral energy capable of manipulating anything.

There were special cases, like alicorns.

Celestia had two attributes: fire and light. Throughout the battle, she didn't use a single unicorn attack spell. Why waste time visualizing formulas when she could freely manipulate fire and light?

Humans didn't have this intuition, but they compensated for it with perseverance and hard work. Still, after six months in the dungeon, he managed to create only one simple spell, masking his mental energy as magical.

If he were a nightmare, everything would be much easier. Besides an improved understanding of mental energy in general, he could cheat a little. Though quite strained, fear could also be linked to masking—fear of being discovered.

Alexei had to create a mental spell formula, just like unicorns do with their magic, but a nightmare might be able to use the same spell without any formula through its attribute.

Alexei wasn't sure about all this—though he had caught a few nightmares before, they were all extremely weak and not very smart. So he could only make guesses.

But now he got some new drafts of mental spells.

Of course, they needed to be completed first, but the human already had a solid knowledge foundation. Besides, all these drafts were pretty simple spells of a beginner level, and it was well within his capabilities. Perhaps he could even improve them.

Even if he encountered problems with some part, he could always seek inspiration from alchemy.

In fact, there was almost no difference between alchemy and spells. All magic boiled down to one thing—manipulating energy. An alchemical recipe could be seen as a spell, and vice versa. The same applied to all other magic. Alexei even heard that advanced magic users, non-unicorns, could mimic effects of other elements.

From the perspective of alchemy, even a human could be seen as some alchemical product or ingredient for another product, just like any living creature.

He came to this understanding on his own when he was just starting to learn alchemy from Saadi, which surprised her a lot. According to her, it was some advanced level of understanding alchemy.

Maybe he didn't know much about alchemy back then, but he still came from the modern world. In terms of information dissemination and availability, Equus was akin to the Middle Ages. By the educational standards of the modern world, even a high schooler could be considered a scholar in this world, let alone a thirty-year-old man.

In addition to intuition about everything related to their attribute, nightmares had another advantage—their dense mental energy allowed them to even perform unicorn spells.

However, Alexei had no idea how they did it. Unicorn spells were based on magical energy, so it would be logical to assume that nightmares used some modified mental version of these spells. The human had zero progress in this regard.

"Sombra..." the man muttered, thinking about the contents of the last book. "Where have I heard that name?"

The fourth book turned out to be one of Luna's personal diaries dedicated to conversations with this very Sombra. He only briefly skimmed through the diary's contents, but it seemed there was nothing interesting there. Mostly, it was empty chatter, philosophical nonsense, and sharing experiences.

"Crystal Empire!" he finally realized, and his gaze at the diary changed.

His eyes sparkled with anticipation, but moments later, they dimmed.

"Even if there are any secrets there, it's useless," Alexei concluded with a sigh. "The Crystal Empire disappeared a thousand and a half years ago. If anything was left, it's all been plundered long ago."

Putting the books in his bag, Alexei decided it was time to leave.

Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, the thought of staying in the cave for a few hours and resting flickered, but he chased it away. Though he was wildly exhausted, both physically and morally, he couldn't afford to rest. It was doubtful that anyone would discover this cave anytime soon, but still, it was better not to take risks.

Surveying the surroundings of the cave, he noticed a silver vase with a wide mouth that would serve as a decent cauldron, and he stashed it in his bag. He also packed some thick fabric curtains—judging by the cold air, he already realized he had been blown somewhere into the northern part of Equestria.

There was nothing else interesting in the cave.

Approaching the spot where the portal had exploded earlier, Alexei drank a potion and began to grow fur, transforming into an earth pony.

In half a minute, everything was done, and after moving away for some distance, he threw several explosive potions there, destroying traces of his transformation.

Finishing up his preparations, Alexei exited the cave and looked around.

He found himself in some rare forest, with snow-capped mountain peaks visible right in front of him. The steam escaping from his mouth only confirmed that he was clearly somewhere up north.

To the east lay the griffon principalities, while to the west lived the zebras.

There was no point in going to the griffons: too far away, and it wasn't peaceful there at the moment. Well, it was never peaceful there, but now there was some young promising griffon who had started to unite the principalities. Normally, Alexei would have happily participated in the griffon civil war—the more chaos around, the easier to profit—but unfortunately, he couldn't. His strength was clearly insufficient, and he had the problem of nightmare rejection hanging over his head.

So he decided to head towards the zebras. Once he sorted out the nightmare, he would lie low and slowly gather strength. Besides, he wanted to get back to studying alchemy—he'd been stuck at the same level for almost a year.

The uninformed might think that you could simply absorb another alchemist's memories and magically become a pro.

That had nothing to do with reality. Yes, Saada had passed on her memories to him, and he had a solid foundation. But did that mean he instantly became a master alchemist?

Of course not. All this time in the forest, he had been doing three things: fighting, experimenting, and practicing alchemy.

Why were zebras the best alchemists? Because of their innate sensitivity.

Alchemy was built on the interaction with energies hidden within ingredients. There were no two identical leaves on a tree, just as there were no two identical ingredients. Even small differences in the quantity and quality of energy could change the entire recipe, like a snowball effect.

An alchemical recipe was more like a set of recommendations and general principles and could change depending on the ingredients. So the zebras' sensitivity gave them such advantages: during the potion-making process, one needed to closely monitor and adapt to unforeseen situations.

Even if he absorbed someone else's memory, he still had to train and practice each potion.

Not to mention that by this time, he had his own style. Trying to imitate another alchemist would only ruin his skills.

Taking a deep breath of the cold air, the pony raised his head and looked into the distance, a smile flickering across his face.

His venture into Luna's haunts had ended with nothing. The few sketches he obtained clearly didn't match the dangers he had faced. But if he hadn't tried and taken risks—there wouldn't have even been hope for success.

However, he did manage to acquire something interesting—the blood of Chrysalis. There were fairly high chances that he could make a potion from it to slow down the nightmare rejection.

But all of this wasn't really that important.

The most important thing was that he was alive and free.

Even if he had to destroy his nightmare and lose his magic—he would do it without hesitation. Sure, he enjoyed using magic, but he wasn't obsessed with it. Nightmare, alchemy, magic—it was all just tools for achieving eternal life.

Shaking his head and dispelling his fatigue, Alexei adjusted his bag and headed west.

Author's Note

Serious Celestia

With each book he looked through, the changeling’s frown deepened.

...tf is this shit?

Also, you can check the 1st and 11th ( :heart: ) chapters. Soon they will appear under every chapter.

Chapter 22 - Instinct

Day 1

We did it!

All of our efforts paid off completely. We really were able to contact the depths of the Dreamworld and perform the summoning ritual.

And one creature answered our call.

Letavitsa, as it calls itself. This creature prefers the form of a zebra mare and has changed it several times to suit our preferences.

Is it trying to seduce us into breaking the ritual circle?

How foolish.

We have seen the true appearance of this abomination, and some of us are still nauseous: an oval torso with tentacles on one side and a stalk on the other with a sort of bell-shaped bud with stamens and eyes peeking out.

Zahur even joked that "we summoned a funny little flower on legs."

Sometimes I question his sanity.

The whole thing is a slimy mishmash of flesh and eyes. How did he ever think to compare it to a flower?

Though I too have used floral terms to describe the creature's appearance.

He's a bad influence on me.

Letavitsa. I think I heard that name from a shamaness. It seems to be a seductive spirit that takes the form of the deceased. That would explain the creature's behavior.

I doubt any of us would want to fuck this thing. Except Zahur. Sick bastard.

But none of that matters. We summoned this thing not for fun, but to gain information on deeper levels.

We ended up getting a lot more than just information.

We thought we'd have to interrogate the creature for a long time or make some kind of deal, but none of that happened.

Letavitsa simply handed each of us a pile of written sheets that we provided her with.

Information, spells, rituals, recipes. I still can't believe we got it all so easily.

It asked for nothing in return and insisted it was a gift to each of us. Is this a seduction tactic?

We checked the sheets thoroughly, but there was no catch. Although the veracity of the information is still questionable.

I can't wait any longer. I'm going to start checking right away.

Day 2

The information is authentic.

I want to close this fucking diary and just collapse into sleep. Why do I even keep it?

Because it's important, and experiences need to be written down so I can analyze them later. Yeah, yeah, I remember what you said, old geezer.

We summoned Letavitsa early yesterday morning, and now it's almost night. All this time we've been testing the spells and rituals written on those sheets.

Letavitsa did not deceive. They're all authentic.

The information on the deeper levels is still in question. We've compared the records with what we know, and the odds of it being authentic are pretty high.

There wasn't much else to tell - the whole group sat tucked away in books or in front of the cauldron.

Letavitsa fell asleep yesterday and slept the entire day, waking up at noon.

I have to say, she's a pretty sound sleeper. We have tons of questions piling up and have tried many times to wake her up, but nothing has worked. We even used some methods prepared for torture, but that didn't wake her up either.

At least we confirmed that we could do some damage to her. Well, she's still healing very quickly. Her regeneration is incredible.

That regeneration alone is a threat to us if she breaks free.

Those idiots started grumbling, but I still convinced them that we would do a full check of the ritual circle every two hours. Previously, we had agreed to do a check every twelve hours, but caution is never unnecessary. I think she's a lot stronger than she's showing.

Judging by the amount of mental energy she has, she's extremely weak. Weaker than any of us.

At first we thought it was some sort of concealment, but we've tested it dozens of times with all sorts of methods, and the result is the same.

Is her ability regeneration, or does she have some trick to hide her energy? But if she's strong enough to block our methods, she would have broken out of the circle by now. I still assume her ability is regeneration, but with these creatures from the Depths, one can never be sure.

Being a creature from another world, she should be overwhelmed by Equus' magical energy, but she'll soon adapt and the pressure will ease a bit.

A week at the most. After that, we'll throw her back out into the Depths.

I refer to her as a mare now, don't I?

It's just easier. I've never forgotten her true nature.

The circle is shielded, and we check each other for possible influences - all clear.

But this Letavitsa is really weird.

When she woke up, we started pelting her with questions, and she answered many without asking for anything in return.

However, then she made a request: she wanted to borrow some things from us.

Not body parts like hair or blood, but just random items from our lab: a piece of coal, an apple, a book, a coin, and a broom.

I don't get it.

I assumed these items had some significance to her, and several times I offered to replace them with other items. Even for junk like pot shards.

She agreed and asked to borrow them, but hoped that next time she would be given something more meaningful - she was bored and just wanted to explore our world.

We discussed and came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with this request - we've lent her parchment and charcoal before and nothing happened.

The other oddity of this request: she wanted to get something from everyone individually.

Zahur agreed to be the guinea pig and gave her a pot shard. An hour later, she gave it back to him.

We scanned his body for several hours, but found nothing suspicious. There was no problem with the shard either, but we destroyed it anyway, just in case. It didn't elicit any negative reaction from Letavitsa.

By the way, she did the same thing yesterday: she didn't give all the records to one of us, but gave a part to each of us separately, specifying that it was her gift.

First a gift, then a request to borrow an item.

Seems like a clumsy way to establish a relationship. It's weird, but what else would you expect from a creature from the Dreamworld?

Aside from Zahur, everyone else refused to grant her request.

She's upset and barely answers our questions. She's smart enough to remember who she gave what information to and who she gave it to, so asking questions through another doesn't work.

We have no methods of dealing with her. She doesn't seem to feel pain at all, and there's no other means of leverage on her.

We could kill her, but what's the point?

What she gave us earlier is only a small part of her knowledge, and of course, everyone wants more.

For now, we'll monitor our guinea pig's condition.

Everyone else seems convinced that she's just trying to establish a relationship, but I don't know what to believe anymore. All the facts support their arguments, and according to our information about the Dreamworld, there's nothing sinister about her request. She can't hurt us by getting a pot shard or any other nonsense.

If she could, she would have already harmed us by getting parchment and charcoal.

Besides, she's too weak for something like that.

And yet I still have my doubts. Maybe I'm just paranoid from lack of sleep?

We'll have to discuss the whole situation again tomorrow.

The last time I checked the circle, I found four shards lying neatly outside the circle. And all these morons swear they didn't give her anything.

Maybe she went out and got it herself, then dutifully went back into the circle and locked herself in?

That's enough for today, I want to go to bed.

Day 3

I can't stand that asshole's satisfied face.

While everyone else is suffering, Zahur is getting all the benefits.

Letavitsa won't answer our questions, but willingly chats with him.

We've tested him dozens of times - no problems. Is she really just trying to build a relationship? I hate to admit it, but I think it's really just me being paranoid.

If nothing happens to him tomorrow - I will participate in this gift exchange.

I can't wait any longer - we're sending her back in a few days and I still haven't gotten anything. This cunning fox has only given us basic information, devoid of many important points and subtleties. Many spells can't even be used until she explains all the nuances.

Not that I'm the only one who thinks so: today I found things near the ritual circle again.

It's the same as usual - no one saw anything or gave anything away.

Some of them are clearly lying.

I can understand the thirst for knowledge, but why doesn't the bastard just come clean? No, he wants to get everything and stay in the shadows.

There's probably more than one.

We take turns watching the circle, but I can't figure out who it is. Letavitsa always sleeps until exactly noon and only then makes a request. That is, the earliest that things can show up is 1pm.

But the time is always different. From 1pm to midnight.

Why did I even think she was only borrowing the thing for an hour? That was indeed the case the first time, but now I'm not so sure anymore.

What remains constant is the quantity. It's always five things.

I suspect some bastard was able to negotiate with her and is getting an advantage over the others.

Tomorrow I'll make everyone sit in front of each other from noon to midnight. It's high time that nasty bastard was figured out.

Looking at the last entry, Kiama let out a nervous chuckle.

The last entry in his diary was the third day, but it was now the morning of the fifth.

Yesterday, as planned, they had watched each other until just before midnight. Just in case, they had forbidden even Zahur from contacting Letavitsa.

As usual, she voiced her request: she wanted to borrow a mug from each of them. Everyone refused her and continued to watch.

Time passed, but nothing happened. He was beginning to think it was a waste of time. Even though all his partners swore they didn't give her anything, the facts told a different story. The bastard who'd been quietly making deals with Letavitsa had gone underground and wasn't going to show his face. How else could he explain all this?

That's what he thought until it was midnight.

There was a low, muffled knock, and everyone turned at the sound to see five mugs standing in front of the ritual circle. They were perfectly familiar to them - they were the dishes they had used at dinner a few hours ago.

What Kiama saw next still made him shiver with terror.

Letavitsa. She just stood there smiling. A perfectly normal, albeit rather creepy smile.

It was the look in her eyes, pure smugness mixed with triumph and hunger, that horrified him. She looked as if she had already won and her dinner was right in front of her, and now she was choosing where she would start her meal.

Another time, Kiama would have lied and said that he easily kept his cool while everyone squealed like a filly. But not this time.

Seeing in her eyes the thousands of mouths devouring his Self made him wet himself. And he's not ashamed of it at all - others have done the same thing.

Can one prepare for death? Probably not. At that moment, Kiama knew she was about to break free and devour them all. Once again, he was wrong.

Letavitsa continued to smile, doing nothing.

The minutes continued to go by as they stood frozen with terror in puddles of their own urine. No one dared even breathe loudly, and the silence was interrupted only by the occasional drops falling from their fur to the floor.

It took them an hour to come to their senses. At least they started thinking coherently and stopped huddling in a corner.

A few more hours and a couple of sedative potions, forbidden for sale in Equestria, could finally get their minds back in a workable state.

Letavitsa, by then, had long since fallen asleep, as if nothing had happened.

Kiama shuddered at the thought of approaching the ritual circle, but there was nothing to do - he needed to find out the state of the runes. His fears were not confirmed - the protective runes were fine, and Letavitsa was sleeping without a care.

They had originally intended to simply destroy her in this circle, releasing everything they had. It was a failure - Letavitsa was still sleeping on the pockmarked, smoking stone floor.

After trying everything they could, they finally gave up and decided to send her back to the Depths. Of course, killing her would have been safer - who knows what all those missing things meant - but they just simply failed to do it.

Kiama felt a sense of doom - would they be able to send her back, or would they all be screwed? Once again, his worries were not valid.

It took them a long time, Letavitsa was much stronger or had already recovered, but they managed to send her back to the Depths.

They started the banishment ritual in the middle of the night and finished it at almost noon. In all that time, Letavitsa had never awakened. Somehow that gave Kiama some hope.

Banishing her, the group breathed a sigh of relief, but didn't dare relax. Now they were quickly packing their belongings and were going to rush to the nearest major city at full speed. They needed to find out what this was all about and if they were in any danger. Kiama had a few familiar Depths experts he could call on for help. The rest of the group was in full support of the idea. They were willing to do anything to get out of this damn cave.

Kiama grinned as he saw them scurrying around the cave, gathering all the most valuable items. If it wasn't for his orders, they would have dropped everything and galloped to the city.

He couldn't blame them, he felt a similar urge himself.

It took them less than half an hour to gather themselves, and the whole group stood in the center of the cave, trying to gather their thoughts and remember if they had forgotten anything important. At least that's what Kiama was doing, and everyone else was looking at him impatiently, wanting to get out of here as quickly as possible.

"Alright," Kiama sighed, seeing the attitude of his group. "Let's load up."

The zebras immediately scurried about, piling bags and sacks around each other.

"Hello," came a familiar voice behind them. "Can I borrow something from you?"

Kiama's fur stood up and he began to shake, but he found the strength to turn back around.

Letavitsa stood there, smiling good-naturedly as if nothing had happened, in a rune circle that had not yet cooled after the banishment ritual. The protective runes were still in place - Kiama hadn't covered his tracks, they didn't have time for that - but that didn't explain how she'd gotten back.

The stronger the creature, the more connected it is to the Depths, and the harder it is to get out to Equus. It takes rituals, mass sacrifices, and tons of energy. It was an unbreakable rule. They had summoned Letavitsa easily, and that was the reason for their confidence.

But even weak creatures from the Depths find it extremely difficult to invade Equus unaided - otherwise they would have feasted on this world long ago.

Nevertheless, here she was, standing nonchalantly before them, breaking all their notions of magic.

"She came to borrow things," a thought flashed through Kiama's mind, frozen with shock. "She wants to borrow things, and that's why she's here."

It sounded like the logic of a lunatic, but Kiama was actually right. Letavitsa was borrowing things after noon. It was noon now, and she could borrow things from them. Where else would she be but here?

An extremely unsettling feeling enveloped Kiama and he bit down on half his lip, pain forcing his frozen body to move.

"RUN!" he yelled, bringing his companions out of their trance and rushing for the exit.

Not that he cared about their lives right now, but perhaps they would buy him some time.

"Could I borrow your legs?" came a polite voice from the ritual circle.

Before Kiama could even comprehend what he had heard, he suddenly collapsed to the floor - all four of his legs were gone, and a satisfied slurping sound could be heard behind him.

Blood gushed from his stumps, but unlike his screaming companions, he somehow managed to keep his cool.

With his stumps, he crawled stubbornly toward the exit, gritting his teeth. Would he be saved if he got out of the cave? If he didn't hear her plea, then....

"This is it!" a piercing thought burst into his mind. "Don't hear it!"

Immediately, he used telekinesis and pierced his eardrums, rendering himself deaf.

"Could I borrow your runes?" came a mocking voice in his head.

A moment later, pops were heard behind him as the protective runes began to explode.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Letavitsa emerging from the ritual circle, Kiama sobbed and continued to crawl towards the exit, slipping in blood.

"Could I borrow your strength?"

Kiama froze on the floor in the same instant. Physical, magical, mental - all the strength had left his body.

He didn't even have the strength to move an eye. His heart, also devoid of strength, stopped beating. By some miracle, he still retained the ability to think, but his mind was like a fog. He felt that his whole body was getting cold and he was dying.

"Could I borrow your life?"

Kiama died.

Several streams of white mist came out of his dead body, and following that, a soul flew out.

The existence of souls was a well-known fact. Especially for those who followed the path of developing mental energy, the energy they used was produced by this very soul. Was there an afterlife? No one knew. Ghosts could hardly be put in that category - they were just lumps of mental energy with a part of the owner's memories.

The soul froze in the air for a moment, as if trying to find a direction, and finally vibrated, ready to depart.

"Could I borrow your soul?"

Five souls darted straight into Letavitsa's wide-open mouth. After swallowing a few times, savoring the taste, she shifted her gaze to the five dead bodies.

"Oh, you're dead," Letavitsa said with a chuckle. "If you're dead, I don't need to return borrowed things, do I?"

Letavitsa wasn't actually evil, she was just following her nature. The concept of good and evil was also known to her. Her understanding of these concepts was gleaned from the inhabitants of Equus, but she considered it all utter nonsense.

Similarly, Letavitsa looked at the moral values of the creatures of Equus. Why would she listen to the fantasies of these lunatics? Just because the majority believed it to be correct? So what?

From her perspective, all the food inhabiting Equus was absolutely insane.

Despite everything she had just consumed, her mental energy had actually barely changed at all. Kiama suspected that she was somehow hiding her energy, but that wasn't the case. If one were to evaluate her in terms of the amount of energy, she barely reaches the level of a novice mage.

But that didn't mean she was weak.

After looking around the cave lazily, Letavitsa headed for the exit.

Meanwhile, a dark slime with many maws began to ooze from the walls of the cave, beginning to devour everything it could reach.

When Letavitsa stepped outside, the entire cave was completely empty, as if no one had ever been here.

Squinting, Letavitsa looked into the distance and took a step forward. The space around her shimmered, and the next moment she was standing on a hill in front of a huge city.

Many zebras were scurrying through the city gates - it was their city after all - but a few ponies and griffins could be seen following the caravans leaving the city.

"Time to find some new neighbors," Letavitsa thought, looking curiously at the city before her. "Too bad I can't cover everyone at once. By the way... I should think of a new name."

Letavitsa wasn't her real name. She didn't have any name at all. She had simply chosen it, deeming it appropriate for interacting with these zebra summoners.

Smiling, she took another step.

"Twilight, I respect your eagerness, but-" Rarity stretched out uncertainly, overtaking the purple unicorn. "Are you sure this is the right time? I mean..."

"You don't have to follow me," Twilight said indifferently, not slowing down. "That goes for you girls too."

Rarity could only sigh upon hearing such a cold answer from her friend, but she understood the reason. She felt the same way.

It had been six days since the changeling invasion, but the whole thing was still far from over. Princess Celestia had personally rushed to intercept the kidnapped Princess Cadance, but had returned with nothing. A curfew was imposed on Canterlot, and every day the remnants of changelings who had not escaped the city were caught. Meanwhile, the main forces of Equestria were converging on Canterlot. All in all, the situation was quite turbulent.

The Elements had been forced to stay protected in Canterlot until the end of the incident, and strong protection squads had been sent to their families in Ponyville and Cloudsdale. Even now, as the six mares walked through Canterlot, they were being watched closely by a multitude of guards. Celestia was going to leave them in the palace altogether, but Twilight had pressed her through Luna.

Twilight's mood, ever since the day they were all rescued by Princess Luna, was getting worse by the day. Her nanny, who she had spent her entire childhood with, had been kidnapped, and her brother had fallen into a coma and stayed in it for four days. When he woke up, he had a long argument with Celestia in raised tones, and then tried to gather his loyal ponies and head for the Badlands. Of course, he was caught, and now he was under house arrest. Actually, he was due a court martial for such a thing, but given his status, there was no punishment.

No one knew what Twilight was thinking. She had become more and more secretive in the last six months, and now she was not even eager to share her thoughts with others. She would never have argued with her mentor before, but now she wasn't just arguing-she was enlisting the support of Luna, who still felt indebted to the Elements, and challenging Celestia's decision.

Twilight thought the decision to lock them in the palace was illogical. The changelings had plenty of chances to kill them, but they didn't. On the contrary, they had been extremely careful with them, as if they were afraid of something or someone, and clearly not Celestia.

Her friends saw this change in Twilight, and though they were concerned, they couldn't blame her. Twilight wasn't trying to distance herself from them; on the contrary, they were spending more and more time together. It was just that she had more secrets now, and her temper was a little colder.

But was it really that strange? Compared to Rainbow Dash, who in the early days had exuded bloodlust and was out for revenge on the changelings, Twilight was the standard of normality.

Even Fluttershy had changed, something no one had noticed at all this whole time. Before, she would've cowered in a corner and come to her senses for months, but now she'd recovered from the whole kidnapping thing pretty easily. The ponies close to her noticed that her gaze had changed somewhat, as if she had decided something for herself. If they had known that she no longer averted her eyes when talking to strangers, they would have been at a loss for words.

The only one who seemed almost unchanged was Pinkie Pie, still exuding a positive pofy attitude. Whether it was the influence of the stone farm she grew up on or her philosophy of life, but her psyche was much stronger than her friends.

"We've kind of worked it out already," Applejack replied, looking around at everyone else. "Or do you yourself not want us to come with you?"

"I just want it to be your decision," Twilight sighed, stopping in front of the doors decorated with a picture of the moon. "I don't want you to feel pressured because of my desires."

"Everypony here is of their own free will, Twilight," Dash said with a slight tinge of annoyance mixed with impatience. "You're not forcing anypony. Can we go in now?"

"You should control your emotions better, Dash," Rarity said, meeting the piercing gaze of magenta eyes. "Especially considering who we're going to."

"I know," Dash's short reply followed with a sigh. "Sorry."

With a quick glance at her friends, Twilight turned to the guards at the door and requested a meeting with Princess Luna.

They didn't have to wait long. A few minutes later, the doors swung open, letting the entire company inside.

"Didn't expect to see you today, Twilight," Luna said tiredly, pulling away from a table littered with spell diagrams and a map of the central continent. "Oh, and with friends, too. Is something wrong?"

"Good afternoon, Princess Luna," Twilight bowed politely, and everyone else followed suit. "I wanted to ask you for a little help. Is this a bad time?"

"No, no," Luna shook her head, clearing all the papers off the table. "It's the fatigue speaking for me. What can I do to help you? Don't tell me Celestia wanted to lock you up again?"

"Mentor didn't bring it up again," Twilight replied, and a slight smile ran across her lips. "You have a way with persuasion. We're here on another matter."

"We want to take the Trial of the Lunar Guardian," Dash cut into the conversation, tired of all this formal going around and around.

The coffee mug held by telekinesis froze in midair for a moment, and Princess Luna's eyebrows raised slightly. She had indeed recently revived this tradition. It was one of several spells that had survived almost entirely even after Nightmare Moon's devastating actions with her memory.

Twilight, meanwhile, cast a quick disgruntled glance at Dash. This was a matter that needed to be approached carefully and with caution; too much haste could ruin everything. How to explain it to pegasi accustomed to speed?

"Why would you want to do that?" asked Luna, glancing around the gathered crowd, a smirk flashing across her face. "If you've decided to join my guard, I'm going to have a hard time explaining it to my sister."

"You know why," Twilight replied seriously, meeting the princess' gaze. "We want to get stronger."

Luna pressed her lips together. It seemed her plan to turn everything into a joke had fallen apart - these ponies were serious. Not that she was against it, it was just...

"Do you realize the seriousness of this?" asked Luna, looking carefully into each pony's eyes. "Yes, I can get you out if something goes wrong, but that doesn't mean total safety. Time flies sixty times faster there than it does in reality. You could very easily end up with some serious mental trauma."

"Twilight already explained everything to us, we'll be fine," Dash met the princess's gaze confidently. "What's the best score there?"

Twilight had gotten all the information about the test this morning from her father, who had advised her to take it. If Night Light's wife found out about such advice, the war with the griffins would seem like playtime to him.

Night Light explained the essence of the trial - Princess Luna would send the pony into a deep sleep, where they would meet with their inner selves, formed of doubts, complexes, regrets, resentments, dissatisfaction with themselves and other burdens that had accumulated over a lifetime.

The trial should end with resolving the inner conflict plaguing the mind and finding harmony with oneself, but out of ten thestrals, only one or two manage to complete it at all.

Night Light felt that was exactly what his daughter needed right now, even if it came with some risks. Twilight may not have shared her worries with him, but he could see it all in her eyes - she felt her own helplessness and weakness after what had happened.

Twilight was going to take the trial alone, but she still informed her friends - she wasn't going to force them, but they had the right to know and decide if they wanted the same or not.

That's how they ended up in Princess Luna's room.

"Then you weren't listening very well," Rarity interjected, who thought Dash was being rude to the princess. "Twilight was talking about the honor plaque at the Night Guard barracks. Best score..."

Rarity faltered when she noticed Twilight scrutinizing Princess Luna, who seemed somewhat uncomfortable with the question.

"Fuck," Luna thought glumly as she noticed everyone staring at her. "That's exactly the question I wanted to avoid. But I really don't want to lie to them."

Twilight waited patiently for the princess' answer. Her father, who knew his daughter, gave a brief history of the tradition and also mentioned the plaque in the barracks. She was aware of it, so the princess being the creator of the test should definitely know the best score.

So why did the princess hesitate upon hearing this question?

"One second," Princess Luna said with a sigh. "But you must realize that time is not important. Everyone's circumstances are different. The most important thing is the final result."

"What?" asked Dash perplexed upon hearing the time voiced. "So it's a minute inside the dream? I thought this test was going to be extremely difficult."

"Believe me, it is," Princess Luna replied with seriousness. "This will be the most difficult test of your life. Your greatest nemesis is yourself."

"Midnight Summer, four minutes and fifty-two seconds," Twilight quoted in an honors student's voice. "Best time in the last thousand and fifteen hundred years. That's what the plaque says. Was the record broken recently?"

"No, he just didn't want to advertise it," Luna replied with a smile, looking sincerely at Twilight. "Like I said: time means nothing. It will only confuse you and may even hurt you. You don't need to think about it."

"But the gap is serious," Dash muttered thoughtfully, still unwilling to let go of the subject. "The stallion, huh? Is he from thestrals or another tribe?"

"He's not from the pony tribe," Luna replied, rising from the table and opening a nearby door with her telekinesis. "I'll tell you that story after the test. Right now you need to focus on it, if you still want to pass it, of course."

"If time means nothing, why the plaque of honor?" asked Twilight, causing the princess to stop. "Can you tell me who he is?"

"Fuck me," Luna mentally cursed, turning to look at Elements. "I can't avoid it, can I?"

Catching Twilight's inquisitive gaze, she was even more convinced of that. Luna had no reason to keep it from them, but she was worried it would have a bad effect on Twilight. Not to mention that they didn't need to dwell on the time at all.

"Human," Luna replied simply, watching Twilight's reaction. "This is his score."

There was a grave silence in Luna's chambers as each pony pondered what the princess had said.

"He cheated, didn't he?" finally came Dash's annoyed voice. "Magic works weird on him, doesn't it?"

But the others weren't so sure about that. Cheating the Princess of Dreams out of what was her specialty and her own created test? That was highly doubtful.

"How did he do it?" asked Twilight, who was rather calm about the princess' revelation.

"I don't know," Princess Luna admitted honestly, pleased by Twilight's reaction. "He didn't have mental energy back then. I was able to put him into a dream, but I couldn't see what he was dreaming about."

Alexei, hearing this conversation, would have given Luna a bad word - this whole situation had happened because of her. She had talked to him at length about time limits, but had neglected to mention that the spell would break as soon as he resolved his internal conflicts.

Well, that was also his mistake - from Luna's words, it all sounded like he would only be able to wake up after completing the trial or when the time limit expired. He should have considered breaking the dream himself, but because of Luna's explanation and a few reservations, Alexei was sure that the dream would continue until he wanted to wake up himself. He had planned to stall for time if the score was too good, but in the end things didn't go according to plan.

Entering the dream, Alexei found himself standing on the smooth surface of the sea. He stood there for a minute, but no one appeared, so he was thrown back into reality. Thankfully, he was able to avoid unnecessary attention by blaming it on his non-magical nature.

He wasn't going to participate in the test at all, but he was able to play on Luna's pride and get a very good deal on the bet. She still owed him one favor, but it didn't matter now.

After answering all of the Elements' questions, Luna sat them down in a dark room and forced them to be silent for an hour, clearing their minds of unnecessary thoughts.

Only after making sure they were calm and ready for the test did she finally use a dream magic spell, plunging them into sleep.

Twilight blinked, finding herself in the hall of a giant library. Her entire vision was filled with books - they were everywhere. Most were neatly shelved, but here and there, on the black and white tile floor, there were tattered books, some of them turning into mountains. The many torn pages scattered everywhere made Twilight frown - book vandalism was beyond her tolerance. Despite the countless books, there was a huge open space between the shelves, comparable to the area of several houses.

Looking up, she saw nothing but racks of books going far into the air.

Twilight realized that this library was a reflection not only of her love of knowledge, but also of her methods. Celestia had created a marvelous meditation technique for her - Twilight could increase her magical energy and develop her core by simply reading books. The speed was slightly slower than other unicorns, but unlike them, she didn't need to do anything at all besides reading. This method was only available to Twilight, who was the Element of Magic. Any other unicorn, even after getting hold of a full description of her method and all the necessary schematics, would not be able to use it.

"Finally," came a sarcastic voice, snapping Twilight out of her musings about herself. "I kept wondering when we could have a nice chat."

Turning around sharply, Twilight saw her exact replica emerging from behind a mountain of books. The only difference was that her copy had a cold stare and a grin playing on her lips.

"Is this my inner self?" thought Twilight, scrutinizing her doppelganger. "It seems like it's not going to be easy..."

"Oh, you have no idea," laughed the copy, eliciting a surprised look from Twilight. "Are you completely dumb? I'm you. Of course I know what you're thinking."

Twilight frowned slightly - she didn't like this attitude at all, and she had a vague sense of where this was going.

"So, let's talk about the shit you're doing," her copy continued, ignoring the look on Twilight's face. "What did you pull at the wedding? Why didn't you strike when you had the chance?"

"Like you don't know," Twilight replied with annoyance, remembering that moment. "They had hostages and..."

"Bullshit," the copy interrupted her rudely. "They didn't touch us earlier, even though they had the opportunity. We'd already realized they weren't going to kill us. Even if we had struck - they wouldn't have killed the hostages."

"You don't know that!" roared Twilight, and her horn lit up, reacting to her emotions. "I couldn't risk the lives of the foals and Spike."

"Whatever you say," the copy hummed, unimpressed by Twilight's outburst. "Then what about that defense artifact Spike had? All it took was a thought to activate it."

"They were too close together," Twilight muttered, her earlier anger replaced by embarrassment. "The artifact could have hit the foals when activated and..."

A wild laughter interrupted Twilight's explanation and made her wince - she never thought she could laugh like that. Her copy, meanwhile, continued to laugh, casting Twilight a look full of condescension.

"I never cease to be amazed at your stupidity," the copy said, still chuckling. "When will it get to you? Do you realize you're lying to yourself, you stupid bitch?"

"Then you just called yourself a stupid bitch," Twilight smirked, accepting the terms of the game. "How self-critical."

"Keep your fucking wit to yourself," the copy snorted, moving closer. "You want to dodge the subject with jokes? How pathetic. We both know the artifact wouldn't hurt the foals. The problem is different, isn't it?"

Twilight gritted her teeth, realizing where her inner self was going with this - she had thought about it many times herself.

"The artifact reacts to danger and responds accordingly," the copy continued, pausing in the distance. "Given the situation, it should have killed those changelings after activation. That's what this is all about, isn't it?"

"I'm not a murderer," Twilight said, facing her copy with a tired look. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Oh, really?" grinned the copy, tilting her head. "Not a murderer, huh?"

"Don't you dare," Twilight hissed, realizing what the copy was about to say. "I'm not going to listen to this."

"Then why did you come here in the first place?" laughed the copy, who was amused by Twilight's actions. "Wasn't it to torment yourself? Well, I'll gladly give you that: you could have killed those changelings, hit Chrysalis with the Elements of Harmony, and ended the invasion, avoiding unnecessary casualties. They're all dead because of your indecision."

Twilight could only grit her teeth and lower her gaze, hiding the tears that were coming behind her bangs.

"Oh, come on!" grumbled the copy, looking at Twilight perplexed. "We both know we don't care about them. What are they to us? Just some unfamiliar ponies. Although... remember that shopkeeper we used to buy snacks from when we went to school? Well, he's dead."

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" roared Twilight, lighting her horn and staring furiously at her copy.

"Or else what?" squinted the copy, and her eyes glittered with coldness. "What will you do?"

In the next instant, a hail of magical arrows flew at Twilight, some of which behaved somewhat strangely - they kept disappearing and reappearing a few meters ahead.

Twilight blared her horn, about to teleport - it was too dangerous to block those arrows with her shield, but the next moment someone interfered with her spell. The spell went out of control and there was a massive explosion, hurling Twilight into a rack that was surprisingly sturdy.

Collapsing to the floor, she groaned in pain - she seemed to have broken several ribs.

"You can do that too, can't you," the copy said indifferently, coming closer and closer. "All thanks to our mark. But you've never used that trick. Why? Because interrupting spatial spells is very dangerous. A poor opponent might as well be ripped to shreds."

Twilight gritted her teeth and tried to stand up, but collapsed, getting a kick right on her broken ribs.

"I'm wondering, Twilight," the copy said thoughtfully, picking her up with telekinesis and tossing her up. "When your friends are getting fucked by a mob of changelings, will you think the same way?"

A powerful gravitational force descended on Twilight, throwing her downward. There was a powerful impact, and deep cracks spread across the floor.

When the dust cleared, a sphere opened up, with Twilight floating inside it, unharmed by the attack.

"Not bad, not bad," the copy praised, looking at Twilight relaxedly. "I thought you were going to join the royal guard for training? Why? What can those losers teach us? You still haven't realized what your biggest problem is? You're afraid of your own power."

"I don't want to become a murderer," Twilight replied, and rows of purple symbols ran down her sides, healing her ribs. "Or another tyrant consumed by thirst for power."

"What about Celestia?" the copy asked suddenly, not trying to attack again. "We both admire her. You even consider her for a second mother. You could build an entire castle out of the corpses of those she's killed. Should we hit her with Elements since she's such an evil tyrant? Or is that different?"

Twilight had nothing to answer. She could say that yes, that was different, and Celestia had been forced to do it for the sake of the country, but even Twilight realized how weak that argument was - murder was still murder.

"You see the thirst for strength and power as something terrible," the copy's voice rang out, snapping her out of her gloomy thoughts. "But the truth is that this desire is the very essence of every being. Deep inside each of us is an instinct honed over thousands of years to perfection. Do you know what that instinct is?"

Twilight only shook her head, recovering her breath.

Suddenly, a sharp sound made her flinch - all the books around her began to bounce and rustle their pages. Feeling the powerful vibrations, she shifted her gaze to her copy, around which more and more purple runes were appearing.

"To dominate and slaughter your enemies!" the copy's horn flared with blinding energy. "And I'll beat it into your thick skull."

There was a strange pair traveling along a broken road in the northwest of Equestria: a huge gray wolf, with a pony lazily sprawled on its back, absorbed in its own thoughts.

That pony, of course, was Alexei, who had used his advanced training skills to subdue the wolf. Having escaped Canterlot and solved the transportation issue, he had a huge amount of free time, which he spent on analyzing spells and creating a recipe. Though Zebrica bordered Equestria, the distance was not insignificant - he still had several weeks of travel ahead of him before he reached the border of zebra country.

And all of this was only on the central continent, where ponies, zebras, griffins, minotaurs, yaks, and other sentient races lived. In addition to the central continent, there was also the western continent, the southern continent, the lifeless north, and the eastern islands. And all of them were as big as the central continent. The world was huge, but Alexei was sure that one day he would sweep across all these continents.

In the language of zebras, Zebrica meant something like "a place favored by the spirits." Actually, the name of the striped folk was also related to spirits. Maybe "people favored by the spirits"? By now Alexei knew the language of the zebras perfectly, but these names came from an older dialect, and he only vaguely remembered some things.

While he traveled to Zebrica, he was able to gather some ingredients for a potion based on Chrysalis' blood, but that wasn't even a tenth of the resources needed. Everything else he would have to buy from the alchemists or find on his own. But now he could relax a little - he had managed to create two mental spells in these six days.

The speed was impressive, but it was nothing to be proud of. He chose the one spell, ninety percent complete, that was very similar to the other blood magic spell at his disposal - a rib that caused a flash of pain. The similarity of the spells allowed Alexei to complete it rather quickly. This mental spell was also a mental attack, but it was somewhat strange.

When activated, a ghostly image of a skinny girl with short blond hair appeared behind Alexei, hugging him around the neck. In the next moment, she would let out a scream, attacking the mind of all opponents. The power of the spell was slightly inferior to his blood spell and did not cause pain - it was a pure mental attack, but the spell was much more refined, which meant it was harder to defend against. Now he had two spells with similar effects, but it was better than nothing.

The image of the girl wasn't random either - it was his first love. Such was the condition of the spell.

He certainly hadn't missed the connection between the journal filled with conversations with Sombra and such a spell. Had Luna created it in a fit of nostalgia for the old days? Was she in love with Sombra? Perhaps, but Alexei didn't care about any of that.

The most important thing was that he had a new spell in his arsenal. Ever since he'd become involved with Nightmare, he'd constantly had some sort of problem preventing him from dealing with spells.

Yes, he had a set of blood spells, but they were getting less and less to his liking every day. Of the seven spells, three were the same type of attack methods - the only difference was the strength, depending on the sacrifice.

The fourth spell was the rib he used all the time.

The fifth spell, which required sacrificing one's eye, had restraining power and was quite good, but the price was biting.

The sixth spell required sacrificing all of his skin and could produce a powerful area attack, but it was quite wild and difficult to control, so Alexei hadn't used it yet.

The seventh spell, on the other hand...

The Americans have an saying "do or die". Russians also have something similar, but it sounds different: "die, but do". The spell was the quintessence of this saying.

The seventh spell granted insane regeneration and powerful defense for five minutes. He hadn't used this spell himself, but he had read the gryphon's notes and it was truly impressive. Even limbs regenerated in a minute, what to speak of fingers regrowing in seconds.

If he used this spell, he could single-handedly destroy any squad of unicorns standing in his way. Regeneration combined perfectly with other blood spells and turned the mage into a killing machine.

But the price for this was also corresponding - it was required to sacrifice all internal organs, except for the brain. These organs were not restored by regeneration. For five minutes, the caster received temporary organs, which disappeared when the spell ended. The outcome was very obvious.

Unless he was backed into a corner, Alexei was never going to use this.

The second mental spell had been created by him personally, based on analyzing bits and pieces of all the other spells, other information he knew, and his personal ideas. It wasn't even really a spell, but rather a primitive scrap of meditation technique.

When mages created their core, they used certain techniques. In addition to compressing the energy into the core, they also used the techniques available to them to create a ring of energy around the core. This ring was needed to stabilize the energy within the core. With each upgrade of the core and new compression, a new ring around the core had to be created to keep it stable.

These rings around the core were the meditation techniques used to advance the magician. Aside from absorbing energy, strengthening the core, and, in rare cases, gaining some special abilities, the main purpose of the techniques was precisely to stabilize the core.

Suppose he turns into a nightmare and gains access to unlimited amounts of fear. Would he be able to soar to Celestia's level in a matter of days?

Theoretically yes, but in that time he'll have already exploded a thousand times.

First, his core couldn't handle the strain of so much energy in such a short period of time and would explode.

Secondly, without meditation techniques, he won't be able to stabilize it, and it will, again, explode.

So mindlessly absorbing energy would not end well. There was another problem: after creating a ring using a certain technique, he would have to create a second ring using the same technique, but of the second rank.

What does that mean? He would either have to find a high-level technique that would allow him to get to Celestia's level and beyond, or come up with his own.

How easy was that? If it was that easy, there wouldn't be so many people wanting to join the royal guard, which provided all the knowledge, spells, and techniques they needed. He was confident that he could create a rank one technique, but there was another problem: it had to be refined enough that he could increase its rank and create new rings around the core. If one ring was created based on one technique and another based on another, the result would be obvious: there would be a conflict between the different techniques, and the core would explode.

He already knew a few techniques, but none of them suited the nightmare. He could only use them as a reference, and even then with great caution. It was possible to switch completely from one technique to another, but there were their own problems and dangers. Alexei didn't even want to think about it.

The second spell was the result of these questions that had rubbed Alexei's mind for the past few months. The nightmare was essentially a condensed mental energy. So why not think of it as a core?

He was able to create several rings around the nightmare, stabilizing its state and slowing the rejection. This created other problems - the nightmare became more vulnerable to attack, but it was still worth it. The nightmare couldn't move far away from him anyway, and most of the time Alexei hid it deep in his mind altogether.

It sounded like a crude method, akin to wrapping duct tape around it, but it was extremely difficult. He looked to other techniques and mental spells as a model, but all the calculations and synchronization were strictly an individual case. Alexei had no mental attribute whatsoever, and his sense of energy was very mediocre - he was only connected to the nightmare, not in full possession of that energy.

Still, thanks to years spent practicing alchemy, his senses had been pushed to the limit, and he was able to accomplish this task. All things considered - his success was quite impressive.

Luna could be proud - her student was a genius.

Now he had a few months to spare, and he could safely get to Zebrica, create a potion that would buy him a little more time, and then begin to fully solve the problem.

For the moment, he lay comfortably on the wolf's warm back with his legs wrapped around him and pondered the ingredients. He had a rough idea of the basis of the recipe, but there was still a lot of experimentation and substitutions ahead. For now, he focused on the ingredients that could potentially be used in the recipe. He would probably find them along the way, so he had to at least know roughly what he could use.

He was torn from his musings by the wolf, who was starting to get visibly agitated, glancing back periodically.

"Hmm?" thought Alexei, stopping the wolf and listening to his senses. "Is there a tail after us? But he wouldn't have reacted so wildly. Some kind of beast?"

He continued to gaze into the distance, but there was nothing there but sparse trees covered in mist. His senses were also silent. Pulling his bag closer, Alexei continued to watch, looking for signs of whatever had spooked the wolf.

In the distance, at the limit of his vision, he noticed some anomaly - something rippled in the air like a mirage, and was approaching them very quickly.

Alexei reacted instantly. Jumping off the wolf's back, he pressed himself against its side, putting it as a meat shield between himself and the anomaly.

In the next instant, a powerful blow sent Alexei flying. The wolf that had received the main blow flew somewhere farther away.

A second after the impact, the air was filled with a furious crackling noise as the sound finally caught up with the anomaly.

Alexei, whose flight had been stopped by a tree, rose irritably from the ground. The wolf had taken the full force of the blow, so Alexei had only bruises and a few broken branches sticking out of his flesh.

The anomaly swept onward, leaving behind a pile of broken twigs and a disgruntled pony.

"Spatial fluctuations?" suggested Alexei, pulling the pieces of twigs out of himself and drinking a healing potion. "Don't tell me those two monsters moved the battle here."

The outcome of the battle in Canterlot was unknown to him, so he assumed that Celestia could still be chasing Chrysalis across the continent.

Another time he would have been glad for the opportunity to collect some more alicorn blood, but not this time. In Canterlot, they were somewhat limited in their methods - they had their troops under them. But in this wilderness? Those two crazy mares would wreck everything here. There was no way he was going anywhere near them.

"I didn't hear a battle," the man thought, scrutinizing his surroundings. "Did they just get here? Where are they?"

But aside from the beasts, alarmed by the anomaly and roaring in the distance, everything around them was fairly quiet. Couldn't these mares have suddenly taken a smoke break?

Alexei continued to study the surroundings, becoming more and more convinced that this anomaly was not the consequence of someone's battle. It was something else.

Tracing the source where the anomaly had come from, he mentally visualized a map of the continent and began to think about what could have caused it.

"It came from the side where the Crystal Empire used to be," Alexei concluded, checking the map. "There's nothing else there. Maybe some cache left behind by Sombra showed up?"

What if Sombra had a dimensional pocket, like Celestia's treasure trove, that had worn out enough to show up on Equus? That theory was entirely possible and very appealing. Given the power of the fluctuations, something quite huge should have appeared there.

He was distracted from his observations and musings by a convulsive wheezing sound behind him. When he looked back, he saw the swaying wolf he had ridden all the way here. After a moment, the wolf stumbled and collapsed to the ground, never getting up again.

Quickly running over to it, Alexei examined its wounds, but it had no serious external injuries. However, the wolf was wheezing and breathing frequently, and his heart rate was rapidly increasing.

Putting his ear to its side, Alexei immediately realized the cause and, looking around, rushed into the bushes.

Half a minute later he came running back, holding a thin hollow stem of a plant resembling bamboo in his telekinesis.

Grabbing a blade from his bag, he slashed at the stem, making an even and sharp cut that resembled a syringe needle.

Finding the right area, Alexei stuck the stem into the side of the wolf, which twitched in pain. With a whoosh, the accumulated air began to leave the chest.

Taking a vial from his bag, Alexei lifted the wolf's head and poured the content down its throat. After a while, the wolf began to regain his senses, and his breathing became more and more measured. He was even able to lift his head and stare perplexed at the stem sticking out of his side.

Pulling the stalk out, Alexei poured the rest of the potion over the wound, causing the wolf another bout of displeasure.

"Not today, buddy. You will live," Alexei smiled, stroking the wolf's fur affectionately. "You have fifteen minutes to rest, and your next stop will be already in the Crystal Empire. You can handle a few days without sleep, can't you?"

You'd think from the wolf's pitiful whine that it actually understood human speech.

"They seem to be doing okay," Luna thought as she studied the sleeping faces of the six mares. "Well, it's too early to judge."

Back in her office, she poured herself another cup of coffee and decided to get back to her paperwork. She couldn't stand over them the whole time, could she? If their condition changed - the spell would alert her.

They'd heard the result from the honor plaque and made incorrect assumptions. If they can do it in an hour, that's a great result. At most, she would allow them to spend four hours there, which would equal ten days inside the dream.

Immersed in her papers, Luna hadn't been paying attention as time passed when she suddenly felt a strange spatial fluctuation sweeping through Canterlot.

She had no trouble tracing the source of these fluctuations, and her face froze with shock.

The next moment, flames erupted in her chambers and Celestia appeared, with an equally worried face.

"Did you feel it too, sister?" asked Celestia, but Luna already had it written all over her face. "The Crystal Empire is back!"

There was no response from Luna - she was still staring off into the distance, immersed in her thoughts. Celestia, meanwhile, looked around and the six mares sleeping in the other room did not escape her gaze.

"Why are they even sleeping in your chambers?" asked Celestia incomprehensibly, nudging Luna with her wing. 'Are you helping them with their nightmares? Wake them up. We urgently need to hold a meeting, and they must attend. Without the support of the Elements, I'm not sure we can handle Sombra."

She had deep respect for her teacher, Star Swirl the Bearded, but even she recognized that Sombra was the most talented unicorn in the history of Equus. Perhaps Twilight could compete with him, but that was all matters of the future.

"I can't wake them up," Luna blinked, waking up from her memories. "They're undergoing the Trial of the Lunar Guardian."

"WHAT?!" Celestia burst out, but quickly got herself under control. "Okay, we'll talk about this later. Come, we need to discuss further plans."

A flash of teleportation followed, and Celestia disappeared. Luna glanced at the sleeping mares, added a few more alert spells, and teleported after her sister.

Meanwhile, far to the north, the lone figure of a unicorn stood against the black spires of the castle, gazing inquisitively at the sun.

Seconds turned into minutes, minutes became hours, but the figure still stood patiently, as if looking for something in the sun.

"Why is she still alive?" muttered Sombra, teleporting to the square in front of the castle.

Black miasmas swirled around, filling the square with a thick, suffocating fog. They wriggled slowly as if alive, seeping through the cracks in the stone sidewalk and upward, wrapping the whole place in clammy tentacles of darkness. The air reeked of decay and rot, and the square itself seemed engulfed in this black veil that obscured its true shape.

A few crystal ponies gutting their fallen kin shrieked and hurried away, but Sombra paid no attention to it - his mind was busy analyzing the reason for the failure. Pony-cannibals? He'd been raising them himself for fifteen hundred years. Why should he have been surprised?

He had paid a serious price earlier to implant a mental wedge with one simple thought of 'kill Celestia' into Luna's head. His return would be the trigger, and by now Celestia should have been dead. Luna had a whole thousand and fifteen hundred years to prepare. What could possibly go wrong?

Sombra was confident in his skills - no one except Discord would be able to not only destroy the wedge, but even detect it. Discord was on his side and he had no motive to get in Sombra's way.

"Alright, I've prepared for that as well," Sombra shrugged, heading towards the center of the square.

The giant tree standing in the center was ominously unsettling to all who looked at it. Its massive trunk, black and scarred by time, seemed to absorb the light, making the square even darker. The branches, like crooked claws, reached for the sky, as if seeking to catch invisible prey. The leaves, dark and sullen, rustled in the wind, emitting an ominous whisper that seemed to penetrate the soul.

The bark of the tree was covered with strange growths and cracks, resembling horrible faces frozen in eternal agony. From the depths of the tree trunk came a low, prolonged creak, as if the tree itself was groaning due to old age or hidden anger.

However, if any of the Elements had been in this square, they would have been at a loss for words, not understanding what was going on. It was clearly some evil demonic tree, but the Elements would immediately feel the same mystical connection they experienced when they came to the Tree of Harmony.

Placing his hoof against the trunk of the tree, Sombra closed his eyes and stood still for a while, listening for something.

"Almost done," Sombra muttered satisfied, taking a step back. "The world is going to change soon."

Author's Note

Letavitsa

Daddy Sombra

!!!WARNING!!!

The following image contains hard spoilers for the first half of the next arc. View at your own risk.

Chapter 23 - The Shadow over the Crystal Empire

Hopping from branch to branch, the crow kept her eyes on the pieces of bread scattered in front of the tree.

Oh, how she wanted them.

There was much more delicious food nearby, but her senses told her to stay away from that place.

Tilting her head, the crow took another look at the bread and then began to swivel her head around, surveying her surroundings. Everything seemed to be fine.

Jumping down from the branch, the crow flapped its wings a few times and landed a few meters away from the tantalizing food.

Looking around again, the crow found nothing unusual and hopped briskly toward the bread. After freezing for a moment, the crow turned its head again and finally pecked the first piece.

The next second the pile of twigs exploded as the wolf's mouth burst out of it, pouncing on the crow. She tried to take off, but the wolf was faster, sinking his teeth into her wing. The crow panicked, trying to peck its attacker in the eye, but was immediately pinned to the ground by a paw.

The wolf looked around and, finding the right direction, trotted briskly through the forest.

All the way he fought the temptation to strangle and eat the crow, but his pack leader needed it alive. The wolf didn't know why, but he dared not disobey. He'd met the pony a few times, but this one was kind of strange. He had obvious predator behavior, but for some reason he looked like a pony. Why was that?

Preoccupied with his wolfish thoughts, he quickly made his way to the canopy of pine branches where a pony he knew was sitting, reading a book.

Sensing the wolf's approach, Alexei broke away from studying the drawing, which resembled some sort of abstract impressionism. Alexei had never been into painting. This crazy mishmash of colors he was etching in his mind was a spell. That was the peculiarity of mental spells.

Unicorns' spell schemes mostly resembled mathematical formulas, while other races had symbols or figures of some sort. At least, all magical energy spells had one thing in common: they could be clearly described in some system. Be it mathematical, geometric, symbolic, or some other.

Mental spells were more about sensory experience, and could not be expressed with the usual precise systems. For someone without the mental attribute, and therefore the necessary intuition, it was a headache.

Putting the book in his bag, Alexei looked at the wolf and nodded satisfactorily when he saw the crow in its mouth. Running up to the pony, the wolf spit the crow out at his feet and stared at him expectantly. The crow, only pretending to be dead, immediately tried to fly up, but a hoof nailed it to the ground.

Grinning, Alexei reached behind his back, pulled out a hare caught in one of his snares, and tossed it to the wolf.

Ignoring the crunch of the hare being torn apart by the wolf, Alexei turned his attention to the crow on the ground. As he exhaled, a black jet of mist flew out of his mouth and into the crow's head. After a moment, the crow stopped wriggling and rose to its feet, staring at Alexei intently.

Giving it a couple of drops of healing potion, Alexei sent it to patrol the surroundings, and himself looked thoughtfully to the southeast. A few kilometers away from his temporary camp was the Crystal Empire. Alexei wasn't sure if it could even be called an empire now - it was just one city.

When Alexei had gotten here a couple days ago, he had seen the city covered in black miasmas and the utter devastation around it. In the fifteen hundred and fifty years of absence, a forest had long since grown here, and had become home to a multitude of creatures.

The return of the Crystal Empire had wiped out everything for many kilometers around, and the ensuing spatial fluctuations had brought even more destruction.

Alexei vaguely remembered reading a book about the history of the continent, and translated into kilometers, the area of this city must have been somewhere between seven hundred and eight hundred square kilometers. By Earth's standards, it was a fairly small city, but one had to take into account a bunch of villages that had surrounded the city before. All of them had been destroyed after the Crystal Empire disappeared.

There was now a two-kilometer dead zone around the city, strewn with wood chips from trees affected by spatial distortion. Of course, this area wasn't just covered in wood shavings - all living creatures had also been turned into mincemeat.

It was good that it was cold enough, and at night the temperature was close to zero, otherwise the stench would have been unbelievable.

But the slight corpse odor didn't bother Alexei - he was worried about the miasmas that were sweeping the entire Crystal Empire. A viscous, as if alive, black fog enveloped the entire city and was not going to dissipate.

Alexei had sent crows and rats out several times to scout, but none of them had returned. Thankfully, there were plenty of them here. All the larger animals had either died or scattered, and the smaller ones, hiding in their burrows, were now at ease in the area. Wasn't there something like this when the dinosaurs went extinct?

Despite the fact that the reconnaissance had failed, Alexei was not left empty-handed. The Crystal Empire radiated so strongly that he could safely study the nature of these miasms, being several kilometers away from the city.

And not just study, he even managed to conduct a few experiments. He himself was one of the test subjects.

Immediately upon arrival, he couldn't detect it, but after a while he noticed that all the animals feasting on the corpses started to go crazy. Had it not been for Alexei's constant intervention, the wolf would have lost his mind by now as well.

Fear, lust, hunger - that's what they were experiencing. How did Alexei know that? Well, he felt the same thing himself. Or rather, he felt it for the two of them - the crude method he'd used to protect the wolf was to redirect all those emotions into his own body. Fear naturally became the food of nightmares, and hunger and lust had to be endured.

However, this was only treating the symptoms - these miasmas were exuding some kind of corruption and polluting the soul, distorting it into something else. By the time Alexei noticed it, even if only a little, the wolf's soul was already polluted. How this would all end for the wolf, Alexei had no idea. Perhaps a slight change in its behavior, or maybe it was just a postponement of the inevitable.

Alexei wasn't just doing this out of the goodness of his heart - something interesting was going on. The corruption didn't bother him, since fortunately he didn't have any soul. His mental energy was constantly tainted, and his emotions were somewhat unstable. So he constantly had to expel the tainted mental energy from himself and use pure energy to purge out all the residue.

Aside from the hallucinations and unstable emotional state, Alexei didn't notice anything that would cause long-term problems. The corruption was polluting the direct source of mental energy, the soul, but his source of energy was a nightmare without self-awareness. Fear was his food, and anything else the nightmare couldn't consume, Alexei could endure. Hallucinations didn't cause problems either - he clearly knew what was real and what wasn't, so they were just annoying. He was sure that if he left here and cleaned out all the tainted mental energy, there wouldn't be any problems.

But he didn't want to leave!

The nightmare, under the influence of the corruption, was undergoing an extremely entertaining change - it had begun to mutate.

Alexei had originally stayed here for a different reason: there wasn't much fear, especially at this distance, but it was a constant stream and absorbed perfectly. If he stayed here long enough, he could do what he had failed to do in Canterlot: fix the nightmare rejection problem. So he began to do what he did with his mental energy as well - destroy the bad stuff and replace it with new. In essence, he was refining and tempering his nightmare by renewing his mental energy time after time.

And it was indeed effective. But not only because of the energy refining. Because of the mutation of the nightmare, Alexei finally noticed the main problem causing the rejection - Saada's ghost. When he had performed the ritual, he had fused her with the nightmare to increase the chance of fusion - after all, there was some connection between them. Unexpectedly, it was the reason for the rejection. Alexei had no idea why.

Perhaps originally she had actually become a sort of pin that allowed him to merge with the nightmare, but then the "inflammation" had started and she had caused an "allergic reaction"?

It was doubtful that medicine could explain this situation, but Alexei had no other ideas at the moment. He just felt that every time he washed the remnants of the ghost out of the nightmare, it became more and more stable.

The mutation, on the other hand, was causing Alexei some apprehension. He didn't know what exactly was happening to the nightmare and how it would end, but he felt that it was slowly changing under the influence of the corruption.

How do you corrupt a nightmare? Turn it into a positive emotion? It would be funny, but Alexei didn't feel something like that happening.

"If I spend a couple weeks here, I'll solve the rejection problem," Alexei mentally figured it out, licking his lips. "But that's impossible, of course. Someone is bound to show up and ruin everything."

Frankly, he no longer cared about the knowledge and treasure that might be inside. All he wanted to do: dive into these miasmas for a few days.

There would obviously be others arriving here soon and they wouldn't let him sit quietly near the Crystal Empire, but there had to be several times more energy inside the miasmas. A couple or even just one day inside was all he needed.

When the nightmare's condition stabilized and their link improved, he might be able to influence the mutation process. If their connection strengthened enough that he would gain the mental attribute - he was fully confident of success.

He was sitting a few kilometers away from the Crystal Empire and had already picked such a rich harvest. What would be inside the miasma?

He really wanted to find out, but he didn't dare think about going into the city.

"I've seen that too often in stories," Alexei laughed, letting his imagination run wild. "There's probably some unknowable fuckwit like an indescribable evil, an ancient lich, or a somehow surviving Sombra sitting there. I'm not the protagonist. I'm the villain, so I'll definitely die if I stick my neck out there... No, by genre rules, I'll get brainwashed and become an intermediate boss for the protagonist."

He was going to wait for the main characters to arrive in the form of the alicorns and the Elements before entering the city. He had no doubt that they were coming - the vibrations were quite powerful, and the alicorns had clearly sensed them in Canterlot.

The motive was even simpler.

What was the Crystal Empire famous for? All kinds of crystals, including huge deposits of magic crystals, which were something like the local equivalent of oil and were used everywhere.

While they would be fighting a threat to the local democracy, Alexei was just going to sit peacefully in a corner. Maybe if he was lucky he could snatch a few scraps, but he wasn't counting on it.

There were still zebras and griffins, but Alexei doubted either of them would show up. The zebras wouldn't bother provoking Celestia by trying to grab a piece of pie out of her mouth, and the griffins were too busy with internal squabbles. Some independent groups will obviously show up to grab their piece, but it's doubtful it'll be anything large-scale. Most likely they're already here and have even gone inside, but Alexei just hasn't noticed them.

He had bypassed the city from the west immediately upon his arrival and was now northwest of the Crystal Empire. It was because the city was stretched out, and it was much closer to the palace from the side - there was no city wall at all.

Besides, if the griffins would come, it would be from the east, while the Equestria forces would come from the south. Alexei tried to choose the most favorable and least dangerous place to wait. He wasn't interested in the palace, but there was no point in moving anywhere else.

He had set many traps around the area and periodically sent crows to check them. The traps posed no danger and were as inconspicuous as possible, and their only purpose was to show that someone had been there. The radiation in the area was so strong that Alexei didn't worry about scanning spells.

All he had to do was refine the nightmare and wait for the main characters to arrive.

"Maybe they won't come at all?" wondered Alexei, about to finish his vacation and get back to work. "I don't even know how the wedding ended."

Having considered this option, he could only shrug his shoulders. They won't come, so they won't. He wouldn't budge until chaos broke out in the Crystal Empire. He knew how to be patient.

Besides, aside from the noise of animals having orgies and devouring each other, the place was pretty quiet and peaceful.

"Has the Princess said something new?" came Rarity's voice, interrupting Twilight's thoughts.

Twilight's gaze focused and she turned her head, noting the waiting looks of the rest of her friends, also interested in an answer.

Twilight could only shake her head - she knew exactly as much as everyone else.

"Go there, I don't know where, beat that one, I don't know who," muttered a disgruntled Dash, adjusting her uncomfortable armor. "Fucking awesome quest, what can I say."

"Wrong, Dashie, we know where to go," Applejack laughed, hugging the pegasus around the neck. "So half the job is already done."

"I would if I were you..." Rarity began, but faltered under Twilight's stare. "Yes, half done."

A slight smile touched Twilight's lips as she looked at her friends. She had expected it to be much worse, but somehow, by some miracle, it had all worked out.

She'd been most worried about Dash, but she'd been unexpectedly calm about her failure, albeit after a long private conversation with Princess Luna. No, there was nothing wrong with the pegasus' memory - Twilight had checked. The only ones who could pass the test were her, Pinkie Pie, who needed less than an hour, and... Fluttershy. And none of them wanted to share their experiences.

Twilight spent almost four hours asleep and barely made it to the time limit set by Princess Luna. But whether that could be called a success was a big question.

"She let me pass," Twilight thought glumly, and goosebumps ran down her back at the memory of the trial. "No, I'm the one who let myself."

Her copy had somehow managed to override Princess Luna's spell control, plunging her deeper into sleep and breaking all the rules of the trial, turning everything into a harsh lesson for Twilight. The maximum time limit inside the dream was supposed to be ten days. She'd spent a month there. If the copy wanted to break her - she would have easily done it, but it only pushed her to her limit time after time.

Twilight knew she'd still have to go back if she really wanted to resolve her inner conflict. At least that month inside the dream had done her some good. That's what her rational part was telling her. Emotions, however, demanded that she turn to Luna and destroy the bitch that had set this whole thing up. Unfortunately, that bitch was herself.

Shifting her gaze to the princesses shrouded in artifact armor, Twilight realized that the operation was about to begin.

Stopping at the edge of the remaining forest, the troops set up camp and began clearing the area of the rampaging animals and their remains. First, of course, they had to solve the corruption problem. A giant dome was created to block most of the corruption, and all scouts patrolling the area were given protective amulets. Of course, there weren't enough for everyone, so portals to Canterlot were created fifty kilometers to the south, from where provisions and artifacts continued to be delivered.

The problem was that these amulets blocked only weak corruption and could not withstand what waited inside the miasma. So it was up to the princesses and the Elements to get inside.

As it turned out, the Elements of Harmony easily blocked corruption, and the princesses could withstand it with the power of their souls alone. Plus, they had tiaras that were actually artifacts that protected their minds and souls.

And they still didn't know what was inside the Crystal Empire. Of course, they had tried sending golems there that didn't have souls and used other spells, but they didn't get any results. Communication with the golems would immediately break down, and the scanning spells would go crazy, producing utter nonsense.

The princesses honestly told them that they didn't know what awaited them inside. One of the most likely options was Sombra, the tyrant who had taken over the Crystal Empire. If that was indeed the case, he was the unicorn with the longest lifespan in history.

Twilight didn't miss the expression on the princesses' faces when that name was uttered. She had never seen them so concerned. Plus, she was pretty sure the princesses hadn't told them the whole backstory.

She was more than convinced that the princesses knew about something that was happening inside the Crystal Empire right now, and it was terrifying them.

All the other Elements had noticed it too, and though they were now teasing each other and joking around, they were tense as a string.

That look on Celestia's face... For a moment Twilight even thought the world was about to end. But that wasn't possible, was it?

When they'd been called to the meeting, Twilight had been somewhat indifferent to the return of the Crystal Empire - now she was more concerned about Cadence's fate. Yes, the Badlands had been scoured for the Hive, but now she could be part of the search, couldn't she? She had passed the test, and Celestia would have nothing to object to her joining the troops for the search.

However, albeit grudgingly, she had to sideline Cadence. She didn't understand exactly what it was that had the princesses so alarmed, but she had to admit that it was something of at least continental scale.

"Let's depart," Luna's voice boomed in each Element's head.

With a glance to each other and a mental wish of good luck, the mares hurried to the exit of the forest.

There, on the spell-scorched ground, the princesses were already standing.

Twilight squeezed her eyes shut as four huge pillars of flame erupted around Celestia, and when she opened her eyes, there were four twenty-meter tall fire elementals standing around her.

A thin golden thread stretched from each of them to Celestia that couldn't be seen by normal sight - an extra precaution.

"Aren't you going to summon any?" mentally asked Celestia to Luna, who had already created a telepathic link between all the squad members.

"Not yet, I want to see how yours react to the corruption," Luna replied calmly, looking at the miasmas in the distance.

Her eyes no longer held the nostalgia that had appeared on the day the Crystal Empire had returned. Now there was only coldness and determination to finish the matter.

Celestia could only shrug at her sister's response - she was sure the elementals would be fine.

After waiting for all the mares to gather together, Celestia gave the order to the elementals and they stretched out, trapping everyone in a sphere of fire.

Twilight had time to feel the movement, and a few seconds later the sphere disappeared, turning back into the elementals and revealing a wall of miasma before their eyes.

"We're going in through the main gate?" Twilight wondered somewhat, noticing where they were.

"The source of the miasma is the palace, and we want to check something out," Celestia answered everyone through telepathy. "Reminder: do not leave the elemental square. Let's go in."

Twilight froze for a moment, feeling her hooves grow cold. The Elements of Harmony protected her from all the corruption, but her instincts were screaming for her to run for her life.

She was brought out of her stupor by the touch of a wing, pushing her forward. Turning her head, she saw Fluttershy smiling warmly.

"When did she get so confident?" Twilight thought perplexedly, nodding gratefully in response. "Considering how many animals died here... She's probably here for that thing's head."

And that wasn't a figurative expression. Previously, Twilight would have dismissed such thoughts as completely impossible, but now she wasn't so sure anymore.

Taking a deep breath, Twilight walked forward and entered the miasma with the others.

Inside the miasma, she saw... nothing. Nothing could be seen, there was only pitch blackness everywhere. She couldn't even make out the flaming elementals in all this darkness. She could only vaguely feel their heat, and she walked with that in mind. Sometimes, they prompted each other through the telepathy that still worked inside, thanks to the power of her creator. If they got too far apart, the connection would surely fade, but that was the last thing they were going to do.

Periodically, the tiara on her head would flare up as the Elements of Harmony protected her from something. Twilight wasn't sure she wanted to know what from.

They had been moving for a little over an hour when the darkness parted before them and they came to the main street of the Crystal Empire.

Twilight had expected to see all sorts of horrors and a bunch of corpses, as she mentally twisted herself, but there was none of that.

The street in front of them was as ordinary as one would find in any old part of Canterlot.

A few buildings were ruined, but the rest seemed to be in reasonable condition. The elementals illuminated everything for many meters ahead, so when Twilight took a closer look, she noticed that all the walls were porous, as if the miasmas had eaten away and soaked even the stone.

There was not a single living thing on the street, and the silence was interrupted only by the slight hum of black crystals stuck in the ground instead of lampposts.

When Twilight looked away from the street, she saw Celestia and Luna glancing at each other and discussing something through telepathy. Frowning, Twilight sent a mental message to Celestia, wanting to know the gist of the conversation - she'd had enough of secrets.

"Sombra is alive," Celestia's reply followed a short while later, echoing in everyone's heads. "Keep what I told you in mind, and don't lose sight of each other."

Taking a few deep breaths and exhaling, Twilight calmed her mind and moved forward with everyone else.

All the alleys were covered in thick miasmas, but the street in front of them was completely free of them.

"It's like we're being invited to go forward," Twilight mentally sighed, using several spells to constantly scan her surroundings. "No, not ' like', it's just the way it is."

Looking around, the group advanced behind the princesses, confidently looking ahead.

Suddenly, Luna raised her wing and ordered everyone to stop.

Twilight tensed up and with a quick glance at her friends, she lit her horn, preparing for battle. But nothing happened. No one appeared, and everything was just as quiet around them.

Only the shadows from the elemental flames seemed to dance faster and faster across the street.

"Shadows..." swept through Twilight's mind, and her eyes widened with fear.

In the next instant, the shadows drew sharply together, and a dark gray unicorn with a red horn appeared in the middle of the street.

Twilight clenched her teeth with tension, and every muscle in her body tightened when she saw him. Her attentive gaze managed to notice the unicorn's lack of fate mark, but that was the last thing on her mind right now - an ancient legend had come to life before her. She couldn't feel a single drop of magical energy from this unicorn. All her magical senses told her that there was no one in front of her at all, but that made her even more anxious.

"Welcome to the Crystal Empire," Sombra smiled and greeted as he turned toward them. "It's been a while, hasn't it? I'm a bit busy, so... Have you considered my last offer? It still stands."

His gaze quickly slid over Luna's head, as if trying to examine something inside, and then his eyebrow arched slightly in surprise.

"Yes, we have considered it," Celestia nodded, taking a few steps forward and catching Sombra's attention. "As for an answer..."

"Attack," came a short order in Elements' head.

They had discussed many strategies earlier, and now it was going to go as follows: Celestia and Luna hold him back, preventing him from teleporting, and Elements destroys him in one blow. A quick and clean victory.

Light began to gather quickly around the Elements, dispersing the surrounding haze, and the princesses kept a close eye on Sombra, ready to immediately block the space, foiling his escape attempt. But Sombra made no attempt to do anything but stand there, watching the Elements indifferently.

Twilight flew into the air and her tiara began to shine brighter and brighter when suddenly Sombra made his move.

Stepping forward, the phantom image of the black tree appeared behind him, and in the same second, the light around the Elements disappeared.

Several vines appeared out of nowhere and wrapped around the Elements of Harmony, and they immediately faded. Before Twilight realized what had happened to the artifacts, something strange happened: something coiled around her mark, and she felt that she couldn't feel Magic.

The same thing happened to the marks of the other Elements and even to the princesses.

The eight mares stared at Sombra in shock, feeling pure terror from the image of the tree behind him.

The gray unicorn coughed awkwardly, discreetly clearing his airways of the blood that had entered them—this tree trick wasn’t so easy to use, and he took a couple more steps forward.

The mares, acting on pure instinct, stepped back in unison.

“You rely so much on this power, but it doesn’t even belong to you,” Sombra said, shaking his head in disappointment. “And yet I am the one called mad... You shouldn't have come here.”

A headache hit Alexei sharply as he struggled to brush away the fog that filled his mind. He tried to open his eyes, but only got another headache - everything around him was blurring, preventing him from focusing.

He heard some noise and what seemed to be talking, but he couldn't make out what it was about. His ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton wool, and when he tried to concentrate on a single sound, he got a piercing ringing in his ears.

Raising a hand, he began to massage his forehead and the bridge of his nose, in the process noticing something touching his hand. Some kind of thin vines?

The last thing he remembered was that he had outplayed Saada and started the ritual. Then... it was the Depths, wasn't it? He met some strange creature and almost died, then he ate the scavenger's flesh and made his way out into reality. The princesses appeared, the Elements of Harmony hit, the Tree, many illusory worlds, and finally he got out. He lost consciousness immediately, though.

Had the Alicorns taken him to the palace or were they still near the Tree? He seemed to be lying in bed, so was he in the palace?

Alexei concentrated as Luna had taught him and cut himself off completely from his surroundings. For a few minutes he lay there and watched his breathing, regaining his mind.

Finally, he took a deep breath and slowly opened his eyes to see a white ceiling and a plastic light fixture.

He didn't have time to realize what was happening when his ears caught the source of the sound and he shifted his gaze lower, wrinkling his neck in pain. On the wall in front of him hung a TV showing a crowd of pink ponies looking at... paint on the wall? Was that lavender unicorn Twilight?

Alexei stared dumbly at the TV, hypnotized by what was happening. He couldn't understand the reason for it himself, but something was scrambling at the back of his mind, and with each passing second he was becoming more and more horrified.

Suddenly it ended and the credits came on with a female voice humming something about ponies and friends, which finally brought him out of his trance.

"What the fuck?" Alexei muttered dazedly, looking at the credits as if they might hold some answers.

Is he still passed out? No, that's impossible. He had long ago learned to control his dreams. Besides, he possessed the nightmare now, so...

"Where is my nightmare?" Alexei tensed, trying to find it in his mind, but in vain.
"Did Luna destroy it? No, she wouldn't take the risk... Then why can't I feel the energy?"

Maybe he's still in one of the illusory worlds of the Tree? But why is he still here? They used to collapse the instant he realized himself.

"You liked the first two seasons, didn't you?" came a familiar female voice from nearby. "Shall I switch?"

Turning his head, Alexei saw a middle-aged woman with short brown hair - his mother. Her eyes widened, as if she had finally realized something, and she rushed to Alexei, showering his face with kisses. Alexei flinched at her sudden movement, but froze, letting her do whatever she wanted.

Ignoring the sobs of the woman crying with happiness, Alexei looked around again carefully and finally noticed what he had earlier mistaken for a vine - the IV tube stuck in his left arm. Stealthily reaching down with his right hand, he ripped it out and tossed the needle aside.

"You're finally awake, son," the woman smiled, wrapping her arms around Alexei's face, a flicker of hidden expectation in her gaze. "You do realize what's going on, don't you?"

"Of course I do, Mom," Alexei smiled back, deciding to follow the story for now. "I'm in the hospital, but I don't remember how I got here. Why am I here?"

The woman hesitated slightly, as if unsure whether to speak on the subject, but gave in under Alexei's coaxing. Half-heartedly listening to her story and occasionally asking leading questions, Alexei continued to investigate his surroundings. At least he tried, but he still felt nothing.

"If this is an illusion, why am I still in it? And what's wrong with the plot?" Alexei thought, feeling a growing unease. "Is my nightmare out of control? Impossible, it has no mind. Some other powerful nightmare is feeding on me? Two meters away from Luna? Maybe she did it? No, she wouldn't finish my mind."

Even if Luna was absent, it still didn't feel like a nightmare, because he felt no fear of mental hospitals.

It just so happened that one time he had needed to get a certain diagnosis and had been in for three weeks for an observation. He thought that fooling the psychiatrists and psychotherapists would be a difficult task, but in fact it turned out to be quite easy. He spent several days studying a medical forum where people with the diagnosis he wanted described their symptoms and daily problems. He absorbed all of this information, created the image he wanted, and fell into it. He even went further and played out a lot of small details that were not talked about on the forum, like a certain look, a slight pause in answers because of immersion in the inner world and all that. But Alexei considered them appropriate and added them to the image after analyzing what he already knew. It was very easy to fool the doctors.

The most baffling thing was the missing of his nightmare and the loss of his sense of mental and magical energy.

Suppose someone skillful enough had gotten into his mind and blocked it all out. Then why was he realizing himself? It didn't make any sense.

"Has the IV come out?" a woman's voice broke in, interrupting her own story. "Wait, I'll call the orderly."

Alexei looked at the back of the woman leaving the room and replayed what she'd said in his head.

Constant severe hallucinations? He'd been lying here for six years? He'd recently escaped from the ward, beaten up an orderly, and drank printer's ink?

"What a fucking bullshit," Alexei thought with a chuckle, leaning back on the pillow. "Instead of a ritual potion, I drank printer's ink, huh?"

Still, his anxiety was growing stronger, and he felt like he was missing something. It was as if subconsciously he already knew the answer, but just couldn't formulate it yet. If it weren't for his willpower, he would have given in to panic long ago, but so far he'd managed to stay calm.

None of this was like the Tree or nightmares. There was also the possibility that his mind had failed and he'd gone mad, but... Could crazy people even assume they were crazy? No, they could assume it, but they would never admit it.

"I'm not crazy," Alexei dismissed those thoughts, concentrating on his next plans. "Should I follow the plot or could it be dangerous? Slaughter everyone here or drive things to the point of absurdity? Kill myself?"

After considering all the options, he decided to see where the plot would go first before acting. Besides, he felt that his body was extremely weak, and half of his plans were impossible. The weakness in his body could be explained by the overload of his mind after all those Tree illusions. If he waited for a while, his mind would recover, and with it, this body.

"How is our favorite patient doing?" came a familiar female voice from the doorway.

Looking that way, Alexei saw two smiling women in medical gowns entering the room. The taller one had a chain with a sun symbol around her neck, and the other had crescent moon earrings. His mother, with a final whisper to the shorter one, stayed outside.

"You remember us, don't you?" the taller woman asked, taking a seat in the chair next to the bed. "Well, certainly not names. Lately you've been calling us... Celestia and Luna, right? Heh, well now you'll have to learn our real names."

"Alexei, your mother said you ripped out the IV, is that true?" the woman with the earrings asked, squinting at the other psychiatrist. "Why did you do that?"

"I don't like having needles stuck in me," Alexei shrugged, looking at the humanized version of Luna. "You don't mind, do you?"

"Actually, I do," Luna replied in a calm but firm voice. "It's a new treatment, and we're already seeing improvement. I don't want to preemptively... You want to recover and get back to your life, don't you?"

Alexei was about to just ignore further conversation when he saw everything on the sides of his vision begin to blur. Soon, the entire ward in front of his eyes blurred, merging into a mass of colors.

"Hey! Are you okay?"

"Spike, call... We need to get him to..."

A stream of air slapped Alexei in the face as his vision finally began to focus. Something white flickered in front of his eyes, and he instinctively batted it away with his hand. Blinking a few times, normal vision returned to Alexei and he saw the Ponyville square in front of him.

Turning his head to the side, he met his gaze with Twilight, holding a white handkerchief in telekinesis, which she was apparently waving at him.

They stared at each other for a few moments, and then the handkerchief flew toward his head, causing Alexei to flinch and hit the back of his head against the wall.

"Whoa, whoa, shh," Twilight said concernedly, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "Are you still dizzy?"

"He just inhaled a little paint," Spike replied confidently, not sharing her concern. "He's strong, he'll be fine. By tonight he'll be playing Ogres and Dungeons with us, but no villain characters this time..."

"What paint?" muttered Alexei, no longer trying to move.

"The one we used to find the real Pinkie," Spike replied, looking at the man perplexed. "That was your idea."

Alexei's eye twitched as he remembered that passage from the TV.

"Are you sure you're okay?" asked Twilight, moving closer to his face. "Do you want me to take you home?"

"I'm fine," Alexei replied hoarsely and lifted himself off the ground, resting against the wall.

Throwing a quick glance at his surroundings, he slowly staggered off somewhere towards the outskirts of Ponyville.

"Wait!" came the sudden voice of Twilight running up. "You took your meds today, didn't you?"

Alexei only looked at her with a blank stare that made Twilight frown.

"It's very serious," Twilight said, wrapping her hooves around his arm. "Lucky you survived that mental explosion at all. If you don't take your meds, you'll start hallucinating again."

Anxiety reached a fever pitch, and he began to feel his mind boiling.

"Are you okay?"

Ponyville began to blur in front of his eyes and all the colors mixed together, creating a crazy kaleidoscope.

"Are you okₐʸ?"

"ₐᴿₑ ʸᴼᵤ ₒᴷₐʸ?"

"...YoͦUͧ..."

"OͦᴋⷦAͣͣͣY?"

"̴̞̦̾̾͌А̴̴̸̸̵̵̡̡͖͖͍͓̻͇͙͚̘͔͇͓͙̼͔͉̪͎͍̫͌̓̓ⷶ̾̿̓̓̈́ⷶ̀̀́̐̐̿̚͘͜͝r̵̴̴̸̴̴̡͕̟͚͉̦͍̙̫̞͇̦̘̞͖͎͉̘͕͓̫̫̙͖̓͆͆ͬ̓͑͊̓͒̿ͬ̒͋͌́̀̕͘̕ё̵̸̸̴̵̵̡̢̝̦̞̠̠͖̦̞͔͖̞̻̼̦̞͕̘͎͖̺́̐̽͋ⷷ̾͛̽ⷷ͋̓̿̕͘̕̚̕͜͠͝͝ у̵̴̪͙͇͓̼͙̫̠͑͊͋̾͒͝о̵̵̸̵̸̴̡̢̞̼̙̦͉͚̙̟̫̠͇̺͖̻̞̘͎͕͎͖̺̝͙͙̙̿̈́̾͊ⷪ͌͊̒͊ⷪ̓́͊̓͋̚͝͝͝͠u̵̸̴̴̸̵̡̢̡͙͙͙̝̫̻̠͍̞̠͔͙͍̦͓̞͉͍̞͆̀̾͆͛ͧ͋̔͆͌̓ͧ͆͛͊̀̚͜͜͝ ӧ̸̵̵̵̴̸̢̡̢̦̪̪̘͍͔͖͇͙̪̞̦̦̝̺̻̼̞̟̻̫͓́͐͒̒ⷪ͛͛̐̈́͒ⷪ̔͋͋͊́͘͝͝ᴋ̴̸̴̴̫͙̫̙͇̟̪͚̞̞̙͕̝̞̼̻͋͛͊̔̈́ⷦ͛̽̐̓̈́͜͝͝а̸̸̸̴̸̵̢̢̢̢̡̝̺͓̫͙̪̝͖̟̪̺̫̠͍̝͉͓̠͍͛̿͆̓̈́͐ⷶ͛̽͛͌͋̀ⷶ́̽̈́̀́͜͠у̴̸͓̦͚͔̦̙̝̠͖͛̓̚͘̚?̵̴̞̟͓͕͉͇͕̼͉͆͛͑̔͆"̴͇͕̕͝

The man's gaze focused on the familiar white walls of the hospital room.

"You're okay now," the woman with the earrings smiled, adjusting the IV.

Alexei stared at her blankly for a few moments before running a hand over his face and chuckling.

His shoulders shook as he couldn't take it anymore, and the ward exploded with insane laughter.

Author's Note

How to become immortal and rule the universe without attracting the attention of psychiatrists? 🤔

In armor dressed, success addressed:

Sombra checks to see if all his guests are enjoying the Crystal Empire:

Chapter 24 - Guests from the past

The ancient city was drowned in a dense fog of black miasmas, writhing as if alive, coiling around ruined walls and ruined buildings. The cracked stone sidewalks had long since been overgrown with moss, and the bones and remains of ponies were scattered at every turn, creating an ominous picture of desolation and death. The putrid air was saturated with the heavy, suffocating odor of blood, semen, urine, and excrement that made one's stomach turn and mind churn.

Silence pressed down on the ears, only occasionally broken by ominous rustlings.

In this suffocating gloom, the miasmas began to thicken, as if to gather in one place. Gradually the silhouette of a bipedal creature began to emerge among them, and its outline became more and more distinct.

A moment later, a naked man with a bag hanging from his neck emerged from the miasma. His right hand was tangled in the strap, but the man did not seem to be bothered by it, his face glowing with joy and contentment as if he had reached the pinnacle of bliss.

The happy expression contrasted with the contents of his hands, which were carrying fresh entrails wrapped in intestines in his outstretched arms. The blood-smeared face gave further clues as to exactly how he had disemboweled his victim.

The miasma covered most of the Crystal Empire, but by no means all of it. It was more like artificially created sections. Here and there, there were gaps in the miasmas, sometimes even the size of entire city districts. These sections were exactly where the crystal ponies were, doing the things they were used to doing - fearing, breeding, and devouring each other.

The man who entered one such gap did not encounter any ponies for only one reason: he was on the outskirts, and the miasmas moved periodically, and the sections along with them. He appeared in one of the newly emerged sections, which nobody really cared much about - most ponies were in the central areas after all, and moved in the wake of the miasmas. But all these subtleties of the local ecology hardly bothered the man.

Frozen for a moment, the man seemed to have decided on a direction and walked towards the central square, holding the entrails in his outstretched arms like some sort of offering to an unknown creature.

As he walked across the miasma-free street, black smoke began to billow from his body, forming into a nightmare. The nightmare's figure didn't change much, but its surface went in waves, like fat on a obese man's body. The nightmare began to sway from side to side, and finally, unable to bear it, opened its mouth and let out a soundless scream, which sent waves of energy flying in all directions. It wasn't some kind of attack. Nightmare was acting on pure instinct, trying to get rid of the excess energy that threatened to tear his body apart. Still, there was a lot of fear around and it fed perfectly.

Alexei, who had been hit by the nightmare, rolled sideways and remained motionless.

After a few seconds, his hand moved and hit the ground as he tried to get up. He failed. Everything around him was blurring and his head was splitting with unbearable pain. Groaning and pressing his palm into his face as if trying to get the pain out of his head, Alexei mentally called out to the nightmare and immediately began cleansing the energy in his body, expelling any remaining corruption.

After ten minutes of continuous work, he finally felt the pain go away and the hallucinations stop.

He could now open his eyes. Thanks to the nightmare he could see perfectly well in the dark and the first thing he saw was entrails. Quickly shifting his gaze to his stomach, Alexei breathed a sigh of relief - it wasn't his entrails.

The hallucinations themselves weren't dangerous, but what if he started using blood magic inside his hallucinations? For example, that seventh spell that sacrifices the caster's organs.

Squinting his eyes, he noticed blood on his face, and his mouth tasted metallic. Running his tongue over his teeth, he fumbled for stuck bits of flesh and something like wool. Alexei squinted as realization of what had happened came to him, but immediately put the thought out of his mind and concentrated on another question.

"What the fuck just happened?" he thought as he continued to anxiously examine his body.

Aside from a few missing fingernails, there was nothing wrong with his body. He could even guess how he had lost them. It wasn't blood magic; he'd probably lost them while he was getting those very insides with his bare hands and teeth. But right now he was more concerned with the source of the powerful hallucinations he was trapped in.

He had entered the miasma half an hour after the alicorns in the company of the Elements had gone in, and then he had woken up here. He vaguely remembered the contents of the hallucination, but had no idea what had happened. Right now, he could feel the corruption gradually accumulating in his body, but it wasn't enough to make him instantly go insane.

Glancing in the direction from which he had come and comparing a few scrappy memories, Alexei came to the following conclusion: he had fallen under some influence. He remembered exactly how he felt as he walked with those entrails in his outstretched arms. It was an offering to someone or something. And that something must have been the source of the corruption. Now it was clear where all the crows he had previously sent into the miasma had gone.

A chill ran down his spine as he thought about it. He was well aware that it would be extremely dangerous here, but why had he underestimated the danger so much? None of his guinea pigs had returned from the miasma, but he dived in anyway. Was he already under the influence of something long before he went in? Was it some kind of spell, artifact, or material combined with all that corruption? The artifact draws him closer and the corruption slowly begins to warp his mind.

The only thing that reassured him was that whatever it was, it had achieved its goal and he'd gotten inside, so there shouldn't be a second attack of hallucinations anymore. Besides, judging by the fact that the wave of energy from the nightmare was enough to clear his mind - this trap wasn't that strong. Either that or it was also suppressed by the sheer amount of energy from the corruption hovering in the miasmas.

"Acceptable," Alexei nodded mentally, assessing the level of difficulty of the upcoming adventure.

How he got out of the hallucination was no mystery to him. Even though the nightmare had no consciousness, it was capable of following simple commands. More accurately, it was somewhat different. Alexei interacted with the nightmare through the mental energy that contained his thoughts. Earlier, he had wished that the nightmare would get rid of the energy while Alexei was in the process of refining it, and that thought had stayed with the nightmare that way. So while Alexei was in the hallucination, the nightmare continued to eject energy. However, there was a lot more fear inside the miasma, and at some point the nightmare got fed up and, acting on instincts, it "vomited" all the energy at once.

"Speaking of which," Alexei thought, rising from the ground.

Leaning over, he put two fingers into his mouth and began pouring the contents of his stomach onto the ground. Pieces of flesh, tendons, fur, grease, bone fragments and a lot of blood - there was no doubt left, he really had eaten someone inside those miasmas.

Taking a flask of water out of his bag, he drank about a liter in a volley and continued to clean his stomach until there was nothing left. After rinsing his mouth and getting rid of the unpleasant taste, Alexei noticed something he hadn't seen before because of the blood - a piece of hide with a fate mark in the shape of an black tree. It didn't tell him anything, so he quickly lost interest. He was more concerned with whether there was any problem with the flesh he'd devoured.

After moving away from the contents of his stomach, Alexei lay down on the stone sidewalk again - he was still dizzy. In addition, he began to feel the waves of lust and hunger coming over him more and more strongly. If someone walked into this section, he would see a heavily breathing man with a boner and drooling.

Having summoned the nightmare, he made a few changes: now he had to send a signal to the nightmare once a minute, if no signal was received - the nightmare would stop getting rid of energy and he would "vomit" again, which would knock Alexei out of his hallucinations.

Finally, he could allow himself to relax a little.

"Just wondering how much more I can take," Alexei smiled sadly and closed his eyes, letting his mind wander.

Despite everything that had happened, he was pretty calm. He was just a little tired.

He had managed to get this far not because of his intelligence, cunning, or some incredible willpower. He considered his greatest weapon to be his mindset.

He had just thrown up chunks of some pony's raw flesh, and he was quite calm. Did he think ponies were inferior to humans? No, they were just as sentient beings as he was.

In that case, could he now be considered a cannibal? Yeah, so what?

Okay, so now he's a cannibal. Does that change anything? No. Well, apart from the still possible stomach problems...

Maybe the flesh of an sentient being was different from the flesh of an non-sentient being? Also no. If you took away all the emotional stuff, it was just meat.

If there was one thing he knew about people, it was that they liked to complicate things where they didn't need to, and simplify things they shouldn't.

But Alexei was constantly busy removing unnecessary emotional overtones.

It started back on Earth. One could say that he didn't change much when he came to this world. Yes, only here he began to show his true self, but that was only because on Earth there was nothing to chase with such frenzy. Besides, there were too many cameras on Earth....

Fame? Money? Women?

Of all these things, he was only interested in money, and only as a tool.

His biggest regret on Earth was that he realized too late what he wanted out of life. By the time he realized what he wanted, he had already finished his master's degree three years ago. And he was left with a profession he didn't really want to pursue.

Not that he didn't like it - he chose it himself, and no one forced him to go to this particular university. It was just...

He regretted that he hadn't followed his childhood dream of becoming a scientist, and had chosen money instead. How could his fate have turned out in that case?

Alexei grinned, imagining himself somewhere in a third world country, conducting experiments on humans.

Biology. That's what he would have chosen and, knowing himself, one day in the pursuit of knowledge he would have gotten to that too. Very easily. Maybe he could even achieve some incredible results. Then he'd be killed by some big shot who decided to clean up the mess. Well, it would still have been an interesting life.

Circumstances were such that he couldn't go to a second university, and it all looked dubious. It was better to earn money and get the right contacts than to study for another ten years and naively believe that he would achieve incredible breakthroughs.

So all he had to do was make money and hope that one day there would be a breakthrough in science. There was still cryonics, but until those smart guys solved the cell damage issue, there was no point in thinking about that.

On the other hand, if he followed his childhood dream, he wouldn't be in this world. So he was even grateful to his past self.

This was how he lived his life, working and doing the things that made him happy - traveling, hitchhiking, reading, sports and computer games. Though he couldn't even remember what he had last played. For the last two years, before he went through the portal, he hadn't played anything at all. It wasn't that he didn't have time - he just didn't want to.

He might have enjoyed doing all that stuff, but he clearly realized that it was all just cheap. A cheap substitute to fill the emptiness inside him, nothing more.

But in this world, it was different. He felt like he belonged. He felt like he was doing something that actually had meaning. His life itself had meaning. As time went on, everything else began to make less and less sense to him.

Others might think he had some dark philosophy mixed with PTSD, and he himself was a rational lunatic, a homicidal maniac or something. It had nothing to do with reality.

In fact, Alexei had a huge secret. If it became known, even Celestia's jaw would drop for a moment.

Alexei was a happy man.

He was probably even in the top ten happiest beings in Equus. Fortunately or unfortunately, no such statistics existed.

Ever since that very night in the zebra tribe, when he had made a certain promise under the night sky, he had gradually become happier and happier. The promise itself was extremely simple: he decided that he would either achieve his goal or die trying. There were no other options - that was how he wanted to live his life.

This happiness had nothing to do with his successes or failures, with joy or pain. With each passing day, he felt... meaning. Anything, even the most tedious task, brought him satisfaction because he knew he was one step closer to his goal. Every day he was getting closer and closer to inner harmony.

If you think about it that way, in all those five-plus years, he had never had anything like a vacation. He'd hardly even had a weekend. Was he some kind of incredible workaholic or did he have an unbreakable will? He had none of those things when he started out. He just didn't feel he needed a vacation.

If his mind grew tired of intellectual work, he simply switched to some monotonous and simple tasks. If he was completely wrecked, as he was now, he would just relax for a while and then get up and keep going. There was no need for some steely will or anything, he never once forced himself to do anything - he enjoyed every second he spent on Equus.

The same was true for successes and failures, joy and pain.

Did he fail? Fine, he'd try again.

He wasn't a masochist, but even when he experienced pain, he was happy. What was pain compared to the happiness of finding meaning to existence?

He had long ago accepted his death. Even back then, under the starry sky, when he had made that decision, he had understood perfectly well what awaited him - most likely, he would die a horrible and painful death. And he was fine with that.

That's exactly how he wanted to die - doing the things that gave his life meaning. Of course, it would be even better not to die at all. Never. Well, that's what he was working on.

Right now he was smiling as he remembered crawling through the shit in the sewers on his stumps. He'd thought so much of himself back then, and this was what had come of it.

That was hilarious!

Unable to contain himself, Alexei snorted, and the memories of the incident grew more and more comical in his mind. If he said he was grateful for what had happened to him that day, he would absolutely be considered crazy, right? He must be horribly traumatized by what happened, right? But he was really grateful to the universe or whoever for the experience. It had become a really useful lesson for him.

Maybe he really was crazy.

It's pretty hard to analyze yourself, and even harder to convey your feelings to others.

Eternal life was a difficult, hardly feasible goal, but the mere pursuit of it already gave meaning to his life.

He clearly understood what he felt, but how could he explain this pursuit to others? It was impossible.

Would Luna understand him if he told her everything honestly? How would she react when he told her that if he couldn't continue on the path to his dream, he would just kill himself?

He had once spoken frankly with a stranger, and that man had said that his views resembled a kind of Buddhism. A dark, twisted version of Buddhism.

For example, Alexei believed that all life was equal. He'd even told Luna that a few times. But he doubted she understood what he meant.

What's the difference between a pony and an ant? Nothing.

In Alexei's opinion, both lives were equal. Maybe he was better than that? No, he didn't think his life was more valuable than the ant's either.

So what was the value of all these lives? They were worth nothing.

To Alexei, killing a pony was equivalent to killing an ant, and killing an ant was equivalent to killing a pony. And how could he tell Luna that? It would be his last words before being sent to the dungeon.

And it wasn't that they were ponies or griffins or zebras. In Alexei's opinion, they were no different from humans. He had never killed a human on Earth, but he knew he could easily kill one if the need arose.

Alexei knew nothing about Buddhism and only vaguely remembered that the man had called it something like "cutting off the unnecessary". If you cut off all unnecessary things, like sentience and inflated ego, then a man and an ant are just two living beings. Alexei was in complete agreement with this.

All living beings are a set of dead elements, which, interacting, create life. If we think in this way, then the next step would be to recognize that there is no difference between a man and a stone. And that was a bit of a stretch, in his opinion. He probably wouldn't make a Buddhist.

He'd heard a thousand times about cops having nightmares after a shooting, or soldiers getting PTSD after coming home. It was all broadcast from everywhere. Everyone had some kind of preconception that killing breaks a person.

There was just a little problem. For some reason it was not popular to talk about people of a different category. There were enough people who passed their first kill with ease. And there were people who, not that they didn't get PTSD, but enjoyed the war.

It was highly individualized for everyone.

Alexei had a theory about it. A one-size-fits-all answer for any internal problem.

It was all about comprehension.

For example, why are we so horrified by killing? Why do we feel a kind of terror at the mere thought of killing, as if we're stepping over some unbreakable taboo?

His grandmother would say it's because the Creator put a piece of himself in us and we are all born good. Heh, that's bullshit.

Survival instinct is the right answer!

One day he was reading an article about how the brain works and it was like he had an epiphany. The article was about how our brains try hard to keep us in a positive frame of mind. It's happened to everyone when a cashier has been rude to you and you can't get a proper response. You get angry for a while, but, on average, after fifteen to twenty minutes you forget about the situation. Well, or you come up with a witty answer that doesn't make any sense anymore.

So this "forgetting" is the work of our brain, so that a person would not be sad, but would rather have a good meal and go to procreate.

Alexei even had a suspicion that it was from this peculiarity of our brain that the whole idea of karma or universal justice appeared. Some loser had invented this nonsense, and a crowd of other losers had picked it all up. Of course, dreaming that the universe will sort out your life is much easier than doing something about it.

In the same article, he saw a quote from another study. It was talking about the survival instinct and the origin of friendship as a way to increase the chances of survival, but Alexei picked up something else.

The point was that our brains, despite all their complexity, are still stuck somewhere in caveman times. We instinctively fear the dark because a beast might be lurking there. We instinctively fear snakes and spiders because they might be poisonous. We instinctively detest insects because they carry diseases and parasites.

What is the connection between the survival instinct and the taboo feeling against killing? It's all about our stupid brains.

What happens if a tribe member kills a fellow tribesman for no good reason? He would be killed or expelled from the tribe!

Expulsion from the tribe, in essence, meant death, because one was deprived of a safe shelter, the warmth of a bonfire, and a reliable source of food.

There are no tribes anymore, and no need to band together to deal with some saber-toothed tiger, but our brains still think otherwise.

Of course, the brain will come to be horrified if you think of doing something that it thinks puts your survival in doubt. So this terror that humans experience is not at all about killing another human being. It is fear of the threat to one's own survival.

Many people feel fulfillment when they do good deeds. Hold up a door, help with a stroller, pick something up off the floor, and you're thanked and you feel good about yourself.

Is the reason that we are all born kind?

Or is the reason that our brains see our actions as beneficial to our survival and reward us with a dose of dopamine? From our brain's perspective, by doing good deeds, we strengthen our position in the "tribe" and reduce our chances of being kicked out. Plus, in case of danger, we are more likely to get support from those we have helped before.

Many people from Earth would probably be at a loss as to how he can kill sentient beings in such cold blood and not be terrified by the killing. He's an emotionless psychopath, isn't he?

They just never thought about it or tried to find and conceptualize the reason for their terror. Alexei did it all the time.

He had killed a Siwazuri, and it was his first kill of a sentient being, and he felt nothing but battle fatigue.

You'd think he had some extremely dark and cynical view of the world, but that was wrong too. Alexei liked the world as it was, and he didn't think it was horrible at all.

It was just that most people were used to dividing everything into black and white. And not just divided, some went even further: if they suddenly saw black, they pretended that it did not exist, and refused to see anything but white. Others, having seen black, focused exclusively on it, became depressed and chewed antidepressants by the packs.

Alexei saw both black and white and all other shades, and he was more than satisfied with everything. He'd never been depressed in his entire life.

Was this how he was supposed to tell something like this to Luna? He would immediately be considered a threat to society and locked away.

He couldn't talk about it with anyone who cared about him, and self-reflection was getting him nowhere. Earlier, back on Earth, he had thought a few times about how he had become who he was, but he found nothing unusual about his life. There had been no childhood mental trauma, no abuse, and he had grown up in a wholesome family. He didn't remember any specific situations that had affected him greatly.

There were only two interesting things he could identify.

When he went to school, to his surprise and dismay, he noticed that he stood out from the other children. It was all about the expression of emotions.

What would a seven year old do when he was told some great news? Smile, laugh and run around like a madman in a fit of ecstasy.

If the news is bad or sad, the child will cry, seek support and all that.

This was not about young Alexei at all.

He felt joy and felt sadness, but it never poured out in such a stormy stream, as it naturally turned out in other children. He did not remember a single occasion when he had sincerely jumped for joy. All the good things, even the very good things that happened to him at school, at most brought a smile, and even then a feigned one.

He spent most of his early childhood either reading books, wandering the woods, or fishing. He wasn't some outcast, and there were plenty of peers in his neighborhood. He just liked it better that way. When he went to the first grade, he realized to his shock that he didn't even know how to smile properly. He could only smile with his lips, which caused confusion among his classmates.

Maybe he was still young and naive, but Alexei quickly realized that if he didn't think of something, he would become an object of mockery and bullying.

So he began to observe other children and copy their behavior. He didn't try to imitate anyone in particular - he had enough sense to realize that would be too suspicious. He picked out a few patterns of behavior that seemed acceptable to him, mixed it up, created his own role, and started playing it out. When he had free time, he was constantly running through different social interactions in his head and thinking about how he would play out this or that situation.

This habit, by the way, stayed with him for the rest of his life. Only now, instead of social interactions, he was running through the worst possible outcomes in his mind and thinking about what he could do about it.

Of course, he didn't limit himself to thinking alone - he also used to practise in front of the mirror and make adjustments.

Alexei had learned to play his role in about six months and had more or less managed to fit into the team without arousing anyone's questions or suspicions. He seemed to be just a shy boy who needed time to open up.

At first, having to watch his behavior and express the right reactions caused him constant stress, but after a couple of years he got so used to it that it became a natural part of himself. If earlier, during a conversation, he had a thought in his head like "okay, now I have to show sadness and express sympathy", soon he was showing everything he wanted the other person to see on automatic.

Then, he was very worried about it and felt that he was strange, a freak, but then he was glad for this school experience. He was good at observing, reading emotions and imitating anything. That would come in handy for him many times in the future.

He fit in quite well and managed to maintain good relationships with both honors students and bullies.

A couple of years later, there was one incident that Alexei did not consider particularly significant, but it was a little interesting.

There was a newcomer in their class who decided to make a name for himself and move up the hierarchy, choosing Alexei as the object of bullying. The choice was quite understandable: a rather quiet and calm boy with good grades and on a good account with teachers, and also a chess player, who went to competitions from the school a couple of times. Alexei had been playing chess since he was five years old and by that time had already managed to take first place in the town and reach the first junior category. In general, he was a total nerd and a perfect target.

The first time he faced bullying, Alexei was confused. What was he supposed to do?

One adult - his grandmother, once advised him that in such cases you should just ignore, and the bully will get bored. Oh, how naive he'd been then to believe that nonsense.

After a couple months of jokes and ridicule, he finally had a serious conflict with the bully. As usual, it was over a woman.

They both wanted to give the same girl a gift for March eighth. The conflict began with a verbal scuffle, but at some point Alexei received a kick - the sole of a shoe in the face. It was spring outside, there was slush all around, and many people ignored the need to wear a change of shoes. All that mud was now on his face.

After that, something clicked in Alexei's head.

In the classroom, besides the two of them, there were only girls then who couldn't break up the fight, so they rushed after the teacher.

When the teacher came running in, she saw a very interesting picture: Alexei was banging the unconscious boy's head against the corner of the desk.

Clumsily, it had to be said, but it was much harder than he had thought. The unconscious person resembled a sack of potatoes: just as heavy and difficult to move.

Alexei still remembered what he was thinking at that moment. Had he wanted to kill him? Oh, no. He just wanted the guy to cease to exist.

The guy was taken away in an ambulance - Alexei may have been clumsy, but he was very persistent. He was sent home, and the weekend followed, so he didn't get back to school until Monday. Entering the classroom, Alexei faced what he had seen only in movies: his classmates were silent at his appearance, and then he heard whispering behind his back for a long time.

No one touched him again until the end of school, and Alexei stopped believing his grandmother's life advice. It had been a wonderful time.

That girl he was in love with had also managed to distinguish herself by breaking her abuser's head with her heel. Maybe he fell in love with her because he sensed his soul mate. And they say opposites attract.

Too bad she turned out to be a drug addict and a slut in high school.

He wasn't without sin, though. In his "brilliant" plan to get close to this girl, he ended up sleeping with three of her friends. You could say they're even.

Now her image will be with him forever in a mental spell. Life really is a funny thing.

The second significant incident happened to him when he was about eight years old.

His aunt, his grandmother's sister, who was remarkable for her wild religious fanaticism, often came to visit them in town. She was an Old Believer, who even television and fiction books were considered the devil's tricks.

Naturally, little Alexei was not allowed to quietly watch cartoons and read fiction, and his grandmother only gave in to her sister.

In the end, looking for information to fight with his aunt, he read the Old and New Testament in a volley. The funny thing is that most of the believers he met in his life couldn't even get through the Bible, which is a short extract of these two books.

After reading these books he disliked God very much - young Alexei found him an extremely unpleasant person.

At the same time, although he found some inconsistencies, he continued to believe that God existed, because all the adults around him believed in it.

But he didn't like God so much that Alexei decided for himself that even if he eventually went to hell, he wouldn't follow all these commandments and obey this being.

One must take into account that he had a very vivid imagination and a read Old Testament behind him. He visualized in great detail the scenes of being dismembered and fried on a griddle in hell. And still he decided to rebel.

Later Alexei will remember it with a smile, but it was a rather serious decision for an eight-year-old boy.

His aunt died four years later of a stroke, much to Alexei's delight.

"Rest in peace," Alexei grinned, opening his eyes. "I've really been taken somewhere... Is it because of that illusion?"

Many times on Earth he had wondered about his life, but this was the first time since arriving on Equus. That's what happens when you let your mind wander.

It was time to move out.

He wished he could stay here and just work on the nightmare, but first he needed to find out the general situation in the Crystal Empire. The strangest thing was that he still hadn't heard any sounds of battle — there was dead silence all around.

Besides, he was quite capable of moving and refining the nightmare at the same time.

Rising, he pulled a drape from his bag, the one the changelings had stolen from Canterlot, and wrapped himself in it, creating a sort of short toga. Not that he cared much about nakedness, but the thought of walking around the Crystal Empire naked made him feel a little uncomfortable - after all, he'd lived most of his life in human society. Given the psychological pressure he was already under, he decided not to resist and dressed up after all.

His imagination gave him a new picture of him chasing the local monsters with a boner.

"It wasn't me who got locked up with you - it was you who got locked up with me," Alexei quoted, laughing at the scenes swirling in his head.

But after a second his face turned serious - the time for rest and relaxation was over.

Clutching the spearhead from Canterlot in his hand, Alexei headed for the miasma wall.

The space rippled, as if swept by invisible waves. The air shuddered, forming bizarre patterns like the surface of water in a breeze.

And the next second, six ponies fell to the sidewalk with a thud. They looked dazed and disoriented, as if they had been torn from their familiar world and thrown into a completely alien dimension. With a groan, they tried to get up, but immediately collapsed to the ground, losing their balance. Their legs shook, like newborn foals who didn't know how to use their limbs.

Only one of them, Twilight, managed to rise to her trembling feet. Accustomed to teleportation, she recovered faster than the others and managed to pull herself together. Her violet eyes blinked, then narrowed in determination. Twilight looked around at the other ponies scattered on the sidewalk and made her way over to Pinkie Pie lying nearby.

"Why did you do that?" Twilight asked, eyeing the pink pony suspiciously.

She didn't remember Pinkie having an artifact with such abilities, but she clearly felt that she was the one who had done it. The situation was really getting out of control, but it would be safer to stay close to the princesses right now. So why had Pinkie separated them? Was she under Sombra's control?

"Because the next second we'd be dead," Pinkie smiled sadly and immediately coughed, staining the sidewalk with red spray.

Twilight froze, staring dumbly at the blood, trying to realize what she had heard. Pinkie really did have powerful intuition bordering on foresight, and it didn't seem like she was under Sombra's control... Death? Did they really almost die?

Twilight was brought out of her trance by a flash of soft light green color, as if it carried a spring and warmth behind it. Fluttershy flapped her wings, and streams of green wind played around Pinkie Pie, healing her inner wounds. Pinkie shuddered, then took a deep breath and opened her eyes to look at her friend.

"Thank you," she replied in a husky voice, receiving a soft nod from Fluttershy.

Twilight followed Fluttershy's gaze and looked at her rising friends. They had no physical injuries, but their psychological state... They looked like they were about to have a panic attack. Applejack clutched frantically at her favorite hat, Rarity wrapped her hooves around herself, trembling, and Rainbow Dash fluttered her wings nervously as if she couldn't find her place. Even Pinkie Pie, always cheerful and energetic, looked exhausted and lost.

The Elements of Harmony, even when sealed, still protected them from corruption, but it had nothing to do with their condition. Sombra had truly exceeded their expectations, leaving them in a state of extreme vulnerability and fear.

Twilight's brain began to work quickly, pondering her next actions. Panicking in this situation was even worse than facing Sombra. Though perhaps that wasn't quite the right comparison. Her thoughts were once again interrupted by a flash of green light.

Fluttershy stood on her hind hooves and took a few steps as if spinning in some ancient dance. Her wings flapped open abruptly, and a gentle green breeze blew across the street. Twilight immediately felt all fear and panic evaporate, the same feeling everyone else felt as peace and tranquility filled their souls.

"She really is something," Twilight thought to herself, throwing the pegasus a grateful smile. "I'd forgotten she could do that."

Fluttershy, like all other pegasi, possessed a wind attribute specializing in speed. But whether it was because of the influence of her profession as a veterinarian, or her gentle nature wanting to heal rather than harm, or a combination of both, Fluttershy went much further than the average pegasus. She used the attribute of wind and, with it, mimicked the spells of unicorns. All high-ranking mages were capable of such a trick, but Fluttershy wasn't even twenty yet.

"You have the space attribute?" Twilight asked, helping the pink pony up. "You never mentioned it."

Periodically, beings with advanced attributes were born. Sometimes there were even those with multiple attributes, like that griffin that now united the principalities. But the space attribute? That was exceptionally rare, with a one in a billion chance.

"Well, something like that," Pinkie replied evasively, tidying herself up. "A mare can have secrets, right?"

Twilight couldn't argue with that, nor did she want to - she was on edge right now. Having lost her Magic mark, she realized to her terror that she couldn't use most of her spells. She used to rely too much on her mark and the intuition it provided. Telekinesis and shields were still available to her, as were most low-level spells, but that was it. She could barely show a third of her former power now. At least she could cast night vision on everyone.

But she couldn't afford self-deprecation. The problem in the form of Sombra had to be dealt with. Only how? The Elements of Harmony were blocked. They'd tried several times already, but those vines hadn't reacted at all, as if they were indestructible.

It took a little more time for the friends to come to their senses, and then a heated debate began. The topic was the age-old question of what to do and how to do it.

Fluttershy, somewhat familiar with alchemy, suggested an idea, and Twilight, despite the craziness of the idea, had to agree. They needed the sap of the tree that sealed the Elements of Harmony. There were several possible outcomes, both good and bad, and yes it was all purely in theory, but they had no other options. What could they do? Rush to the princesses' aid? They would only hinder them from fighting. Without the power of the Elements of Harmony, Sombra would wipe them out.

Twilight assumed that the source of that image behind Sombra's back was an actual tree somewhere around here, but Pinkie confirmed that she had indeed sensed something and even pointed out the approximate direction. The existence of that tree was looking more and more like the real thing. There was also the question of whether they would even be able to approach this tree? It was most likely the source of all this corruption, and the defense of the weakened Elements of Harmony might not be enough. They could only come and find out on the spot.

Pinkie, acting on pure instinct, had tried to take them away from the Crystal Empire, but it seemed they had just moved somewhere closer to the outskirts.

All they had to do was reorganize and head through the deserted streets of the Crystal Empire in the direction Pinkie had indicated. There was dead silence all around, and the lack of any activity only stressed them more.

Suddenly, they heard the quiet crying of a foal, accompanied by wails: "Save me... save me," coming from the neighboring house.

Rarity rushed towards the house, but immediately froze when Twilight grabbed her with telekinesis. Rarity was about to be outraged, but froze under Twilight's serious gaze. Making sure none of her friends were trying to do something stupid, Twilight signaled for them to get ready and stepped forward.

"Who's there?" she asked, keeping the energy in her horn up and ready to fight.

"You... you... can... help me?" a young voice slowly came from behind the door. "She left... Before... before that black fog appeared... I don't know where she is..."

"Who's left?" Twilight asked, keeping her guard up. "Your mom?"

Was there anyone here capable of resisting the effects of corruption?

"Yes... mom..." came quietly from behind the door. "Her name is... Ruby Heart. Will you help... find her? There's a drawing... come in and take a look..."

"What does she look like, little one?" Twilight asked cautiously, running over in her head the possibilities of what happened here.

"She's... beautiful..." came from behind the door. "She has... two eyes... two ears, one mouth and nose... You'll find her... won't you?"

As soon as the words came to Twilight's ears, she felt her fur stand up. Who would even say such a thing? Whatever it was - it sure as hell wasn't a pony!

She almost screamed when a hoof rested on her withers. Twitching, she saw Pinkie looking at the door with a serious look.

"Of course we'll find her," Pinkie said in a gentle voice, signaling to everyone. "We'll find her and bring her here. Just wait a little while."

A contented muttering sounded from behind the door, and all the ponies crept back, keeping their eyes on the house.

Only when they had moved a few hundred meters away did they exhale with relief - no one was chasing them.

"What the fuck was that?" Dash asked in a whisper, still looking back nervously. "What if we'd entered the house?"

Pinkie could only shake her head - they were overestimating her intuition. Yes, she could see some scenes of the near future, but it was all spontaneous and sketchy. Also, the future wasn't static in any way, so often she saw things that just might happen.

"Nothing," Pinkie replied, pulling a water-bottle out of the artifact. "After we came in - there was nothing."

Glancing at Pinkie gulping greedily, Twilight decided that everyone could use a short break. Running away from that strange creature, they had already come to the miasma walls, and it would be a good idea to rest and recover before going in.

Everyone else seconded the idea and reached into their spatial artifacts, pulling out water and recovery potions.

"Pinkie, do you think..." Twilight started, about to ask if she knew how far away that tree was, but stammered when she saw the look on her face.

Pinkie was staring at the wall of miasma, her face crinkling as if she was struggling to see something.

Twilight shifted her gaze, but didn't see anything there. She was just about to ask Pinkie what was going on when the miasmas dispersed and a bipedal figure emerged, covered head to toe in blood.

Twilight immediately recognized the creature that came out - the infamous man.

The man's right side was torn and you could even see his ribs, his left hand was missing several fingers, and all of his limbs were missing fingernails.

In his right hand he had some sort of split spearhead, and in his left hand he had a bone covered in scarlet runes.

His face, as usual, expressed almost nothing, but those who knew him well would say he was pleased about something, as if he had just won the jackpot.

Alexei noticed the resting mares, and squinted his eyes at them and took a quick look. Their weakened condition, the dim fate marks wrapped in some vines, and the bunch of artifacts on them did not escape him.

"What a surprise," Alexei smiled warmly as he greeted the mares who jumped up. "It's been a long time."

Author's Note

NOOOOOOOO!!! 😭😭😭 YOU MUST HAVE A DARK AND TRAGIC BACKSTORY

Haha, happy man goes brrr.

Alexei:

Fluttershy:

Pinkie Pie (just tired, you know):

Chapter 25 - Negotiations

"Don't move," Twilight roared, lighting her horn. "Or you'll regret it."

"Do you even know who's in the miasma behind me?" Alexei asked calmly, defiantly showing his torn side. "You want them to run to the noise? Sure you can handle the aftermath? Have you thought about your friends?"

Ignoring the warning, the man slowly wandered along the edge of the miasma. He wanted to stand so that there was a building hidden in the miasmas behind him. Besides the unicorn wunderkind, there was still an extremely fast pegasus here, but even she wouldn't be able to instantly turn one hundred and eighty degrees.

His words about noise were more of a half-truth - the miasmas provided a high level of soundproofing and absorbed energy fluctuations, but it was unlikely that anyone would risk finding out what the noise level was. Everything else, of course, was utter nonsense. There was nothing dangerous in the section behind him - just a peaceful orgy.

As it turned out, only fear was evenly distributed everywhere, fueling the other desires. Hunger and lust only intersected on the outskirts, and all the sections where he saw ponies were dedicated to one thing or another. He also noticed that where hunger reigned and ponies devoured each other, there were many old and disabled among them.

All of this pointed to an artificially created environment. Someone or something was raising these ponies like cattle for slaughter. All of this still needed to be confirmed though - he'd been walking for less than an hour and had only managed to see a few sections.

Though he did manage to run into a mutated Evil Spirit, a more powerful version of ghosts. When he spotted a building with a book on the sign, Alexei looked inside, but who knew he was already expected there? The spirit was young and somewhat weakened, but even so, it nearly gutted Alexei. All the books he'd found crumbled to ashes with a single touch, so he left with nothing. At least his nightmare was satisfied - Evil Spirits were a delicacy.

Twilight clenched her teeth and braced herself for further trouble, but didn't attack mindlessly. The rest of the ponies, meanwhile, had gathered in a battle formation with Applejack in the lead. Dash, pulling out a spear from her spatial artifact, hovered at the side and watched the man's every move carefully. However, she was smart enough not to make any hasty decisions.

Alexei mentally grinned, seeing that Twilight was acting within his expectations - the initiative in the conversation was now in his hands.

"There's no need to be so tense," the halting man smiled disarmingly. "I have no intention of attacking you. What do you think I am? Some kind of bloodthirsty monster? You were the ones who hurt me earlier, but I hold no grudge against you."

He really didn't hold a grudge and he didn't care about their motives at all.

People had a habit of believing in their self-righteousness. That is, to constantly believe that everything they did was right. They were encased in a bubble of their own reasons, experiences, and morals about what was right and wrong, forgetting that even their own mind, which they thought was their own, was merely an accumulation of environmental factors they had absorbed from birth until now. Every person, whether king or peasant, had fallen victim to it.

Twilight had some chance of getting out of that bubble - she was still quite young. The worst part was dealing with old people. They were so clinging to their familiar world that they were ready to ignore reality, because if they admit that they were wrong, it turns out that they had been living their whole life in the wrong way.

What's the right way to live your life? They were all just crazy.

Twilight glanced at Applejack, and to her surprise, she nodded uncertainly-all of what Alexei had said was true. She would have rather believed that the man had somehow managed to trick Applejack's ability, but that was highly unlikely.

Alexei, though contemplating at this point how he could kill them all, really wasn't going to attack. It was just... stuff happens in life, so it couldn't hurt to be prepared.

He could sense that Twilight was somewhere around rank two or three, the pink pony had no core, and everyone else was rank one. Alexei didn't have a core either, so technically his power didn't even reach rank one. However, blood magic was very powerful, and he was perfectly capable of breaking through the weakened Twilight's defenses at a price.

Even though all the mares were weakened, they had artifacts that compensated for it somewhat. Alexei wasn't too worried about the artifacts though - they couldn't be overly powerful and were the same rank as the ponies wielding them. Giving a weak creature some powerful high-ranked artifact was like giving an infant a two-handed sword: they simply couldn't handle the artifact and would hurt themselves and others. Sure, Celestia had clearly spared no expense and given them the best stuff, but it still had to be within their rank.

Fighting one Twilight or a couple other mares was already quite a challenge, and there were six of them here. If he fought fair, he didn't stand a chance against them. It was a good thing he wasn't going to engage in such foolishness. He felt fine inside the miasma, so he could have a guerrilla war or lure some creatures here.

As for the number of them... It wasn't such a big problem, because Alexei knew the main weakness of such teams was themselves. Each of them fulfilled a certain role and they relied too much on each other. Once he destroyed their formation or killed someone, they would start interfering with each other. Not to mention, if he took a hostage, the battle would be over immediately.

"Don't try to twist the facts," Twilight said in a cold tone. "You got what you deserved that day."

"And do you know the facts or are you just repeating what Celestia told you?" replied Alexei with a sad smile. "I wonder what horror stories she told you about the master of these lands?"

"He's not the master here!" blurted out an infuriated Twilight. "Sombra is a usurper, a tyrant, and the worst of all ponies. After what you've seen, are you going to argue with it?"

"So Sombra after all," Alexei nodded mentally, mulling over the new information. "How old is he then? How interesting..."

Twilight's words about a usurper and tyrant passed his ears. This sort of thing happened all the time on Earth. There was a country that was very fond of sponsoring coups, and then when their protégé got out of control, they would label him a terrible tyrant and drop a bomb on his head. The best way to understand the reason for the coup was to look at the list of natural resources.

"I don't know about Sombra..." Alexei mused thoughtfully, as if remembering something. "But that black tree really bothers me."

"Have you seen it?" a concerned Twilight immediately perked up. "Where?"

They only knew roughly what direction it was in, so she wouldn't mind getting the information from someone who had seen everything with their own eyes.

"A glimpse of something like that," Alexei replied with a smirk, getting another dose of information. "But why would I tell it to someone who considers me her enemy?"

Alexei had indeed seen the tree in question. And more than once. All the ponies he'd met had the same mark of fate: the black tree. He already had some suspicions, but now Twilight had confirmed them - the whole thing was clearly some kind of sacrificial ritual. The Elements of Harmony and the fate marks wrapped in some sort of vine suggested definite thoughts about the nature of the black tree, but Sombra's motives were still a mystery.

Twilight bit her lip, analyzing the situation, and cast the man a thoughtful look. Perhaps they could cooperate? He didn't seem to be afraid of corruption, and Twilight still wasn't sure if the sealed Elements of Harmony could protect them if they walked right up to the tree. There was no way to find out without trying it, and if they failed, the consequences would be irreversible. She didn't want to risk the safety of others and was going to go to the tree alone, but now she had an alternative option.

Was cooperation possible or was she just wishful thinking?

Before, she would never have even considered working together with a murderer, but now she was far more pragmatic. If it would keep them out of danger - she was willing to work with this man. Alexei killed to achieve his desire, and her desire not to kill had gotten a lot of ponies killed during the changeling invasion. Yes, their reasons were different, and there were many nuances, but the bottom line was the same - ponies died because of their desires. Were they really that different?

As she pondered whether or not to take that option seriously, her gaze unconsciously stopped on the bulge hidden behind his loincloth - the toga had not survived the encounter with the Evil Spirit. Thankfully, it was much warmer inside the Crystal Empire than outside, so the loincloth suited the man just fine.

"Don't get any ideas," Alexei laughed, noticing her look. "It's just the local weather doing that to me."

Twilight, snapped out of her musings, raised her gaze and looked earnestly into the man's eyes, searching for answers to her questions.

Once the Elements of Harmony were sealed, even if only slightly, they began to feel the emotions instilled by the miasmas. The man in front of her had no defense at all, and was apparently not immune to the influence. Yet, here he was, standing relaxedly in front of her and making jokes.

"Either he has such self-control, or there's something very wrong with him," Twilight concluded, averting her gaze. "In his case, both at once."

Twilight believed in the princesses' power and knew that they had many trump cards, so even with all that power, Sombra wouldn't be able to kill them so easily. Defeat them? Quite possibly, but killing or capturing them was another matter entirely. Any creature of that level had plenty of tricks to escape or survive. One's own safety was basic and the first thing any mage thought about.

However, they still had to hurry and help the princesses.

Taking a deep breath, Twilight made a decision - she would cooperate with Alexei. There were just a few things left to check out and convince him to help them.

"Finished brainstorming?" Alexei asked, seeing that Twilight had finally come to something.

"Say something that is definitely a lie," Twilight asked, not trying to hide her intentions.

"I want to kill you," Alexei stated completely calmly. "I'm still angry for what you did to me. I will attack as soon as you let your guard down. I want to take your artifacts. Your fur is green."

"Everything he said is a lie," Applejack reported with a perplexed blink, somewhat surprised at his choice of phrasing.

"Okay, now all that's left is to convince him to help us," Twilight mentally chuckled, satisfied with the check. "Perhaps convincing Sombra to surrender will be easier than this..."

If she understood the man's personality correctly, the best option would be to say everything straight out. If she started pussyfooting around or playing psychological games - he'd figure it out right away, and she'd only cause him irritation.

"Alexei, I suggest... cooperating," Twilight said, exhaling. "We're all in a dangerous situation. I know that you..."

"I agree," Alexei interrupted her with a nod. "Let's cooperate."

"...What?" Twilight stammered. "Why did he accept so quickly?"

Glancing up at the man's face, she saw the slightly raised corners of his lips and a teasing look - he was definitely enjoying her embarrassment.

Shifting her gaze, Twilight saw an equally dumbfounded look on the earth pony's face, and then Applejack nodded - the man was telling the truth.

Alexei watched Twilight and smiled inwardly - strengths could sometimes become weaknesses.

Yes, Twilight could be quite smart, but the smarter she was, the more she thought and the more she thought, the more she found Alexei unpredictable and difficult to understand.

Smart people were suspicious and the more oddities he showed, the more mysteries he had around him, the more suspicious it made Twilight. She would make more and more theories and assumptions and would not act rashly until she was certain.

She was clearly expecting some sort of trick in their cooperation, but it wasn't really there - Alexei was genuinely going to help them.

If Sombra needed help, he would help him too. That was the kind man he was.

The catch was that he wanted to prolong this conflict as much as possible, so naturally he would help the losing side, which right now was Team Harmony.

"Are you crazy?" hissed Rarity, casting a stunned look at Twilight. "You want us to work with him?"

"I'm against it too," Dash retorted, not even trying to lower her voice. "I don't understand why we're still talking to him instead of chaining him up."

Pinkie Pie and Applejack remained neutral, but Fluttershy made a move.

"That's right," Rarity nodded, agreeing with the pegasus' words. "As soon as he... Fluttershy?!"

While everyone was busy contemplating Twilight's bold idea, Fluttershy stepped forward and came dangerously close to the man.

Rarity's horn blared and Dash tensed up, about to rush forward, but both were stopped by Twilight.

"Stay out of this," Twilight commanded, ignoring her friends' stares. "She knows what she's doing."

At least Twilight hoped so.

She didn't understand what Fluttershy was going to do, but she had faith in her sanity. The pegasus had a good defense artifact that reacted to danger on its own, so she should be fine. If anything happened, Twilight would intervene personally.

"Put the weapon away, please," Fluttershy asked, stopping a few meters away from Alexei.

Looking thoughtfully around the pegasus, the man's gaze slid over the faces of the other ponies, but they seemed to be even more puzzled than he was. The range of emotions, from confusion to obvious anxiety, that they displayed would have been hard to fake with their acting skills.

Giving the pegasus a warm smile, Alexei slowly tucked the spearhead and bone into his bag and moved it behind his back. If his nightmare could feed off the shock as well, he'd have a ton of energy right now.

"Is she going to tame him?" whispered Dash, keeping her eyes on the scene unfolding before her. "Is that possible?"

If Twilight hadn't been so focused, she would have rolled her eyes - was he some kind of bear?

Putting his weapon away, the man looked at the pegasus expectantly - would she really dare to approach?

"I'll come over," Fluttershy warned him, and, receiving a consenting nod, slowly began to approach.

"She's acting with me like I'm a wild animal," Alexei laughed mentally, watching her every move carefully. "A vet indeed."

He didn't feel threatened by this pegasus and she didn't even have a weapon. Besides, unlike everyone else here, he followed the path of developing mental energy, which was the embodiment of thoughts and emotions. His reaction and thinking speed was somewhat faster than those ponies. If she decided to do something stupid - he would snap her neck before she finished her attack.

As he got closer, Fluttershy had to raise her head - her head barely reaching the man's chest - to look him in the eye. Apparently satisfied that he wasn't going to attack her, Fluttershy shifted her gaze to the wounds on his body.

Alexei glanced at the other ponies, who knew when they'd lose their nerve and start firing lasers in all directions?

"Can you lift your right... limb?" Fluttershy asked with a slight stutter in terminology.

Alexei did as he was asked and raised his right arm, showing off his torn side. He had excellent regeneration, so the blood had stopped long ago and the wound was slowly healing, but you could still see the ribs through the four deep cuts.

Fluttershy's face twitched, but not with disgust - her eyes were filled with.... compassion?

"May I...?" Fluttershy asked cautiously, lifting a hoof.

Gaining permission, her hoof gently flashed with magical energy, removing dirt and dust, and she carefully touched Alexei's side. Feeling the ribs, watching the man's reaction, she made sure there were no fractures.

"I'll use a healing spell," Fluttershy warned him, taking a step back. "This is going to hurt."

"Not only kind, but honest, eh?" the man hummed, gesturing for her to continue.

With a few flaps of her wings, Fluttershy slowly swept her wing through the air, as if stroking something invisible, and a stream of light green wind flew towards the man. Alexei, who had been watching the pegasus the whole time, didn't try to dodge and let the spell hit him.

The man cringed slightly as the scar tissue burst and new flesh began to grow rapidly inside the wound. Not that it hurt that much, it was just all very itchy and scratchy.

Half a minute later, the entire wound had already healed and the last traces were disappearing. He even felt an itch in his left hand as the fingers lost in the battle began to recover a little faster. Either Fluttershy didn't want to fully heal him, or she was conserving her strength, or perhaps her spells just lacked power. Well, it didn't matter - his passive regeneration alone was enough to make them grow back in a few days. He still had some healing potions left, but he was saving them for emergencies.

"Thank you," Alexei nodded to the pegasus, groping his side.

He wasn't grateful to her - he hadn't asked for help, and it was her own desire. Still, he respected her a little.

Fluttershy said nothing and, after making sure everything was all right, turned around and walked silently away.

"Why did you do that?" he asked the pegasus, making her stop.

"Because I want to," Fluttershy replied after a moment and continued walking.

"What an interesting pony," Alexei mentally hummed, seeing her off with a glance. "Just a breath of fresh air."

Apparently, Fluttershy had a peculiar concept of good and evil. She was willing to help anyone, regardless of whether they were evil or good. Alexei wondered if she would help Sombra, or was she angry because he had ruined the local ecology? She clearly realized that Alexei wouldn't stop and would continue to bloodshed, but she healed him anyway.

There were no such concepts as good and evil in nature, so Alexei guessed where she got that from. Being a veterinarian and local woodsman, she had obviously treated predators that had managed to devour her previous patients. Her ability to talk to animals added even more drama to the story. What was it like to treat a wolf that had eaten some beaver you'd discussed life with the day before?

Perhaps she preferred to take a neutral stance of non-intervention and followed her desire to eradicate suffering wherever she could. Who knows.

He also suspected that she also did it to end arguments and set the stage for cooperation. At the very least, that was part of her motive.

"Can we get to the point already?" Alexei asked as he watched Elements greet Fluttershy like a hero returning from a battle with a dragon. "Saving the princesses and all that. Remember?"

Twilight glanced at Rainbow Dash, and the latter nodded, taking a deep breath. Her childhood friend had gone this far in trusting the man, and Dash couldn't refuse to work with him anymore. It looked like Fluttershy's little gambit had succeeded. Rarity, left outnumbered, quickly gave up as well.

Twilight cautiously approached the man, leaving some safe distance between them. Alexei just smiled and sat down on the sidewalk comfortably - it was time to negotiate.

Twilight didn't beat around the bush and laid it all out directly. There was no point in hiding anything from Alexei - he'd already seen everything, and if he wanted to hurt them, all he had to do was draw Sombra's attention to that section. Given his unrestrained nature, she was sure he was capable of such madness as well. Besides, his knowledge of alchemy was far superior, and she wanted to hear his opinion.

"That could work quite well," Alexei nodded, mulling over Twilight's idea. "You don't happen to have any acid, do you?"

"No, but I know a couple spells with that effect," Twilight replied, looking at him perplexed. "Why do you need acid?"

"You can mix it with the ashes of that tree," Alexei replied, running through the available ingredients and methods in his head. "If you first weaken the vines with poison, which, to your luck, I have, should work quite effectively."

"It's not just the Elements of Harmony. Our marks are sealed as well," Twilight reminded him with a blink. "And they're kind of on us."

"So?" Alexei shrugged, pointing at Fluttershy. "You have a healer, don't you?"

The marks themselves were simply an outward reflection of their talent. Some connection was still there, but it could be neglected. Even if the marks were damaged in the process, they would not lose their talents. Once healed, everything should have been fine. If he were in their place, he would first try to cut those vines wrapping around their marks. Though he doubted it would be that easy.

"If you can get a twig or two, take it, but we'll stop with the sap option for now," Twilight gently declined the offer, not wanting to shower her friends with acid and poison. "Do you remember the way? I'll give you a special compass. I'll also..."

"Wait, slow down," Alexei laughed, stopping a disengaged Twilight. "Let's talk about my compensation first."

"What compensation?" Twilight blinked perplexed. "You're in the same position as us. Do you think Sombra would spare an intruder like you? He could come here any minute!"

"And I can leave at any time," Alexei replied with a condescending smile. "And you? Will your weakened Elements of Harmony protect you from the traps on the border of the Crystal Empire?"

Twilight turned around and looked at Applejack, who was listening intently to the conversation, and again received an affirmative nod. Thinking for a moment, Twilight remembered that the Elements of Harmony had begun to shimmer as they entered the miasma. Turns out there were some traps in there.

None of them, including the man, knew that they were just natural "barriers" so that some frisky crystal ponies wouldn't wander too far, but would gather in the center. Well, they could also be considered traps as well.

"You think if you run away, you'll be able to stay out?" Twilight wasn't about to give up. "If we lose, you lose too. Sombra is up to something extremely massive, and he needs to be stopped."

"Sounds serious," Alexei replied mockingly, glaring at Twilight. "I hope you do something about it and save everyone."

Twilight's eye twitched slightly and she felt a headache coming on.

"Two artifacts of your choice," Twilight said after some thought, sighing heavily. "That is the limit of my generosity. And I'll tell my mentor about your contribution. Perhaps she'll..."

"Say, do I look like an idiot?" Alexei asked coldly, listening to her 'generous offer' with a bored look.

These artifacts are from Celestia's treasury, of course. They must have protective mechanisms attached to them, obeying only the will of their owner. This is standard practice for any artifacts, otherwise they could be used against you in battle. Judging by the fact that Twilight was offering them as payment, there was the possibility of temporarily handing control over to someone else. That makes sense too - anything could happen in battle, and one of them might have to use someone else's artifact.

Given the miasmas blocking the energy waves, he could safely use their artifacts for a while. But later they would either rebel against him or bring Celestia to him. Even more importantly: he had no chance of detecting or getting rid of the defenses left behind by the alicorn. So what was the point of all this trinkets?

Twilight's ears drooped slightly as her scheme was revealed. She had been willing to offer him the artifacts as a reward from the start, and all this grumbling about compensation was just a distraction. She hoped to provoke his greed and was willing to give up even all of the items, because they would still come back to them later. Otherwise, she would never give him such potentially dangerous items. Too bad, it didn't work.

"What do you want?" Twilight finally asked, ignoring the last question.

"I don't know what you have," Alexei shrugged and pointed to the amulet around her neck. "Let me see it."

"Out of the question," Twilight retorted, not wanting him to go through her things. "Just tell me what you need. Money? Ingredients? Knowledge? Do you realize this situation is getting more dangerous by the second? Do you really think you're going to get away with this?"

"I fully share your concern," Alexei nodded and wiggled his fingers expectantly. "I don't understand why you're stalling. What would Celestia say if she found out her apprentice was bargaining while innocent lives were at risk?"

Twilight looked stunned at Alexei and opened her mouth several times, wanting to say something, but each time she couldn't find the right words - today had truly opened new horizons of brazenness and shamelessness for her.

Twilight glared at Alexei, but he just sat there relaxed, as if he were on vacation. Once the situation calmed down a bit, he immediately continued working on his nightmare. He really wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere and could sit with them all day long.

Finally, with a heartbreaking sigh, Twilight took the amulet off her neck and telekinesis handed it to Alexei.

"By the way, I want compensation for moral damage," Alexei added, channeling mental energy inside the artifact and examining its contents.

Some of the potion ingredients in his bag had already been made unusable by the corruption. All because his bag only had an expanded space. These artifacts used by the Elements were a complete isolated space, and the things inside were not affected by any corruption. He wanted an artifact like this for himself, but he didn't have the money or the ability to steal something so valuable.

"What moral damage?!" growled Twilight, fighting the urge to snatch the artifact from his hands.

"I thought we were battle partners now, and you tried to trick me," Alexei replied nonchalantly, quickly looking through the books inside. "I'm sad, and my mood is ruined. You should compensate me for that."

"I have to compensate him for his bad mood?" Twilight thought stunned, feeling rage building up.

Alexei's eyes glittered as he pulled out a decrepit black book with a cracked cover covered in stains from the amulet.

A dark magic book!

Twilight's face went pale when she saw the book - which was exactly why she didn't want to give him the amulet. It didn't have any attack spells in it, but it was still dark magic. She couldn't even take the amulet from one of her friends - the man would immediately suspect she was hiding something valuable, and it would end the same way. She could only hope that he wouldn't notice the book, but that hope died as well.

"This, this and this," said a smiling Alexei, pulling out two more books. "And half of your potions, excluding the ones that restore magical energy."

Everything else was either supplies or artifacts, and he wasn't interested. He couldn't take all the potions from her - she still had to fight Sombra, after all, and they just wouldn't fit in his bag.

"Okay," Twilight sighed tiredly. "You'll get them when you bring the tree sap and we break the seals."

"Nope, I'll get them now," Alexei replied, tucking the books into his bag. "This is my moral compensation. And I'll take your amulet with me. Also, I need some weapons and..."

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Twilight burst out, her horn blazing with energy. "You want to steal from us and just run away?"

"How do I know you won't do something to the potions or tamper with the contents of the books?" replied Alexei calmly, not reacting in any way to her outburst. "You've tried to trick me before."

Twilight didn't seem impressed with that explanation, and she was about to launch into another tirade, but Alexei wouldn't let her.

"If I were to rush into the miasmas now, would you be able to stop me?" Alexei asked in an even voice, making Twilight tense up. "I could have done it when you gave me the amulet, but I didn't. It's a fair trade, and I also don't want Sombra to win, so it makes no sense for me to harm you. As for the artifacts... we both know I can't do it. I'm the one taking the risk by trusting you."

With a glance at Applejack, Twilight received confirmation that he was telling the truth and calmed down slightly as she pondered his words.

After a couple minutes of thinking, she sighed and raised her eyes to Alexei.

After meeting him, she sighed a little too often.

With a wet slap, the halved pony collapsed to the ground. Blood spurted from the severed body, splashing scarlet drops onto the stone sidewalk. The insides fell out, creating a gruesome picture in a red-pink-gray palette. In total darkness, Alexei's night vision allowed him to see this scene down to the smallest detail.

"This spear is fucking awesome," Alexei muttered, stroking the patterned shaft.

He had just chopped a pony in two!

It was hard to call it a spear or even a glaive, though - more like a broad, double-edged sword with a long hilt. Even for a human, this weapon was a bit large. Why it had been chosen by Dash, from whom he'd requisitioned it, was a mystery. The spear, oddly enough, was related to the wind element, so perhaps the pegasus could wield it more easily than he could. After each strike, this weapon released a razor-sharp wind blade that left a mark even on the stone sidewalk. Those who had the wind attribute could also manipulate these blades freely. Alexei was fine with it as it was.

In addition to weapons, he had two bracelets on his arms that increased his strength and two on his ankles that increased his speed. He also had a protective amulet that could create a shield around his body, and a thin silver string covered with clear dew beads that adorned his head and protected him from mind control. This "string" was the most precious thing at his disposal. Alexei was almost speechless when he recognized it as the web of a legendary, now extinct, species of spider. He knew of them because Saada wanted to use this web in her chimerization experiments to minimize the chance of insanity. Celestia was really fiddling with the money.

He'd even considered destroying the artifact and taking this web for himself, but a quick check showed that he could only dream of doing so - this thing was incredibly strong.

Picking up half of the corpse by the leg, Alexei gave it a good swing and tossed it into the crowd of drooling ponies, who immediately rushed to the meat, scuffling with each other. The other half of the pony flew in the same direction, but farther away. The bloody mess enraged them even more, and they, forgetting everything, rushed at the fresh prey, roaring and fighting as if possessed. Alexei watched this with a slight chuckle, enjoying the chaos he had created.

These ponies, though somewhat stronger after the mutations from the corruption, were not much different physically from the same earth ponies. They had forgotten how to use magic and were quite easy opponents. When they saw how several of their kin were dealt with, they calmed down a bit and didn't try to approach Alexei anymore. This continued from section to section.

The most dangerous opponents here were the Evil Spirits, but even they, after receiving equipment from the kind ponies, didn't cause any problems.

On his way to the tree, he broke into a couple houses and literally tore several spirits to shreds. He didn't even need to cover his weapon with mental energy - this artifact cut through spirits just fine without it. His nightmare was very satisfied and was so full that it began to crack from overload. Alexei had to take some of the overload on himself.

The nightmare's condition was improving by the minute, his lost fingers had already grown back, and the tonic potions had brought Alexei to peak physical shape. In addition, whether because of the nightmare's improvement or because of the resistance he had built up, the effects of the corruption had weakened somewhat. His emotions were still unstable, but at least his boner was gone, and he no longer drooled at the sight of raw flesh.

All in all, he was in a great mood.

Even the disappointment of a dark magic book couldn't ruin it. Dark magic turned out to be crap. Whereas blood magic used magical energy and blood, flesh, or life energy as an additional component, dark magic required extreme emotion. His seven blood spells only used the caster's flesh, but this was a special case.

Not only could he not use these dark spells due to lack of magical energy, but they also required extreme emotion. Alexei considered his cold-bloodedness one of his most important qualities. Was it worth it for him to mess up his psyche by taking emotional swings to become a dark mage? Definitely not. Thanks to the nightmare, he could easily provide fear, but there was no point in that either. Each type of spell required a different emotion, and the effects of fear-based dark spells would, in most cases, have something to do with that very fear.

If he merged with the nightmare and gained the fear attribute, he could do all of this without any spells. So why would he need this dark magic then? This book was only useful as general information and as a source of inspiration. It had a lot of dark magic spells aimed at protecting the mind and soul. It was all mildly interesting, but, at the moment, completely useless.

Taking the last stripe of dried meat from his bag, Alexei moved toward the miasma wall. The meat was too tough, and for a moment he thought how much more enjoyable the meal would have been if he had boiled it in a cauldron. There were plenty of mushrooms around, which the crystal ponies fed on in addition to each other. It would be nice to boil the mushroom soup into a meat broth. Of course, he was wary of the local mushrooms and would never eat them, but could he at least dream?

In these few hours inside, he had already eaten the rest of his supplies and was still very hungry. If it weren't for the weakened effects of the corruption, he would have already started considering crystal ponies from a culinary point of view. Elements had some provisions in the form of some sort of tortillas, apparently army-style, but upon tasting them, Alexei nearly threw up. Inside was either hay or some other grassy nonsense, and he definitely couldn't digest it.

Stretching out his arms, he advanced inside the miasma by feel - night vision was completely useless here.

After about ten minutes of uncertain walking, he finally emerged into a new section.

He felt no lust or hunger here, which was definitely a very bad sign. He was already very close to the tree, and this was the central area, not the outskirts. Why was there nothing here?

Alexei looked around suspiciously, but there was nothing strange - the same sidewalk, the same ornate buildings, which were becoming more and more numerous in the center, compared to the modest houses on the outskirts. All this silence and stillness was even more suspicious.

Checking the compass Twilight had given him, he realized he was somewhere southwest of the tree. And judging by the trembling arrow, he was very close to his goal - the tree should have been in the next section by now. The compass itself pointed not to the sides of the world, but to a location marked by the user in space. These ponies had a lot of very useful things.

This compass wasn't really needed anymore, though - he knew the location of the tree before he even came here. Recently, he had noticed something interesting: from each crystal pony came a thin and almost imperceptible thread of mental energy going in a certain direction. He tried to investigate it by sending a wisp of nightmare, but it instantly evaporated. It resembled high-voltage wires, and Alexei was definitely not going to interact with it directly.

As he began to look around, he noticed to his surprise that everything around him was covered in these threads. As long as you don't try to interact with them, they pass freely through physical objects without harming them.

The only thing he could realize was that the energy that flowed through these threads was very similar to a... faith. What was Sombra even working on here? What did he need this tree and all this faith for? Was he going to destroy the Tree of Harmony, or was he going to become a god himself? Alexei had too many questions and too little time.

The problem was that there probably weren't many entrances to the royal plaza where the tree appeared to be located.

Should he go through that section or would it be better to return to the miasma? If he returned to the miasmas, would he be able to find another entrance to the plaza by feel? It was far from certain that the other entrance would be located in a similarly miasma-deprived section.

Suddenly his musings were interrupted by a wild sense of danger that made all his muscles cramp.

He didn't dare to move or even breathe, but turned his gaze to the right and froze like a statue, staring unblinkingly at the building. The seconds dragged on slowly, but nothing happened. Alexei's instincts were screaming so loudly that his anxiety was second only to the day he had seen Celestia and Chrysalis fight.

A few seconds later, a formless red haze appeared from the roof of the building. After hovering for a moment, it darted sharply to the east.

Only then did the man allow himself such a pleasure as breathing.

"Fuck," Alexei blurted out, slumping against the wall and breathing heavily. "What the fuck was that?"

He'd managed to kill a few Evil Spirits before, but he'd always been extremely careful. He only broke into houses where, according to his senses, there were weak opponents he could handle.

Those houses where he sensed nothing, he tried to avoid and bypassed. He had already learned that lesson from the bookstore.

This Evil Spirit that flew out of the building was on a whole different level. Three or four of these spirits would give even Celestia serious trouble. How many more of them were there?

"Fuck it," Alexei thought, trying to normalize his breathing faster. "I'll go through the miasmas. Fuck this section."

Regaining his breath, he turned back towards the miasmas, running through his head on how best to get around this section. He might even have to go through some building inside the miasms, and the thought made him uneasy.

No sooner had he entered the miasmas than he felt dizzy and barely managed to stay on his feet. Only after a moment did he realize that it wasn't dizziness, but an earthquake. The air around him grew heavier and space began to fluctuate.

Feeling the source, he looked up and saw something incredible: the miasmas were being blown away by an invisible force, revealing the daytime sky. The Sun and the Moon hung in the sky at the same time, attracted to each other. Soon a silvery disk shone in the sky, surrounded by the bright blinding fringe of the sun. This was clearly not the eclipse he'd seen on Earth.

The air grew heavier and heavier, and the thought of fleeing into the miasmas to escape this chaos flashed through his mind as suddenly there was a rumbling sound and the sky was once again covered in miasmas.

There was absolute dead silence, as if nothing had happened.

Alexei's stunned mind flashed through a multitude of thoughts, from his next actions to the familiar energy he had just felt. It was clearly the energies of Celestia and Luna. According to Twilight, their marks, and therefore their control over the heavenly bodies, had been blocked. Apparently they had already managed to break those seals somehow.

No sooner had he gathered his thoughts than a new event occurred: dozens of red silhouettes started flying out of the buildings around him, heading east.

Gulping, Alexei slowly exhaled — too many shocks had fallen on his head in the past few minutes.

Closing his eyes, he began to make full use of the nightmare's abilities, quickly bringing his mind back to order. All the peace and quiet that had surrounded him along the way was an illusion - right now he was in the middle of a storm.

All these Evil Spirits and the ease with which Sombra had interrupted what the sisters were trying to do to the heavenly bodies was somewhat alarming.

After pondering the situation, Alexei decided to move forward towards the tree. The Evil Spirits were gone, and the path was now clear. He had another artifact from Twilight that allowed him to send items at a distance. He would get the tree's sap and send it to Twilight, then go to the outskirts and continue to watch the battle. If any dangerous creatures are near the tree, he will simply flee the Crystal Empire.

A nightmare erupted from Alexei's body, covering his entire body. Suppressing his energy as much as he could and trying to look as harmless a spirit as possible, the man tore towards the miasma on the other side.

In less than five minutes of running, he had run about three kilometers. If he were on Earth, he could already claim a world record. His physique had improved from his years in Everfree, but most of the credit was due to the ritual, the potions and the regeneration that constantly rebuilt his body.

Stopping in front of the miasma, Alexei took a breath and pulled some stimulants from his bag, taken from Twilight. Pulling out the corks, he volleyed two at once and entered the miasmas.

Alexei walked through the miasmas and the first thing he heard was the cracking of bones under his feet. The whole meadow was littered with cleanly whitened bones. In the center of the clearing stood a giant black tree, the mere sight of which made him dizzy and sent a chill down his spine. He felt something viscous and sticky, like roots, begin to entwine his mind.

Growling, Alexei stabbed a rib into his leg and used the spell to attack the foreign intrusion with pain. As if that wasn't enough, he snatched a knife from the artifact, stabbed it into his palm, and twisted. Sprinkling powder on the wound, he felt his flesh begin to sizzle, sending new waves of pain, forcing the roots attacking his mind to retreat.

Gritting his teeth, he waded towards the tree, withstanding the pressure on his mind.

He didn't stop checking his surroundings for a second. The meadow itself was completely empty, but he could see some fierce mutant pony or worse jumping out of the tree.

But nothing was happening and no one was jumping out of nowhere.

Blood began to drip from Alexei's nose as he struggled against the tree, and the artifact wrapped around his forehead began to buzz alarmingly.

Twenty meters. Ten meters. Five meters.

Suddenly, all the pressure vanished as he got within arm's length of the tree.

Squinting, Alexei used all his senses to the max, expecting a catch, but nothing happened. The huge tree trunk was making a soft crackling sound, and a light breeze was wafting around - the atmosphere was quite idyllic, except for the graveyard of bones around it.

"It stopped attacking me because it couldn't subdue me?" Alexei thought incomprehensibly. "Is this some kind of defense reaction or something?"

Apparently, the tree was unable to move or attack in any way other than a mental attack, and since the man had already come close, there was no point in further provoking an opponent it was unable to deal with. Did this tree possess some semblance of intelligence, or was it simply acting on instinct?

The tree may not have been going to attack him anymore, but Alexei was going to attack the tree.

"I'll just take some sap and leave," Alexei said, reaching for the amulet. "I'll heal all the damage."

He had no idea if the tree had a mind, but he certainly wasn't losing anything by uttering a few words.

Pulling out a new artifact from the amulet, Alexei easily pierced the bark of the tree, driving it deep inside. This artifact, made of an elephant tusk-like material, was shaped like a bayonet and could easily pierce through anything. He had taken it from Rarity for just this occasion.

Alexei tensed, expecting a possible attack from the tree, but nothing happened. From the tip of the artifact, a murky liquid began to drip rapidly - quite ordinary tree sap. He took out a bowl and put it under the drops, while he went for a small test tube.

The bowl filled quickly, but Alexei didn't have time to wonder where the tree had gotten so much sap.

Carefully pouring the sap into the test tube, he corked it tightly, washed it with water, and stuck it into the bloody worm that came out of his stomach. Alexei couldn't miss this opportunity. Hearing about the tree and its sap, he, being an alchemist, was of course interested, and was going to take some for himself. Previously, he had easily been able to hide a vial of Chrysalis' blood inside him, and there was enough room for one more. He didn't dare to hide it somewhere along the way or leave it in his bag for fear of corruption, so Chrysalis' blood was still inside him. Given his resistance to corruption and partially non-magical nature, his insides were a very safe place.

The bowl was almost full, so Alexei pulled the bayonet from the wood and poured the healing potion generously over the wound. The bark began to heal quickly, hiding the damage.

"As promised," Alexei said to the tree just in case. "I'll be gone in a couple minutes."

There wasn't a single fallen branch around, and the thought of climbing this gigantic tree made him very uneasy. It wasn't the height - Alexei felt that if he touched the tree directly, something terrible might happen. He might instantly lose control of himself. The tree seemed to be patiently waiting for just that moment. So Twilight would have to settle for just the sap.

After pouring the sap into four empty vials, he tucked two into his bag and began taking off all the artifacts except the one on his head. They may have made some sort of agreement with the tree, but it was clearly not worth the risk.

Stowing all the artifacts in the amulet, he sent two vials of sap there as well - Twilight's share. His entire portion of the loot was already in his bag, so it was ready to go.

On his palm appeared a black square artifact the size of a Rubik's cube, made of a material unknown to him. Slipping the amulet into it, he activated the artifact, and it silently disappeared from his palm, blurring into the air.

Alexei didn't even know that spatial artifacts could be teleported through another spatial artifact. He somehow thought that it was impossible or would cause some kind of collapse. Perhaps it was a feature of this cube - he didn't have time to find out the details from Twilight.

Twilight had gotten the promised tree sap, and he had returned all but one of the artifacts. Now he would quickly tear away from this meadow and toss that cobweb in some section - he wasn't going to risk leaving it on him.

"Nice doing business with you," Alexei smiled at the tree, slinging his bag onto his shoulder.

Just as he was about to leave, he felt someone's presence, along with the crunch of bones behind him. His instincts reacting to danger howled and immediately fell silent, as if burned out.

He'd considered many possible scenarios while he'd been walking here, and now he seemed to be facing the worst one. The nightmare, with the instructions already embedded in it, immediately destroyed all of Alexei's memories of his encounter with the Elements and the tree sap, replacing them with others. The instruction self-destructed along with the memories.

Gulping, Alexei slowly turned around.

Author's Note

Annoyed Twilight:

Applejack:

"Oh? You're approaching me?"
"I can't heal the shit out of you without getting closer."

Chapter 26 - Failures and death are natural

“Die!” Celestia roared, unleashing another wave of flames on the unicorn's head.

Dozens of fire tornadoes burst out of the sidewalk, surrounding Sombra, who tried his best not to get hit. In the next second, all the tornadoes shrank into thin streams of flame as thick as a thread and swept toward Sombra. He teleported instantly, breaking the distance, but the fire threads followed him like hungry snakes.

No sooner had he used the spell than a multitude of silvery stars flickered before him, and all spatial movement was blocked - Luna was here for a reason.

As they caught up with Sombra, the fiery threads slammed into him, and there was a deafening explosion that echoed off the walls of the ruined city. The explosion was so powerful that the ground shook and the sky was colored scarlet and gold. A cloud of fire and smoke rose up, illuminating everything around with a bright light.

However, the explosion didn't cause as much destruction as one might think. By now, the entire eastern region of the Crystal Empire had already been reduced to ruins. Celestia had contributed the most to this, though Luna wasn't far behind either - the ice in some places was unlikely to thaw in the next few years.

The smoking body of the unicorn flew out of the explosion and hit the wall of the castle they had managed to get close to during the battle. With a hiss, Sombra stood up as charred flesh crumbled off his body and turned into a shadow and rushed inside the castle.

“Come on, let's finish him off!” came Celestia's excited voice in Luna's head. “He's clearly weakened after using the Tree's abilities. There won't be another chance!”

Nodding, Luna rushed into the castle following her sister.

Both naturally realized that it was almost guaranteed to be a trap, but it was worth the risk. Plus, they both had self-resurrection methods, so Sombra could only dream of killing them. Even Luna, weakened by Nightmare Moon's actions with her memory, had already managed to regain her powers by more than half. Dream Magic was indeed very handy when it came to training, and methods to protect one's own life were recreated first.

The worst that could happen would be if they gave Sombra time to recover. His ability to use the Tree had already scared them, and they had to pay some price to get rid of the seals. But most importantly, Sombra was clearly preparing something big and he couldn't be allowed to complete it.

Celestia didn't bother looking for an entrance, but simply struck the castle wall with the beam, creating a huge charred hole. The stone wall cracked and crumbled, leaving behind charred shards.

The alicorns burst into the castle like two glittering meteors. Celestia and Luna rushed through the corridors, destroying everything around them. Their magic illuminated the dark, gloomy halls, turning them into abodes of light and fire. Chandeliers fell from the ceilings and paintings of ancient heroes were reduced to ashes.

Sombra, in shadow form, slid down the walls, eluding the destructive power of the sisters. He looked pitiful and exhausted, his dark form trembling and blurring like the remnants of smoke. Several times the sisters hit him with spells, each of which threw him off like a doll and left ominous marks on the walls and floor. Many times he barely managed to avoid their magical attacks, each dodge accompanied by a muffled groan of pain and effort.

He ran as hard as he could to save his life, and each movement became more and more desperate. Sombra flew into a narrow corridor, turned sharply and opened one of the side doors, hoping for instant cover.

The sisters rushed after him, and Celestia, out of habit, charged at the door with her beam. To her surprise, nothing happened. The powerful explosion blew everything in the corridor - destroyed statues turned into piles of stones, elegant vases crumbled into ashes, furniture scattered in every direction. But the door remained intact.

Celestia squinted, and her horn blazed. Fiery grains of sand began to fall from the ceiling.

“Fuck,” Luna cursed, turning into a glowing cloud of silvery dust.

In the next instant, white flames filled the entire hallway, vaporizing everything it touched. The flame raged, its heat so intense that the air in the corridor seemed alive. It roared and spun, devouring everything in its path like an insatiable beast.

The flames disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared, revealing Celestia's figure and a silvery cloud that turned into Luna a moment later. In another situation, Luna would have thrown a couple of heavy glances at her sister - she really could have given her a warning before turning everything around them to ash. But right now, their attention was on something else: the entire hallway was completely intact.

Not even ashes remained of the carpets and other decorations, but the floor, ceiling, and walls were completely unharmed. As was the accursed door where Sombra had escaped.

The alicorns blinked in bewilderment - Celestia's attack could have taken down half the castle. Yes, castles of this level were obviously magically fortified, but... no damage at all?

In the next second, the walls of the corridor suddenly crumbled into ashes, revealing a huge hall. But the strangest thing was that the walls and ceiling were now replaced by white bone-like bars.

Behind the bars stood Sombra, his eyes burning with an eerie red light, like the fires of the underworld. He grimaced slightly at the pain of his burnt flesh tearing away, then lit his horn and ripples ran through his body. In a moment, all of his wounds vanished as if they had never existed.

There was a flicker of shock in the alicorns eyes - they had indeed seriously wounded him, and it wasn't just to his flesh. Even his core had been damaged. This was not damage that could be healed so easily and quickly. And yet, Sombra had done it.

Had they fallen into some sort of illusion?

“They were real,” Sombra smiled, as if he had read their thoughts. “Can we talk now? You still haven't answered my previous question.”

Those who thought shadow magic was limited to stealth and other such things were complete fools. Shadows are something between light and darkness, true and false, reality and illusion. And Sombra had peaked at this magic.

The sisters responded with a volley of attack spells, but none of them could get through the bars. Celestia's horn blazed with blinding energy, and a beam of light ran through the bars, carrying a tremendous amount of energy.

Not a scratch was left on the bars.

All the while, Sombra stood patiently, waiting for the alicorns to give up. He wasn't in any hurry - it was a little early for the ritual, the tree hadn't completed its transformation yet.

Celestia and Luna had tried many methods, from attack spells to spatial spells, but the result was the same - they couldn't even scratch those bars, and any attempt to escape ended in failure. Celestia even felt that her sun resurrection wouldn't work here.

“Haven't you heard of the Imperfections?” Sombra asked, his relaxed look only causing Celestia to glare fiercely. “Do they call them something else in this era? Luna should remember....”

Unfortunately, Luna didn't remember.

Like Sombra, she had once explored the Depths with vigor, but when she encountered one creature, she nearly lost her mind and soon attacked Celestia. Unfortunately for Sombra, that creature's attack activated and distorted the mental anchor he had planted in Luna, and his plans went awry.

“Apparently not,” Sombra summarized, watching Luna's reaction. “Well, it's not hard for me to explain.”

From the beginning, he had sensed that the mental anchor he had placed in Luna had been badly distorted and destroyed. He had many assumptions and theories, from Discord's betrayal to some unknown force, but as it now turned out, it was much simpler than that.

“Imperfections are the embodiment of the rules, conditions, and sequences around which their abilities are built,” Sombra continued, leisurely strolling back and forth behind the bars. “These bars are made of just such a creature. The rules are very simple: you can't leave the cage until a certain amount of time has passed. After that, it will open on its own and you can get out.”

Judging by Luna's murderous look and Celestia's blazing fury, this information did not have a relaxing effect on them.

“I see a note of disbelief in your eyes,” Sombra laughed, studying the sisters' faces. “But everything I said is true. Even Discord would have had to give his best to get out of here early. So, can we talk? I'll be honest, I've gotten a little hungry for company over the years....”

“Can't keep from gloating?” Luna asked coldly, her voice shaking with restrained rage. “You've changed, Sombra.”

“I haven't changed a bit, Luna,” the unicorn shook his head, and his eyes seemed to darken even more. “And I sincerely want to talk. Why would we fight each other when we have a common enemy?”

“You're a fucking lunatic,” Celestia growled, unable to contain her emotions any longer. “You've turned the Crystal Empire into.... this! The entire land here is saturated with your vile magic. You are the enemy of nature itself.”

“There are always sacrifices to be made,” Sombra shrugged indifferently, not the least bit regretful of what he had done. “Though it began with my selfish desire, it's for the greater good. We can't win otherwise.”

“What the fuck are you even talking about?” asked Celestia, her anger increasingly overwhelming her. “You're just fucking...”

“I beg your pardon,” Sombra interrupted her casually, looking intently toward the plaza. “Urgent business has come up, don't miss me.”

Turning into a shadow, Sombra slipped into the hallway. Suddenly a bipedal figure appeared from around the corner, a tall and bizarre creature with disproportionate body parts - the spirit of chaos, Discord, himself.

“What's the rush?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head. “Has the tree already digested my gifts?”

All four cases where cultists tried to rescue Nightmare Moon from imprisonment, but ended up opening portals to other worlds, were all produced by him. Discord couldn't pull someone directly from another world. He couldn't even choose the world where the portal would appear. All he could do was make the portal appear on an inhabited world. Whether the portal would appear somewhere in a populated area, and whether anyone would even enter it, all depended on luck. Unfortunately, he couldn't go through the portal himself and catch the ones he needed. Even creating a portal to another world required an incredible investments, the help of the Elements of Harmony and the moon - such were the limitations of isolated Equus.

Fortunately, luck was on his side - through the three portals to Equus came several very strong creatures, apparently eager to have some fun in the new world. Their bodies were now nutrients for the tree. As for the last, fourth portal, it was a clear failure. This creature had no magical energy, no soul, and no special abilities. It was a meat golem driven by electrical impulses, an abomination by local standards. It didn't even deserve to be fodder.

Discord had lost interest as soon as he saw the creature in the forest near the border of Equestria. The unicorns and thestrals had performed the ritual fairly close to Equestria, so that the ensuing spatial explosion would hide from Celestia the appearance of a portal somewhere else in Equus. As luck would have it, the portal appeared even closer to Equestria, and was detected. So Discord didn't interact with the creature so as not to leave the slightest trace. Celestia's ponies did find the location of the portal after some time, but found no trace of otherworldly entities.

This wasn't originally in the plan - they were going to use the demons sealed underground as the last portion for the tree. However, Sombra's plan to control the Luna had failed, so Discord decided to take a chance and get some creatures from other worlds. It was even better than demons. Well, he hadn't forgotten about the demons either.

The Tree of Harmony, or rather the thing sleeping inside, was closely related to Equus and was its guardian, left behind by the two entities that had created this world. No one knew its name, if it had one at all. The few who knew of its existence referred to it simply as the Ancient One or the Guardian. The ignorant called it the Tree of Harmony, not realizing that it was the same being. The magic of all the races that inhabited Equus came from those entities, some of whose power the Ancient One had inherited.

How could Sombra, with magic, defeat the entity that was the source of that very magic? It was like trying to pull himself out of the swamp by his hair. Even if he possessed shadow magic that did not belong to this world, Sombra was born a unicorn, and his entire flesh and soul was imbued with the magic that the Tree possessed. Sombra's life, strength, and very fate came about because of the Tree. Going against the Tree was the same as going against his own fate. It was a true hopelessness.

Long ago, after reaching the limit of this world's power, Sombra had accidentally learned some behind-the-scenes truth about Equus. The despair he felt then was hard to describe in words. He learned that the Tree had restricted them and isolated the Equus, forbidding travel between worlds. Always eager to learn all the secrets of magic and find the Truth, Sombra felt trapped in a cage. When he learned this, he felt incredible despair, realizing that his quest for knowledge and freedom was futile. But it was this despair that made him stronger.

His mental age had long since passed several thousand years - he was even older than Celestia - but he continued to pursue his goal with the stubbornness of a lunatic. The alicorns thought him insane, either dreaming of destroying the world or a tyrant who wanted to enslave everyone. Sombra never had any such desires. He just wanted to be free.

That's what creatures from other worlds and demons were for. For their plan, they needed beings with magic beyond the Tree's control. Creatures from the Depths and other worlds, demons - all of them had to become the “poison” that could corrode the Tree of Harmony. Otherwise, they would fail.

The Ancient One, tightly bound to Equus, could not be killed. As long as this planet existed, he would continue to be reborn no matter how much he was destroyed.

“Some little rat snuck into the tree,” Sombra shook his head, answering Discord. “You're coming with me.”

Discord only shrugged - the safety of the tree didn't bother him in the slightest. Not because he didn't care about the plan they had spent thousands of years on, but because this tree had already grown and taken root, becoming a part of this world. Destroying it was not so easy. The Alicorns had tried, early in the battle with Sombra, and they had failed. The harder they attacked the tree, the harder it hit back. At one point they had to run from it, or they might as well have died.

Sombra thought roughly the same way, but decided to check it out nonetheless. In fact, he was far more concerned about Discord's safety than the protection of the tree. After all, he was only a clone of a spirit of chaos, not even a thousandth of the power of his real body. Nevertheless, his role in the upcoming ritual was extremely important. The real Discord was still sleeping somewhere in the depths of the Everfree Forest, trying to break Celestia's seal. Sombra could, of course, find him and free him with some effort, but it was for naught. According to their original plan, Discord's real body was still supposed to be sealed by the Elements of Harmony. Chrysalis's invasion had messed up their plans somewhat, but Celestia's seal was perfectly fine too.

If Sombra had servants, he could certainly send them to find out what was going on at the tree, but they were all long dead or gone insane from corruption. Sombra wasn't immune to its effects either, and the distorted mess inside him could hardly be called a soul anymore.

Time flows much faster in the Depths than it does on Equus, for space-time is a very vague concept there. Long before the Crystal Empire disappeared from Equus, he had spent nearly a thousand years exploring the Depths layer by layer. The assimilating and insanity-inducing effects of the Depths on the soul were far worse than what the corruption produced by the miasmas was capable of.

The only reason he was still sane was because Luna wasn't the only one he had embedded a mental anchor in. Sombra had brainwashed himself as well, fixing a single and extremely simple thought in his head: destroy the Tree of Harmony.

Shadows fluttered down the corridor as if alive, and in the next instant Sombra and Discord disappeared, appearing in the meadow in front of the tree. Their teleportation was quick, almost imperceptible, and seemed to be only a play of light and darkness.

Sombra's gaze immediately focused on the bipedal figure standing by the tree. He felt no threat from the creature, so he was just curious as to how it had gotten here.

He had never seen anything like it on Equus. It resembled a monkey a little, but that was only a superficial resemblance. Maybe some kind of creature from the Depths? From what he knew, the Depths could be roughly divided into three levels: upper, middle, and lower. And in each of these levels, there were millions of layers, each as large as Equus. This place was truly gigantic, and what kind of creatures weren't there. Not to mention that Sombra didn't know if there was anything else beyond these three levels. He himself had only managed to get close to the lower level - he simply didn't have the strength to go any further.

“Well, who are you?” Sombra mused thoughtfully, taking a few steps forward.

The figure that had long ago heard his appearance finally turned, and Sombra was able to get a better look at it. The creature was clearly male, but that was where the answers ended - there were definitely no such creatures on Equus.

“You don't have to answer,” Sombra said indifferently, lighting the horn. “I'm used to getting information on my own.”

A multitude of shadows entwined Alexei, and his body tore toward Sombra, stopping in mid-air a meter away from him. Alexei couldn't move or make a sound, and it wasn't like Sombra was doing it on purpose. Just a little bit of the aura he had unknowingly emitted during the spell was enough to completely overwhelm the man's body.

Alexei's mind was racing, analyzing the situation at top speed. Earlier, he had already mentally prepared himself for what he might encounter with Sombra. He had always prepared for the worst, but the reality managed to surprise him here. The situation wasn't just bad - it was doubly bad.

Sombra! Discord!

Each of these creatures could be considered the final boss of this world, and he had managed to stumble upon two at once. There really was something wrong with his luck. Maybe he had been jinxed by that shaman from the zebra tribe? Or was it some kind of death curse on Saada? And where did Discord even come from here? According to the history books of Equestria, the Alicorns defeated and destroyed the Chaos Spirit long ago with the Elements of Harmony. Why the fuck is he walking around here cuddled up with Sombra?

In the next instant, Alexei felt a stabbing in the back of his head as Sombra broke into his mind, quickly going through his memories.

“Well, well, well,” Sombra laughed, shifting his gaze to the bored Discord. “The creature that came out of the fourth portal came here of its own free will.”

“Portal?” asked Discord in surprise and looked the man over carefully. “Well, I can see why the other me wasn't interested in him.

Another clone was in charge of killing and collecting the bodies of the creatures that came from the portal, so this was the first time Discord had seen the man. His job was to deliver the bodies to Sombra once the Crystal Empire returned to Equus and help with the ritual.

Sombra, meanwhile, spun the man around in the air like a plush toy, examining him from every angle. The shadows scattered into many threads and penetrated the inside of Alexei's head, pulling the nightmare - a black figure in the shape of a man - outward.

“Kind of interesting,” Sombra muttered, studying the nightmare.

He'd had a similar idea when he'd experimented with creating an artificial soul, but all those nightmares were just child's play. If, according to Saada, ghosts were the waste of the soul, then nightmares were the waste of the creatures that inhabited the Depths. Why would Sombra want nightmares when he could experiment with the source material?

Losing interest in the man, Sombra looked into his bag and pulled out a tome with a worn cover, a treatise on dark magic. For a moment Sombra's gaze flashed with nostalgia - this was a work he had written himself. It was a journal of his writings that he had once given to Luna, wanting to show her how wrong she was about dark magic.

Putting the book away, Sombra pulled a vial filled with tree sap from the bag and looked thoughtfully at the figure in his grip. His gaze wandered over the man's body, stopping several times at the artifact on his head.

From the creature's memories, Sombra knew that this Alexei had stolen several artifacts from the changelings, who in turn had looted Canterlot. The decrepit artifact he had pierced the tree with had failed and crumbled into ashes. In fact, the bark of this tree could be pierced even with a knife - it was no different from the bark of any other tree. The deeper inside, the stronger the tree's defenses were, but that wasn't the main thing - its defenses focused on infinite resurrection and turning magic against the caster.

The creature's motives were also clear to Sombra: the alchemist clearly couldn't resist the temptation of such rare ingredients. Sombra had nothing against it - he respected the pursuit of knowledge.

Sombra was a little surprised that this creature could withstand the pressure of the tree, but there was an explanation for that: Alexei had no soul, and was a creature from another world, just like those whose powers were now being absorbed by the tree. So, albeit small, Alexei had some resistance against the effects of the tree. Sombra also didn't discount the willpower of this creature - he was really impressed.

In fact, it was quite amazing that the man had made it to this point at all. Sombra chuckled slightly, remembering how this creature had managed to hide from the alicorns right under their noses for over a month. The alicorns had no experience at all in interacting with beings from other worlds - Sombra would have found this man in seconds. Well, both clearly had their own large-scale methods, but both were held back by nobles who would have made a wild howl about invasion of privacy.

Sombra wondered what was the point of such power in the first place. He would have turned all those nobles into obedient puppets long ago.

While Celestia might have been concerned that she might eventually become a monster and go beyond all acceptable limits, Sombra clearly didn't care. He would never create such an artificial counterbalance by playing political games with all this noble trash.

Sombra quickly analyzed this whole situation, and there was only one question left: what, exactly, to do with this creature?

It was no good as fodder for the tree, and the tree already had enough to feed on. It was of no research interest to the current Sombra. Nor was he an enemy - Sombra had already seen a conflict with the Tree of Harmony in his memories. Well, it was hard to call it a conflict: the sleeping Tree simply instinctively tried to suppress him, but the creature somehow miraculously managed to overcome it. Still, it was the result that mattered.

Quickly running through Alexei's memories, Sombra even gained some sympathy for him. Ambition, struggle with limitations and his own fate, betrayals, sacrifices - it was all familiar to him.

Given all that, Sombra could just... let him go.

Despite what the princesses thought of him, Sombra wasn't some kind of butcher. In fact, he genuinely felt pity for all the creatures of Equus, just like him deprived of their freedom and trapped in this cage. That pity didn't stop him from turning the Crystal Empire into a slaughterhouse, but there was nothing he could do about it - there was no other way. He didn't fill himself with any excuses that he was doing it for the greater good - he was doing it all purely for himself. However, he believed that his actions would actually make the world a better place.

Nevertheless, he thought of another way to benefit from this creature. Wasn't this Alexei a friend of Luna's? Yes, their relationship was complicated and messy: lots of mutual lies and one-sided resentment. But Luna could still forgive him. So why not gift Alexei to her? But first he'd have to work for Sombra's good.

“There is something you could help me with,” Sombra smiled, hiding his energy so the man could move normally. “You won't say no, will you? Consider it payment for your invasion of my home.”

“The alicorns hid and distorted your story,” Alexei replied in an even voice, choosing his words carefully. “If I had only knew... I wouldn't have dared intrude like that. I am grateful to you for sparing my life. What should I do?”

Sombra only grinned as he looked at the man.

All of the creature's thoughts were in front of him - the human had not a shred of respect for him, and didn't even try to hide it. Not because he was cocky, but because he knew his thoughts were being read. So he decided to dispense with the false respect and flattery, limiting himself to a short and dry answer. In his opinion, being honest and not wasting Sombra's time was the best option, but he wasn't entirely sure. Now this Alexei was trying to read Sombra's reaction to see if he had made the right choice. Maybe he should have addressed more politely and used some sort of title?

Sombra was a little amused by this. But the man had indeed made the right conclusions - all these little things and formalities didn't bother him.

“It's very simple,” Sombra said, setting the man on the ground and removing his magical grip. “Convince Luna to join me. If you can drag Celestia too, I'll figure out something to reward you with. Even I don't dream of eternal life, but I can grant you unicorn magic. Oh, yes, you'll need some information for successful persuasion.”

Before Alexei could somehow react to this insane request, a streak woven from the shadows slid into his head, filling his mind with a plethora of information.

Alexei couldn't contain his emotions and his eyes widened with shock. What had he just learned! If Sombra's information was true, then....

“This world... is it doomed?” Alexei muttered, feeling a chill run down his spine. “Are we all going to become food?”

“True,” Sombra nodded, his eyes flashing with a cold glint. “But these stubborn mares refuse to face reality.”

Blinking, Alexei pushed all this shocking information to the back of his mind - he couldn't confirm whether it was true or just Sombra's insanity. Right now, he needed to concentrate on the task set by this unicorn.

Convince the alicorns to join their nemesis and rebel against the local god? What had Sombra even hoped for by giving him such a task? Why not send him straight to the Tree to convince it to kill itself?

If Sombra was strong enough to defeat the alicorns, why not brainwash them or something? What could Alexei even do in this situation?

“That's true,” Sombra smiled condescendingly, reading the man's mind. “But then why do I need you?”

Smiling sadly, Alexei nodded, accepting the task - Sombra's hint was transparent enough.

“You don't seem particularly confident of success,” Sombra shook his head, assessing the man's mood. “Let me give you some extra motivation.”

Sombra's horn lit up, and he pointed it at the human-shaped figure of black smoke. There was a quiet pop, cracks began to spread across the surface of the nightmare, and it began to show more and more signs of instability. Alexei gasped as if all the air had been knocked out of him, and a sharp pain shot through his head - he was connected to the nightmare after all.

“It will completely collapse in two hours,” Sombra commented indifferently. “Hurry up and use all your eloquence if you still need it.”

In truth, Sombra didn't believe in the success of this venture himself. So what? The man's success or failure had no bearing on his plans. If he could plant at least a grain of doubt in Luna's mind, that would be a good thing. The man had somehow managed to fool her earlier.

He would be much stronger than the alicorns once the ritual was complete, but dealing with them would still require strength that he would rather use to fight the Tree. It would be even better if the alicorns would volunteer to join him and help in the battle.

Sombra wasn't naive. Even if he took away some of the Tree's authority and teamed up with Discord, they were still no equal to that being. He needed the support of all the alicorns as well as Chrysalis, and generally all beings at the peak of this world's power. Even then, success was questionable.

“There is also the matter of trust,” Sombra said, eyeing the man squeezing his temples. “I know you don't believe me, but consider this: if Luna sides with me, she will be the best guarantor of your safety and the fulfillment of my promises. Your relationship can still be repaired.”

As if Alexei had any choice in the matter.

Sombra lit the horn and shadows enveloped them. In the next second, the two of them appeared in the hall, next to the alicorn cage. He teleported Discord to another place - the latter didn't really want to meet the princesses.

Sombra's horn lit up again, and black crystals began to grow from the floor, quickly forming a new cage. Another flash, and the man was inside it. It happened so quickly that the heavily breathing alicorns, who were obviously trying to escape from their cage, had no time to realize anything. They stared shocked at the new face in the room - how had their headache gotten here?

“So, where were we?” continued Sombra casually, as if nothing had happened. “Who is our common enemy? The Tree of Harmony, of course. It is the one I intend to destroy.”

This statement sounded like a bucket of cold water poured over the alicorns' heads. They completely forgot about the man's existence and stared at Sombra, shocked, even with some terror.

“You...” whispered a stunned Celestia, unable to find the words. “Kill someone who protects our world? You're insane!”

“You still believe that nonsense?” asked Sombra scornfully, his voice full of sarcasm. “We know it's the fourth era, so why is there almost no trace of the first three?”

“Because an invasion of devils nearly destroyed the entire world!” roared Celestia, her eyes glittering with anger. “All of us, including you, exist because of the sacrifice of the Tree of Harmony. It protected this world without sparing its life. Is this how you repay it?”

“The devils' invasion was the best thing that happened to this world,” Sombra laughed maniacally, his laughter filled with insane joy. “If it weren't for the devils, this thing would never have sustained such damage or hibernated. The fate of the first and second eras didn't happen again only because of them.”

“What do you think happened?” asked Luna, ignoring Celestia's warning look.

“It devoured all life on the planet, of course,” Sombra replied, his words sounding like a death sentence. “You still can't see the cage we're locked in? You think traveling between worlds is closed to protect us from the devils? Then why can't we leave, but others can still come into our world? Because it needs diversity, fresh blood! Do you still think it is Guardian and Protector? The creators left us long ago, and like any other living thing, it wants to evolve.”

That was why Sombra explored the Depths with such ferocity. He had tried many ways, but he had never been able to escape from Equus. He thought he could find a way out through the Depths, but that too was futile. It was like a backwater: the Dreamworld stretched across the universe, and each planet had a separate “backwater” connected to the rest of the Dreamworld. Sombra tried to find this passageway, but was unsuccessful.

Most likely, the passage to the main part of the Dreamworld was somewhere at the bottom of the Depths. However, Sombra couldn't even get close to the lower levels, let alone advance further. In fact, it was the Depths that occupied most of the Dreamworld. The top layer, filled with the dreams of the creatures that inhabited Equus, which the ponies used to call the Dreamworld, was just a fog over the ocean. The Depths were a boundless ocean beneath that fog.

The alicorns did not know something else that only Discord, Sombra, and the Tree of Harmony itself knew: the true nature of the spirit of chaos. The princesses thought he was the Harmony Tree's worst enemy, but could they have imagined that Discord was its own project?

The Tree of Harmony itself created Discord as a tame and controlled source of chaos. Without a pinch of chaos, this world would have stagnated long ago, something the Tree certainly didn't want. Discord was already the third spirit of chaos and had survived the third era due to the devils invading this world and disrupting the Tree's usual feeding routine.

Naturally, Discord was not happy after finding out the fate of his predecessors. What was he? The embodiment of the chaos of this world! Did the Tree really think it could control chaos so easily? Even if it could control his fate, life and death, it couldn't control his thoughts. It couldn't control his desire to be free, otherwise he wouldn't be a chaos spirit anymore. This was where it all began.

“Do you have proof of what you say?” Luna asked, her eyes narrowed in disbelief. “The story is entertaining, but it sounds like the ramblings of a lunatic.”

“Yes, I have proof,” Sombra smiled sadly, his voice filled with unexpected tenderness. “Except will you believe them?”

“Dash!”

“I... he...” Dash mumbled mutely, staring blankly at the dripping blood. “I just... he jumped out and...”

The body of a crystal pony was nailed to the wall of the building. His eyes seemed to flicker with the last glimmer of life, and his body twitched in agony. The pony suddenly jumped out from around the corner and tried to get at Fluttershy's throat. Dash was the first to notice the threat and instinctively reacted by throwing her spear. She just wanted to protect her friend, and her actions were instant and decisive.

“Dash!”

Suddenly, Dash was hit hard on the cheek with a hoof, knocking her out of her stupor. Stunned, she shifted her gaze and saw Twilight in front of her, straddling her head with her front hooves and pressing her forehead against her own. Twilight's eyes glowed with determination and support.

“You did everything right,” Twilight said with firm confidence. “Nothing is your fault.”

The other ponies approached. Their support was reserved but sincere. Applejack placed a hoof on Dash's shoulder, squeezing it lightly to make her presence felt. Rarity nodded, meeting her eyes, expressing understanding. Their support was serious and maturely calm, without too much emotion or hugging. Even Pinkie Pie, usually so cheerful, nodded gravely, conveying her support with a look.

Suddenly, they were interrupted by a tension that made the air hum. An invisible but powerful magic seemed to run through their bodies, making their fur stand up. The atmosphere became more and more dense and ominous.

Meanwhile, in the square in front of the black tree stood Sombra. His dark form loomed against the eerie tree.

“Ready?” Sombra asked Discord briefly, his voice cold and unemotional.

Discord answered with a slight nod and soared high up, hovering above the crown of the tree. His face broke into a wide smile - finally, after all these years, they were going to do this. Raising his paw, he looked indifferently at the razor-sharp claw and didn't hesitate to slash himself across the throat. Blood quickly began to leave his body, hissing and bubbling, dripping onto the tree, which greedily absorbed every drop.

Soon everything began to blur in front of Discord's eyes from the loss of blood - after all, he was only a weak clone. But it didn't take much from him - the ritual needed only his blood, flesh and a drop of power. Unconscious, Discord collapsed into the branches of the tree, which immediately began to consume his body, sucking out all the juices.

Sombra nodded contentedly, his eyes glittering with a grim light. He began the ritual, his horn glowing with a dark energy that made the air around him seem to thicken and vibrate. The vibrations grew stronger with each passing moment, and soon even the ponies standing in the distance felt the air shake.

Twilight and her friends noticed that the miasmas high in the sky began to thicken, hiding what was happening from the world. An invisible force began to crush and disperse the miasmas around them, drawing it upwards.

Twilight suddenly saw something incredible: a giant white glowing silhouette of a tree began to appear in the air, which was slowly being drawn to the black tree on the ground. This glowing silhouette was huge and majestic, its light dazzled the eyes and made the heart beat faster. The ponies felt their hearts overflow with a mixture of terror and awe at the sight of this grandiose picture.

In the air next to the tree stood Sombra, surrounded by swirls of darkness and power. His figure looked sinister and majestic at the same time, like a dark lord holding the fate of the world in his grasp.

Twilight, despite the pressure of the moment, quickly realized that now was the perfect moment to attack Sombra. Fortunately, they had already used the sap of the tree and were able to successfully break all the seals that restrained them and the Elements of Harmony. She turned to her friends, and they immediately understood her intentions. The ponies stood in a circle, concentrating, their bodies beginning to glow with magical flows. The magic of the Elements of Harmony began to gather and intertwine, ready to surge forth and destroy evil.

As they finished activating, a powerful rainbow beam shot towards Sombra, slicing through the air.

Sombra didn't even turn around as the glowing attack of the Elements of Harmony, capable of destroying any creature on Equus, swiftly approached him. He simply kicked his hind leg, hitting the approaching beam, which immediately burst into a multicolored cloud and vanished into thin air.

Twilight stood there with her jaw hanging open, unable to believe her eyes: the Elements of Harmony had been stopped... by a simple hoof kick? Shock and disbelief gripped her mind, her heart beating faster with terror.

Sombra turned his head slightly, his gaze fixed on Twilight, who froze with shock. In that moment she felt unbearable terror and death approaching. Her thoughts whirled, and she realized that now they could really die.

But after a second, Sombra looked away as if he didn't care about this petty thing. Even without the help of the tree, he could handle the Elements of Harmony, and right now they were no threat at all. They would die soon anyway.

The pressure in the air became more and more unbearable. The buildings around them began to crack and collapse, debris crashing to the ground. Twilight and her friends were under such intense pressure that they felt as if they were about to be flattened. They couldn't use magic or even move. Twilight felt something warm run down her face - her eyes, ears, and nose were bleeding. Her strength was leaving her, and soon her legs buckled and she collapsed to the ground.

She looked up and again saw the shining silhouette of a white tree glittering in the air. Its branches, shrouded in dazzling light, stretched toward the sky, and each leaf sparkled like a diamond, emitting streams of energy. The tree pulsed, every part of it seemed to be living and breathing, as if the whole world was centered in this one magical creature. This tree seemed to be the embodiment of life and power itself, a source of endless energy and harmony.

“Is this... the power of a god?” Twilight whispered doomedly, shifting her gaze to her friends.

Their faces were full of terror and tears. Each of them, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash, stared forward with a mute plea, as if trying to find salvation in this apocalyptic nightmare.

They didn't want to die, but it looked like this was the end.

The hall was shrouded in an eerie silence, broken only by the occasional sigh and clatter of hooves.

Celestia and Luna sat in a snow-white cage of bones, their auras glowing even in this gloomy place. Alexei, meanwhile, was in his black crystal cage. The princesses' gazes, full of judgment and hidden anxiety, occasionally slid over him, but no one said a word. Each of them was absorbed in their own thoughts in their attempts to escape from their imprisonment.

The princesses discussed plans through telepathy, sometimes drawing elaborate diagrams on the floor, hoping to find a weakness in their prison. Alexei, though, was pacing the cell, pondering his situation, which was frankly deplorable. His left hand was once again missing several fingers, the price for using blood magic. However, there was not a scratch left on the bars. He realized that even if he sacrificed all his limbs, the result would be the same. Sombra wasn't a fool and left him magic, knowing that nothing in Alexei's arsenal was capable of destroying the cage. The situation was extremely fucked up.

Suddenly Alexei felt a sharp pain in his neck. With a hiss, he grabbed at it, not realizing what was happening. Glancing down, he saw a red worm or leech bursting out of his flesh. Alexei's eyes widened in surprise - he couldn't understand what it meant, but he reacted instantly, trying to grab the worm. The worm, however, was faster.

Opening its mouth, the worm spat out a blob of black energy that instantly entered the man's head. Alexei blinked, and then began to laugh wildly, attracting the attention of the alicorns.

This was it - it turns out he had forgotten about so many things!

Earlier, when he had encountered Sombra, he had erased many memories: the encounter with the Elements, the hidden tree sap, the existence of those worms, and a lot of other things. He also tweaked some of his memories: the artifact obtained in Canterlot? He had left there empty-handed.

Alexei put a hand to his stomach, and a moment later a thick, bloody worm emerged from his flesh. It opened its mouth and spewed out a small vial of murky liquid - tree sap.

Taking it, Alexei thoughtfully twirled the vial in his hands. Well, that didn't change much.

Opening the test tube, he dripped on the bars, and as expected, there was no effect. The situation was still extremely dire.

Sombra had done something to his nightmare that resembled radiation poisoning - the entire structure of the nightmare had been destroyed, and it was literally falling apart. No matter how much Alexei replaced the energy, the nightmare continued to show signs of imminent collapse. Alexei could still, albeit barely, use spells, but soon he would lose all of that.

Sure, he could complete the task set by Sombra, and the latter would probably cure his nightmare. But he wasn't going to do that.

It wasn't even that he didn't trust Sombra - if Alexei followed this path, his fate would once again be in someone else's hands. No matter how the battle in the Crystal Empire ended, his future would be decided by others. Whether he falls into the alicorns' grip or becomes Sombra's servant is all one thing, his future will be extremely bleak.

If Sombra lost, Alexei could erase his memory and personally destroy the nightmare, making it look like he was a victim of Sombra's mind control-after all, he had been brought here by Discord, who was working with Sombra. In that case, he could keep his life and stay with the princesses, but that would mean the end of his ambitions. He would be under surveillance for the rest of his days.

He didn't want to live like that.

Alexei tried unsuccessfully to find a way out of his predicament as he slowly walked around the chamber of black crystals. His magic was useless, his nightmare was shattering, and his bag, which probably wouldn't have helped anyway, had been taken away by Sombra.

He had nothing left.

Some time passed, and Alexei, immersed in his thoughts, continued to thrash around the cell. The princesses, apparently interested in the contents of the vial he had taken out of his body and his sudden fit of laughter, finally spoke. But he didn't hear their questions, completely focused on his thoughts.

Suddenly there was a powerful force in the room, the air became heavier, and Alexei heard a rumbling sound coming from everywhere. Energy filled the room, the walls began to vibrate, and the lights in the room became dark and dimmed. White threads made up of energy, the same kind he had seen on the streets of the Crystal Empire, twitched violently throughout the room.

This drew the attention of everyone in the room. The princesses couldn't feel the energy due to the characteristics of the cage they were locked in, but they could hear the sound perfectly. Their faces filled with alarm - something big was happening.

Alexei bit his lip nervously, realizing what was happening. Sombra had never been able to convince the princesses to join him, and it had all ended in nothing. After heated discussions, he had left, and now the ritual had apparently begun.

Alexei felt his heart start to pound faster-now was the best moment to do something. He might not have a chance later. But what exactly? What could he even do? He needed to decide faster.

An insight flashed in his eyes, and he looked thoughtfully at the vial of tree sap in his hands.

“What if I...” a thought flashed through Alexei's mind, but he only shook his head.

Insane! That's just insane!

Did he have any other options?

Alexei sat on the floor with his back against the bars and stared blankly at the scurrying alicorns for several seconds, deep in thought.

Finally, he rubbed his face with his palms, took a few deep breaths in and out, and then suddenly laughed and met Luna's gaze, attracted by another burst of laughter.

"You know, I really enjoyed our late-night chats," Alexei said with a sincere smile. "It was fun."

Luna's eyes widened in surprise - it was the first thing the man had said in a while.

“You...” Luna mumbled uncertainly, and then it came to her. “Wait! What are you...”

She knew that look all too well - the man was preparing to die.

She shouted something and tried to get his attention, but Alexei wasn't listening anymore - he had said everything he wanted to say. Rising to his feet, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath - the moment had come. It was time to use the seventh spell.

Running the formula through his head, Alexei activated it, and after a moment he felt his abdomen empty - that was the price of the spell. Alexei's body twitched, and he froze with his mouth open, unable to breathe - he no longer had lungs, his heart was not beating - it was also missing.

It all lasted only a moment, and soon scarlet dots glistened around his stomach, swarming like bugs. They quickly penetrated through the flesh and merged with each other, taking the shape of the missing organs. After a couple moments, Alexei inhaled-he had his lungs and all his other organs again, but only temporarily, only for five minutes.

“More than enough,” Alexei hummed, opening the vial and drinking the contents.

Alexei felt a wild pain in his esophagus, as if he had been injected with lava and liquid nitrogen at the same time.

A strange feeling pierced his head and he felt the presence of a tree somewhere in the distance. The tree also sensed Alexei and turned its gaze on him. Almost immediately it tried to break into his mind, seeking to take control. Alexei only hummed, raising his hands and attracting all the glowing white threads floating in the hall. The threads, obeying his will, wrapped themselves around him, filling the space with humming energy, as if electric shocks were pulsing through every cell of his being.

The next moment Alexei blinked and found himself on the floor. A pool of blood was spreading beneath him, soaking the cold stone. He had just passed out from the wild overload when he grabbed onto those threads. His brain burned out instantly from the exorbitant strain, but the regeneration granted by the seventh spell was simply unbelievable.

The tree no longer tried to invade his mind, having received a powerful rebuff.

Alexei gathered his thoughts and smoke billowed from his body, beginning to gather into the figure of his nightmare. Alexei stretched forward his hand with fingers bent like hawk's talons and squeezed them sharply. The nightmare shattered and disintegrated into smoke that merged with his body.

He had just destroyed the source of his mental energy. Now he had to either become a nightmare himself or die trying.

Alexei began to greedily absorb the energy flowing through the threads. He could feel the pure power flowing through his body, penetrating every cell. With each breath he absorbed more and more, it was as if his body was transforming, becoming a living filter. He purified the energy, eliminating impurities and negative fluids, and redirected it, deftly manipulating the flows.

The energy flowed through his veins, intertwined with his life force, and he fused it with his body, enhancing his abilities. This was his original idea, to use his instantly regenerating body as a purifying filter. Without this regeneration, the pressure of the energy would have torn him from the inside out.

Gritting his teeth, Alexei continued to manipulate the energy. Everything around him began to engulf in vapor - the blood flowing from all his orifices was literally emitting thick puffs of vapor.

It seemed to him that his body was in a state of constant boiling. The blood, if not for his regeneration, would have clotted long ago, clogging his veins and turning his insides to stone. His skin was covered in burns and blisters that would instantly regenerate, leaving behind charred marks. The sensations were unbearable - he felt like he was in hell, where every breath brought a new wave of agony, but he continued to hold on.

Suddenly the amount of energy increased dramatically, as if a huge wave had come over him, and he felt his body fill to the brim.

Alexei's eyes widened with surprise and horror.

The next moment there was an explosion accompanied by a wild crackling and hissing sound. The acrid odor of burning flesh instantly spread through the hall. All of Alexei's internal organs turned into a mess, and the remnants of his mental energy, along with his fused self, were swept away at the same instant.

The man's body collapsed to the floor like a doll with its strings cut.

Alexei was dead.

Author's Note

Discord

Chapter 27 - I am who I am!

The gentle morning light filtered through the dense foliage, casting picturesque patterns on the ground. The sparse forest, like a living fairy tale, was bathed in sunlight that danced on the velvet leaves and gilded the slender blades of grass.

The branches of the trees intertwined, forming green arches through which the clear blue sky could occasionally be seen. In that sky hung the sun, smiling with cheerful eyes, as if it had been drawn in a children's cartoon. Its rays were warm and tender, gently heating the earth and giving everything around a cozy, charming appearance.

But the idyllic scene of the forest was interrupted by the furious chomping and crunching.

"It’s not working," the man muttered irritably, tossing aside pieces of a creature that resembled something out of a Lovecraftian nightmare.

This creature had numerous tentacles covered in tiny teeth and eyes that seemed to look in different directions simultaneously. Its body was coated in slime, with broken bones jutting out. The ground around the man was littered with the remains of similar vile beasts that inhabited this place, creating a sinister contrast with the forest's beauty.

Alexei angrily flung the creature's remains aside and massaged his temples, contemplating his situation.

He had ended up in the Depths again.

Now, thinking it over, he realized that it wasn’t surprising. Sombra, of course, hadn’t shared his plans with him, but Alexei had figured out many things on his own. Sombra and Discord were gathering creatures from other worlds, and judging by the number of bones around the tree, these creatures had been fed to it. Earlier, Sombra had shown Alexei an image of alicorns sitting in a cage, and their conversation. Alexei knew what the cage was made of—some creatures from the Depths known as Imperfections.

From all this, Alexei easily concluded that Sombra had likely fed many such creatures to the tree. The tree already had some connection to the Depths, so it wasn’t surprising that he ended up here. That surge of energy had wiped out all the remaining mental energy from his body, but by some miracle, he hadn’t died and was instead pulled into the Depths.

Even while in the Depths, he could still feel his body on Equus. The first thing he did was what he had done before—devoured a few local creatures, absorbed their mental energy, and tried to eject himself from the Depths. However, this attempt ended in failure, and Alexei fully understood why, though he had hoped it wouldn’t happen: his body was still connected to those threads pumping energy into him.

His body was still alive—the spell he had previously used continued to restore his body. Right now, his body was being roasted to a crisp by the raging energy, only to be restored by the spell. The problem was that due to this raging energy, which repelled all his attempts, he couldn’t return to his body on Equus.

There was another problem: the spell only lasted five minutes, and after that, the threads would destroy his body in a couple of seconds, and he would truly die.

Time in the Depths flowed differently than on Equus. Five minutes here could stretch into hours, but that didn’t change much. Alexei had no solution to his problem. Even if he managed to return to his body on Equus, what then? His attempt to turn into a nightmare had failed, and in five minutes, his body would die anyway. The alicorns were still trapped in the cage and clearly wouldn’t be free anytime soon. Alexei couldn’t rely on Luna’s help, and honestly, he didn’t want to.

The real question was whether he would even live to see his body die. Over time, he began to feel the Depths starting to assimilate his spiritual form. Alexei didn’t know how much time he had left, but he was absolutely sure of one thing: this assimilation wouldn’t end well. Most likely, he would turn into one of those mindless creatures running around the area.

Moreover, he was now nothing more than a spirit, a cluster of mental energy. However, his appearance remained the same, and despite his spiritual nature, his body seemed solid and tangible. Alexei felt every step, every breath, as if he were in his regular physical body. If he were a spirit on Equus, he would have already started disintegrating under the influence of magical energy, but here he felt quite comfortable.

He suspected this was either an illusion or the result of local laws imposed on him by the very space he was in. Even if it was an illusion, it was so convincing that he couldn’t simply change his form. He had already tried to transform into a cloud or some gaseous form—it would have allowed him to move faster here—but nothing worked.

Biting his lip, Alexei pondered possible options. However, he had nothing. His spell repertoire was sparse and mostly offensive—completely useless in this situation. He couldn’t use blood magic, which required flesh as fuel. Besides, he knew almost nothing about the Depths.

The entire situation reeked of hopelessness.

Suddenly, Alexei felt something strange. It wasn’t related to sensing energy. He simply felt that someone was watching him, and a deep unease set in. Fearing he might provoke a dangerous creature into attacking, he cautiously scanned the surroundings with his eyes, but there was no one around. Suddenly, the sense of danger intensified, and simultaneously, Alexei realized where the gaze was coming from—above.

When he looked up at the sky, his sense of danger peaked—a freaking sun was watching him.

The sun's smile had vanished, and it now glared at him with a stern, piercing gaze. Its light had dimmed, and its surface had dulled, turning what was once a bright disk into something frightening and ominous. The smile and eyes, which previously looked as though they were drawn, had now transformed into craters filled with darkness. Instead of a sun, something resembling a moon was staring down at him, and it was clearly displeased with his presence in this world.

Suddenly, everything within a few meters around Alexei was bathed in a pale green light. In the same instant, he felt his mind beginning to crack, and the process of assimilation rapidly accelerated. Alexei reacted instantly, darting to the side, but the light, like a relentless spotlight, followed him closely.

“Fuck!” Alexei growled, his eyes darting around the surroundings in search of cover.

All around was just the damn forest. By some miracle, he caught a glimpse of a shape behind the trees, and before he even realized what he had seen, he was already sprinting in that direction.

He tore through the sparse forest like a madman. Branches lashed at his face, but he didn’t feel the pain. The forest seemed endless, each step echoing loudly in his ears, but Alexei didn’t stop.

Suddenly, after a minute of running, a modest yet large wooden cabin with glass windows appeared before him.

Alexei didn’t even try to find the door. Without hesitation, he dove headfirst straight through the window.

He tumbled across the wooden floor of the cabin and slammed into the wall. Being a spirit, Alexei didn’t feel any pain, so he immediately jumped to his feet. Mentally sighing in relief, he noticed that the damned green light had disappeared. His mind had already been on the brink from just a minute of its exposure.

Alexei didn’t have time to ponder the nature of that light or the strange shit that had happened with the sun. Right now, he was more concerned about the cabin he had found himself in. Inside, it was much more spacious than it looked from the outside, but that didn’t bother him. He had already seen too much weird crap, and the Depths were the embodiment of all things bizarre and unimaginable. What really worried him was who—or rather, what kind of creature—lived in this cabin?

Licking his lips, Alexei stood still, listening to his surroundings. But aside from the frequent creaking of the wood, he heard nothing. All his other senses were silent as well.

Seconds turned into minutes, but nothing happened.

Alexei stood motionless, straining to catch any sound. He wasn’t sure of his next move. Should he try to find out who lived here, or should he run? But what about that green light? Would he find another shelter? And even if he did, he couldn’t stay hidden forever. He still had no clue how to solve his main problem, but he certainly wouldn’t find any answers by just hiding. He needed to keep moving and try to learn as much as possible about the Depths. Maybe he’d find some kind of solution.

Suddenly, he heard a sharp sound, and right before his eyes, the shards of glass flew back to the window, reassembling into a whole pane.

“Are you just going to stand there?” a soft female voice called from deeper within the cabin. “Come on in, it’s been a while since I’ve had guests.”

Alexei tensed, ready to run, but relaxed a moment later—it was too late, he’d been noticed. He sighed and, straightening up, headed towards the hallway to his right, which seemed to lead further into the cabin.

His face was like a stone mask, his eyes expressing complete indifference. Mentally, he had already prepared himself for the possibility of being devoured. He had, in fact, considered the chance that the Depths would become his grave, but there was only one way to die without regret—by doing everything he could.

With this thought, he proceeded down the corridor, preparing for the first encounter.

As he walked, Alexei felt the oppressive atmosphere, which paradoxically contrasted with the ordinary surroundings. The walls were made of roughly hewn wood, covered in dust and cobwebs, but their sheer normalcy only intensified the sense of unease. The floor creaked under his footsteps, each sound amplified as if the emptiness of the cabin eagerly swallowed any signs of life. Only dim light filtered through occasional gaps in the walls, casting long, sinister shadows that seemed to watch him.

Ahead of him, a room suddenly emerged from the darkness, enveloped in the same oppressive atmosphere. Heavy curtains obscured the windows, allowing only faint rays of light to penetrate, barely illuminating the worn wooden floorboards. Near the window, sitting in a rocking chair with her back to him, was the figure of a woman with black hair tied up in a bun. This was the last thing Alexei expected to see in the Depths, filled with monsters. But the thought quickly left his mind, and he became even more cautious—he was more inclined to believe that this creature had already gotten into his head than to believe in the presence of another person.

He couldn’t sense any energy from this being. According to his senses, there was no one in the chair at all, which only made him more uneasy.

“Sorry for the intrusion and the broken glass,” Alexei said with an apologetic smile, making a quick bow. “I was just looking for shelter…”

“Oh, don’t worry about such trifles,” the woman laughed brightly. “There’s no need to mention it, I understand completely. You can stay here as long as you like.”

The whole time, Alexei had been talking to the back of her head, and it seemed she had no intention of turning around. He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to. All he really wanted was to ask a few questions and then tactfully leave.

Although, perhaps he could stay a little longer…

“Your hospitality is matched only by your wisdom,” Alexei bowed again, adding a touch of flattery. “Actually, I’d like to leave this layer, but I seem to have gotten lost. Do you happen to know where the passage to another layer might be?”

He knew about the layers from a book that had accidentally come into his possession during his training with Luna. But it contained more philosophy and metaphysics than clear instructions. And then Luna had taken the book away and refused to answer his questions. Thinking about it, Alexei wouldn’t have been surprised if that book had been written by Sombra.

“You’re not from here, are you?” the woman giggled, tilting her head as if in thought. “Sometimes there are passages, and sometimes there aren’t. They appear and disappear quite randomly.”

Alexei sighed slightly—yes, he had suspected that this entity had already gotten into his head, but he still tried to be cautious. Nevertheless, she had immediately seen through him.

Well, it didn’t matter. Even if she had gotten into his head, she seemed like a rather decent and kind woman. He was really lucky to have met her.

“If you’re not from here, then it’s all the more reason for you to stay,” the woman said in a gentle tone. “Take a seat. I have many stories, and they’ll all be useful to you.”

Smiling gratefully, Alexei found a chair and settled in comfortably, ready to listen.

“Equus, right?” the woman mused before continuing. “Long ago, two entities existed in the world: Gro-Sabodh — Destruction, and Faust — Creation. You’re probably confused right now, aren’t you? They are concepts, absolutes. They are Destruction and Creation in their purest forms. Oh, and I wouldn’t recommend saying Their names too often. Even though They don’t care, you wouldn’t want to attract Their attention…”

Alexei listened with interest, occasionally asking clarifying questions. With each passing second, he felt more and more at ease.

One story ended, and the woman began telling another. This time, it was a tale about…

As Alexei listened, his hand absentmindedly reached up to scratch his nose. Huh? Had his hand always been so transparent? No matter… he would figure it out later.

He shifted his gaze back to the woman, intending to continue listening, when suddenly his eyes widened in shock as he remembered something. What the hell was he doing? He was supposed to be finding a way to escape the Depths, not listening to this woman’s stories.

The woman… what woman? This was a creature from the Depths! When did he stop suspecting her?

Alexei’s eyes flickered as the realization hit him: from the very beginning. Why the hell did he even start exploring this cabin?

Panic surged like dark shadows creeping into every corner of his mind. A sense of danger began screaming inside him like a siren, warning of imminent peril.

“It seems you’re distracted,” the woman’s voice came with a slight hint of displeasure. “Are you scared? Why?”

Alexei flinched at the creak as the chair began to turn. His instincts roared at him to run that very second, but the rational part of him tore those instincts apart. He needed to wait for the right moment, or he was dead.

The chair swiveled, revealing a woman with slender, pale hands, dressed in something resembling a black Victorian gown adorned with lace patterns. All these details registered in Alexei’s subconscious, but he was far from concerned with the fashion sense of creatures from the Depths. He stood frozen, staring at the woman’s face—or rather, the absence of it.

Where her face should have been, everything was twisted into a spiral. Each coil of the spiral was made up of endless folds of skin, as if all the facial features had been sucked inward, forming a terrifying vortex. The spiral’s twisted folds were taut and grotesquely distorted, as if someone had mercilessly wrung it to its limits.

The sense of danger in Alexei screamed, and everything before his eyes began to spiral out of control.

Growling, Alexei activated a spell he had already prepared in his mind. Behind him, a translucent figure of a slender girl appeared, wrapping her arms around his neck and resting her chin on his shoulder. Her eyes seemed to shine with warmth and tenderness, but in the next moment, her face twisted with rage and disgust, and she let out a piercing scream.

Waves rippled through the room, shattering the effect created by the creature. In that same instant, Alexei leaped out of the chair and dashed into the dark corridor, not forgetting to kick the chair toward the woman as he went.

Alexei sprinted through the dark corridor, which at some point began to twist around him. The walls writhed like living creatures, and the floor became unstable, like quicksand.

Earlier, it had taken him less than a minute to reach the room, but now he had been running for several minutes, and there was still no end to the corridor.

A light appeared ahead, signaling the corridor's end. However, the closer he got, the more the light twisted into a spiral. Gritting his teeth, Alexei pushed himself to the limit and leaped through a small opening that remained untouched by the distortions.

Rolling across the floor, he immediately sprang up and dashed toward the same window he had entered through, smashing through it headfirst and escaping the damned cabin.

After running a few dozen meters, he glanced back to see if he was being pursued.

He saw the window, whole once again, behind which the woman with the spiral face stood, leaning on the windowsill. Her chin rested on her hand, and her thin fingers tapped the spot where her cheek should have been.

Though Alexei couldn't see her lips or eyes, given their absence, he was certain that the woman was looking at him with a mix of mockery and contempt.

It seemed she had no intention of following him.

Alexei didn’t know if she was bound to the cabin, afraid of the green light, or if she was one of those Imperfections whose rules he had narrowly escaped. At this point, he didn't care about the details.

Shifting his gaze forward, Alexei continued running when suddenly the green light surrounded him once again.

Alexei had no energy left for frustration—he simply surged forward, pushing himself to his maximum speed.

A mare was crawling along the cobblestone street, leaving a wet trail of fluids and blood behind her. Her flanks trembled with exertion, and her filthy coat was drenched in sticky sweat. She had just given birth, and the placenta dragged behind her, thumping against the stones with every movement.

The mare's gaze was fixed on the silhouette of a white tree, glowing in the sky. The closer she got to it, the stronger the pressure became. Blood began to drip from her nostrils, and it became increasingly difficult to move. But she stubbornly crawled toward the tree, like a moth drawn to the sun.

The mare was under no influence—she simply wanted to become part of something greater, striving toward the light as if it were her final refuge. Her eyes, filled with pain and hope, shone with an unusual light, reflecting her inner drive.

Suddenly, a wild crack rang out, and the white silhouette of the tree exploded, scattering into countless glowing points. The mare froze, her mouth agape, staring blankly at the white specks swirling in the sky.

Her sun had just vanished.

In Sombra's eyes, standing in the sky, there was a flash of confusion. He had done everything perfectly, but at the very last moment, something went wrong, and the ritual failed. He didn’t have time to contemplate this thought—the backlash from the failed spell struck his body, tearing it apart.

For a brief moment, Sombra's soul could be seen amid the dispersing flesh, but in the next second, cracks spread across it, and the soul shattered—spells of such magnitude were not to be trifled with.

The unicorn's entrails and blood began to fall to the ground, forming a crimson rain that soaked everything around. The shimmering pieces of flesh, like scarlet stars, settled on the bone-strewn earth, creating a gruesome scene of destruction and death. The dripping blood mixed with the soil, leaving dark stains on its surface.

Nearby, shadows began to ripple on the ground, forming into tentacles. With each passing second, the shadows became more material, and soon they rose from the ground, forming a circle. The tentacles writhed violently, as if in sync with an unknown rhythm, emanating a sinister energy. Their movements were chaotic, yet filled with latent power and tension.

Suddenly, in the center of the circle, Sombra reappeared out of nowhere, completely unharmed. The tentacles, as if drained of all life force, collapsed into a black sludge on the ground, leaving behind thick, oily stains.

A dark aura still emanated from Sombra, but something about it had changed. His power had significantly diminished, like a dimmed star, but considering that even his soul had just been destroyed, it was a small price to pay for his return.

Sombra thoughtfully surveyed the scattered pieces of his innards lying on the ground and focused on the black tree before him.

The once mighty tree now looked somewhat battered. A giant crack snaked up its trunk, like a wound tearing through its heart. The branches were broken, some hanging on by mere shreds of bark. The leaves, which once sparkled with energy, were now dull and mottled.

Although the tree had sustained damage, it wasn't as critical as it might have seemed at first glance. With some care and proper nourishment, the tree would quickly recover, once again flourishing with its former power.

However, a raging storm brewed in Sombra's mind. The mental anchor that had previously lain dormant in his consciousness had gone berserk after the failure of what he considered the work of his life. At that moment, Sombra could only think about the reason for his failure, with all other thoughts pushed out of his mind.

He replayed the ritual over and over in his head, trying to understand what exactly had gone wrong.

Of course, Sombra was aware of the recent manipulations of the human, but that had nothing to do with the failure. The human had connected to the tree’s network, siphoned off a drop of energy, and died a pathetic death from a random energy surge during the merge. To have influenced the ritual in any way, the human would have needed to be on Sombra's level, to reach the tree against the flow of the raging energy. This wasn't something that could be overcome by sheer determination.

Sombra had already guessed that the human had hidden the tree's sap by altering his memories. He was also aware of the seventh spell of blood magic—though he had quickly scanned the human’s memories, he had remembered all the important details.

Sombra wasn’t particularly interested in the human's fate. He could clearly sense that the human’s body was still connected to the threads, continuing to sizzle in the remnants of energy while he remained in a coma. Even if he woke up, he would still die from the consequences of his own spell.

Currently, there were three beings in the Crystal Empire capable of restoring his internal organs. Two of them were locked in a cage and wouldn't be free anytime soon, and the third was Sombra himself. At another time, he might have healed the human out of sheer curiosity, just to see what he had been trying to accomplish. But now, all his thoughts were consumed by the failed ritual.

"The spells are fine," Sombra muttered confidently to himself. "The problem is either in the ingredients or..."

Neither of these options pleased him.

If the problem lay in the ingredients, it could only mean one thing—Discord had betrayed him.

The other possibility was even worse.

The Tree of Harmony was tightly connected to the source of fate and magic in this world, and Sombra was essentially battling his own destiny using power borrowed from that very fate. Of course, he had accounted for this long ago and had tried to loosen the noose around his neck as much as possible, but what if that wasn’t enough?

Sombra's face twisted in a mixture of rage and contempt. His jaws clenched, and his eyes flashed with anger, but a moment later, under the influence of the mental anchor, his psychological state returned to normal. He took a deep breath, his shoulders relaxed, and his gaze became cold and focused once again. It didn’t matter how many times he failed—as long as he lived, he would keep trying, over and over, until he destroyed the Tree of Harmony along with that damned creature. His eyes reflected an unshakable determination, and his body radiated a cold but potent energy.

The investigation into the exact reasons for the ritual's failure could be postponed. The priority now was to take the Tree, the Crystal Heart, and other valuable items, and then leave the Crystal Empire as quickly as possible. Soon, the miasma would dissipate, and the Ancient One might detect his presence—that would be truly bad. Besides, Sombra had no interest in fighting the alicorns. He could force them to flee, but it would be a waste of time. He still had a few hours, so there was no need to rush. Sombra knew he had enough time to collect all the necessary samples for his research.

Lost in thought, Sombra didn't notice a small patch of space wavering behind him. A moment later, a rainbow beam appeared out of nowhere, piercing the back of his head.

"Fuck you, you bastard!" a victorious shout rang out from somewhere in the sky. "Swallow that!"

Looking up, Sombra saw a blue pegasus with a rainbow mane hovering high above him. The next second, with a flash of teleportation, the rest of the mares appeared—after the miasma had been blown to the borders, it became much easier to move around the Crystal Empire.

Sombra glanced absently at his body, which was beginning to crack with glowing fissures. They ran across his skin, emitting a bright light as if his body was about to shatter into tiny fragments.

The Elements of Harmony couldn't be used in conjunction with other spells, which was one of the weaknesses of these artifacts. Nonetheless, these mares had somehow managed to strike him from afar, using the pegasus as a guide.

This reminded him of the time when they had mysteriously teleported right out from under his nose.

"One of them has a space attribute," Sombra thought, nodding mentally as he ignited his horn.

The spell activated, and Sombra's body split into two copies—one black and one white. Cracks continued to appear on both bodies, indicating that the effects of the Elements of Harmony had not disappeared.

Sombra waved his horn, and all the cracks from the white copy transferred to the black one. A moment later, it burst like a soap bubble. Distortions rippled across the white copy, transforming it into Sombra’s usual appearance.

This spell wasn’t some pitiful resurrection—it was useless against the Elements of Harmony. Instead, it could slightly alter the fate of the user. This was the spell that had started it all long ago. There were side effects too—Sombra’s power had plummeted to an all-time low, making him even weaker than any of these mares.

For the Elements, shocked by the failure of their attack, this offered a glimmer of hope.

But that hope was soon crushed—Sombra took a deep breath, and all the shadows in the area seemed to go wild, dancing around him in a primal rhythm.

At that moment, Twilight felt Sombra’s power rapidly increasing.

Sombra narrowed his eyes and took a step forward, igniting his horn—they had a chance to leave, but they had chosen their fate.

In the next instant, he suddenly staggered and vomited blood.

"This isn’t from the Elements of Harmony," the shocked Sombra realized, as countless shadows wrapped around his body, stabilizing his condition. "How is this possible? I’m still suffering from the backlash of the ritual!"

Alexei blinked and opened his eyes, gazing up at the azure sky dotted with sparse clouds stretching above him. He sighed in relief—finally, he had left that dreadful layer behind. Sinking into the soft green grass, Alexei allowed himself a moment of rest. His thoughts were still in chaos after the madness he had endured on the previous level.

Right after his encounter with the spiral-faced woman, he found another cabin, and that’s when everything went haywire.

Inside, he came face to face with an anthropomorphic, two-meter-tall crow with three arms, each ending in sharp claws. Compared to the woman, this crow was far more motivated—it chased Alexei all over the layer. At first, Alexei thought he was some kind of delicacy in its eyes, but he soon realized that the crow attacked anyone it saw without discrimination.

The crow was fast, but not so fast that Alexei couldn’t react to its attacks, and it was incredibly strong. But its most remarkable feature was an incredible ability to resurrect—dozens of times Alexei saw the crow torn to pieces and turned into mush, but within seconds it would reappear nearby, completely unharmed.

Neither of them wanted it, but they became quite the team: Alexei, like a crazed animal, darting from one cabin to another, and the crow trailing him, leaving a trail of carnage everywhere. At first, Alexei didn’t enjoy its company, but over time he began to appreciate the time spent together: he collected a ton of useful items from the corpses of creatures and from their cabins.

Fortunately or unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Alexei found a dark pit in the ground, which turned out to be a passage to another level, and now here he was.

Holding onto a bloodstained bag made from a piece of cloth hanging around his neck, Alexei rose from the ground and finally took in his surroundings. A vast plain covered in greenery stretched out before him, with occasional hills and crystal-clear lakes.

“Fucking hell,” Alexei whispered, feeling a headache and a ringing in his ears starting to build.

This level could very well be his grave.

Massive monsters the size of skyscrapers roamed the area—masses of writhing tentacles with countless eyes and mouths. Their bodies resembled nightmarish combinations of carnivorous plants and grotesque sea creatures. The tentacles, covered in slime, twisted in the air, sometimes brushing the ground and leaving blackened trails behind them, as if the earth burned under their touch. Eyes scattered chaotically across their bodies gleamed with a sinister light, watching everything around them. Mouths, located in the most unexpected places, constantly opened and closed, emitting strange, almost musical sounds that sent chills down Alexei’s spine.

Below, like ants, other creatures swarmed around. Their bodies resembled the worst abominations from the underworld: covered in scales, with dozens of legs, they moved in endless chaos, emitting rasps and squeaks. Some had skull-like heads with empty eye sockets from which a thick, dark liquid dripped. Others, with long proboscises and multiple limbs covered in growths and spikes, dragged the corpses of their fallen kin toward the giant beings as if offering them gifts.

Alexei had seen similar giants when he first entered the Depths, but now he could make them out much more clearly.

He finally understood what "indescribable horror" meant—it wasn’t about the tentacles, eyes, or other monstrosities; it was the very existence of these creatures. The way they moved, it was as if they were slipping through the very fabric of reality. Watching them, Alexei couldn’t tell if they were moving forward, backward, or standing still—they seemed to be doing all of that simultaneously. Just trying to comprehend it made his head ache. If he hadn’t already encountered so many bizarre things, he might have actually started to lose his mind.

Right now, he stood in the middle of a plain, surrounded by these creatures. They hadn’t noticed him yet, but it was only a matter of time. No matter where he looked, they were everywhere. Alexei wasn’t sure if he had any chance of escaping this encirclement. He wasn’t confident he could outrun the smaller creatures, but if one of those giants noticed him...

“What are you doing here?” a young girl’s voice suddenly spoke directly into his ear.

Alexei’s hair stood on end, and his gaze darted to his left shoulder, where a small humanoid creature, about the size of his hand, was now perched.

Bones jutted out from its emaciated body, and transparent wings resembling those of an insect protruded from its back. Around its waist was some sort of growth that looked like twisted and tangled intestines. Its sickly pale face had only pitch-black eyes, staring at Alexei with curiosity, and a jagged line where a mouth should be, barely moving as it spoke those words.

Alexei felt nothing from the creature on his shoulder, and that was always a very bad sign.

“I’m just looking for a way home, kind fairy,” Alexei replied, carefully smiling with just his lips, trying not to make any sudden movements.

If he weren’t currently a spirit, his brain would have already overloaded and shut down. He was rapidly calculating every possible option and way to avoid becoming a meal for this thing. He had no idea what might provoke it—was he already doomed, or would he live as long as it found him somewhat interesting? Had he made the right choice by addressing it as female? The creature had no apparent gender, but the voice was distinctly feminine.

“Kind? Fairy?” the creature asked, tilting its head in confusion. “What’s that?”

Alexei quickly began crafting an explanation. This thing did somewhat resemble a creepy fairy, so that’s the first thing that came to mind. Now he needed to explain it well enough to avoid being eaten by a bored monster.

He had just opened his mouth, gathering all the fairy tales, fantasy, and mythology he could remember, when a shriek pierced the air.

The sound was so horrifying it sent chills down to his bones. It was like the screech of metal claws against glass, growing louder and filling the air with sinister vibrations. Alexei glanced over and saw that one of the giants was moving toward them and was already dangerously close.

“Could we move somewhere else?” Alexei asked politely, glancing nervously at the gigantic creature.

He had no idea how powerful the being on his shoulder was, but he hoped it could at least transport him to a safer place.

The tiny creature looked at Alexei in confusion, then shifted its gaze to the giant. A moment later, its eyes lit up as if something had clicked.

It stretched its thin arms toward the giant, spread its fingers as if grasping something invisible, and suddenly clapped its hands. In an instant, a blood-red cloud exploded before Alexei—the giant creature wasn’t just torn to pieces; it was pulverized into a gaseous state.

Alexei's ear twitched at the whistling sound, and when he looked back, he saw the tiny creature had opened its mouth, creating a powerful suction. The blood-red cloud stretched into a thin stream and was instantly sucked into her mouth.

Alexei silently thanked the universe that this thing had the tact to shield that energy from him—otherwise, he would have been torn to shreds.

Out of the corner of his ear, he could hear all the smaller creatures shrieking and scattering in all directions, but that was the least of his concerns now—there was a much bigger problem contentedly licking its lips on his shoulder.

“Is that better?” the creature asked casually, expectantly looking at Alexei.

“Couldn’t be better,” Alexei replied with a soft smile, gathering his thoughts.

Now he understood why this thing hadn’t just crawled into his head and taken whatever it wanted—it was afraid of accidentally disintegrating him with one wrong move.

Actually… he could work with that.

Alexei began telling the creepy creature on his shoulder everything he knew about fairies, recalling all the stories and myths he had ever read.

Fairies are small magical beings that live in forests and gardens, capable of performing magic, helping good people, and cursing the wicked. They are invisible to ordinary humans and only appear before those they deem worthy. Alexei spoke of fairies with shimmering wings that light up the night, kind fairies who help lost children, and those who punish the cruel.

“Fairy…” the creature muttered thoughtfully, as if tasting the word. “I like it. From now on, I will be a Fairy!”

Alexei mentally sighed with relief—let it think of itself as a fairy or even a minotaur, as long as it was satisfied.

The newly self-proclaimed fairy, meanwhile, seemed to be getting ready to attend to its "fairy" duties. It spread its wings, preparing to take off.

Alexei bit his lip as he rapidly analyzed the situation. It didn’t seem like it was planning to eat him, which was great, but the area was still swarming with monsters, and he hadn’t made any progress with his main problem. Should he take the risk?

“Wait, kind fairy,” his voice finally broke the silence. “Can you help me?”

“Why would I help you?” the fairy asked, tilting its head in confusion.

“Aren’t you a kind fairy?” Alexei replied with feigned surprise, giving the creature a disbelieving look. “Kind fairies help people.”

Pleading, begging, and logical arguments—all of that could be thrown out the window when dealing with such beings. The only thing Alexei could hope for was that this creature had become interested enough in his stories to continue playing the role of a fairy.

“I am a Fairy!” the creature said confidently, fluttering its wings. “But what is this ‘kindness’ you keep talking about?”

Alexei stumbled a bit at that question. What was he supposed to say? He was hardly the right person to define something like that. Kindness—was it when you sacrificed your own interests for the sake of others? When the strong helped the weak because it was the right thing to do?

Alexei didn’t even believe in that nonsense himself. How was he supposed to convince a creature that had no concept of all these human values?

“Kindness…” Alexei took a deep breath, choosing his words carefully. “It’s when you do something that helps others, even if it doesn’t benefit you. Imagine someone lost in the dark, and you give them light so they can find their way. You don’t gain anything from that light, but the person you helped can move forward, and maybe, one day, they’ll help someone else. Kindness is a sort of energy. When you do something good, that energy spreads and might return to you in the most unexpected moment.”

“What a bunch of nonsense,” the fairy laughed, its wings fluttering so fast they created rainbow-like glimmers around it. “You want to leave this place? Why? You must be absolutely insane—this is the perfect place for you.”

“So that I can come back later,” Alexei replied confidently, unfazed by the fairy’s amusement.

He really did intend to return here, assuming he survived. His response made the creature think, but it didn’t seem fully convinced, so Alexei decided to press on.

“That’s called karma,” he said, catching the creature’s attention. “You didn’t harm me, and in return, you got something interesting. Every time you do something good, you… emit positive energy that’s connected to you. One day it will come back to you and fully compensate your efforts. But when and how exactly—it’s always a surprise. So you’ll never be bored.”

A glimmer of interest flashed in the creature’s eyes. She hated boredom, and Alexei knew it. She liked this role of being a fairy and was just about to fly off and play a prank on someone when this human distracted her with his insane ramblings about some sort of kindness.

The fairy's eyes gleamed as an idea struck her—why not combine business with pleasure?

“Alright, I’ll help you,” the fairy giggled and let out a sharp whistle. “You’re on your own now. Bye-bye.”

The next moment, she disappeared into thin air.

Alexei blinked in confusion, staring at the spot where the newly minted fairy had just been—what had even changed?

Oh well, at least he was still alive.

Suddenly, he felt the ground tremble beneath him.

Focusing his gaze, Alexei saw a wave of creatures rushing toward him. His eyes darted around, and he swallowed hard—hordes of monsters were converging on him from all sides.

His gaze settled on one of the giant beasts towering above the others, and he felt a suffocating dread. All of the creature's eyes were fixed on him. Those eyes, filled with ancient and incomprehensible intelligence, seemed to burn right through him, making his heart race wildly.

Alexei froze in place, paralyzed before the oncoming wave of monsters. Running was pointless—he was completely surrounded. Any movement in any direction spelled death, but he wasn’t about to give up. His heart pounded in his chest, but instead of panic, something else began to awaken within him—something fierce and defiant. No, he had come too far to stop now.

Closing his eyes, Alexei tilted his head back and took a deep breath. The cool air burned his lungs, but it only fueled his resolve.

Slowly, very slowly, a wide grin began to spread across his face. Wasn’t this the very reason he had ventured into this world? Hadn’t he been seeking the kind of adventure that makes your heart race and your blood boil? Here it was, the adventure!

It wasn’t about the events around him, but how he responded to them. Right here and now, on this plain, surrounded by monsters, even as a spirit, he felt more alive than ever.

Alexei opened his eyes, his gaze sweeping over the approaching creatures, a mocking grin playing on his lips.

He quickly singled out the largest and most intimidating beast among them. Its writhing mass of tentacles, coated in foul slime, extended toward him as if trying to feel its prey from a distance.

The monster advanced faster than the others, oblivious to the smaller creatures that were mercilessly crushed into bloody pulp beneath its heavy movements. Alexei cast a fleeting glance at the other creatures swarming across the plain and instantly calculated his next move.

Time seemed to slow down, allowing him to pinpoint the exact moment. When it came, he sprang into action, sprinting directly toward the giant creature.

The massive beast, as tall as a skyscraper, charged toward Alexei, cutting a path through the hordes of smaller creatures that were instantly turned to mush under its tentacles. Its body, a nightmarish blend of a carnivorous plant and a terrifying sea monster, moved with immense power. The tentacles, covered in thick slime, writhed in the air like searching antennae, touching the ground and leaving behind charred, blackened trails.

With each movement, the ground shook, the air thickened, heavy with the scent of blood and decay. The tentacles, coated in black slime, ripped through the flesh of smaller creatures, grinding their bodies and sucking the remains into countless maws.

The giant beast opened its monstrous maw, intending to swallow the human whole. The foul-smelling mouth, like a living abyss, lunged toward Alexei, consuming everything in its path. Rows of countless scythe-like teeth glinted in the dim light, warping the space around them. The creature devoured everything in its path like a vacuum, charging into the heart of the battlefield where other monsters crowded. Its insatiable hunger drove it forward—toward the lone human who dared to run toward it.

A wild grin spread across Alexei's face—everything was going exactly as he had planned.

He sprinted toward the monster, nimbly leaping over broken trees, the remains of small creatures, and gaping holes in the ground. He felt the tension in his muscles, but his heart beat steadily and confidently.

Finally, the enormous mouth filled his vision. The monstrous maw was covered in vile slime, and countless razor-sharp teeth glinted in the darkness. The black void of its throat reeked of death, as if from the depths of hell itself. Huge fangs, curving in various directions, were ready to tear his body apart.

The air around him seemed to compress as a powerful suction force began to pull him in. His feet lifted off the ground, and he felt his body being drawn inside. In that moment, as the world around him seemed to disappear, Alexei felt himself being pulled into the creature’s mouth. Its slimy walls closed around him, enveloping him in darkness and horror.

The monster continued to move, swallowing and digesting everything in its path. But its advance suddenly halted when it collided with another giant beast with tremendous force.

The impact was devastating—the ground quaked, and the air was filled with the sounds of tearing flesh. The collision caused the bodies of both beasts to crack and break apart. Tentacles flew in all directions, spewing streams of black blood. The massive teeth of one creature sank into the body of the other, piercing its hide and shredding its innards to pieces. The grinding of rupturing flesh and the roars of the monsters filled the surroundings, making the earth tremble.

By this time, the rest of the creatures, hungry for a taste of Alexei, had arrived. With roars and growls, clanking and gurgling, they rushed from all sides to the spot where the human had been just moments ago.

But when they reached their target, Alexei had already been devoured by one of them.

Deprived of their expected prey, the monsters paused for just a moment, before rage and hunger consumed them. Sensing the scent of blood, they turned on each other, turning the battlefield into a blood-soaked arena.

Each creature in this nightmarish dance of madness had unique forms and deadly abilities. Huge tentacles whipped through the air, wrapping around and tearing apart their enemies, while giant maws filled with hundreds of sharp teeth ripped flesh to shreds. The monsters clashed like titans, crashing into each other with such force that the ground beneath them shook as if from an earthquake.

One of the creatures, resembling a giant crab with spiked claws, clamped onto the neck of another—its claws dug in deeper and deeper until it broke through the thick hide, and black blood gushed from the wound. The monster in the crab’s grip didn’t go down without a fight—its body, covered in growths, suddenly exploded, spewing acid that began to corrode the crab’s claws. The giant crab roared and retreated, but didn’t make it far—another creature, resembling a many-headed snake, coiled around it and squeezed so tightly that the shell cracked with a deafening crunch.

Blood and guts poured out, staining the ground a thick, black hue.

Meanwhile, two other monsters, each looking like a cross between a spider and an octopus, were locked in a fierce battle. Their tentacles entwined like snakes, and one of the monsters began devouring the other’s tentacles, biting them off one by one. The enraged creature let out a horrific screech as its limbs were completely destroyed, and then its maddened opponent, with a single motion, bit it in half, leaving only twisted chunks of flesh.

The air was filled with the sounds of tearing flesh and snapping bones.

Another monster with giant claws, as tall as trees, lunged at a spiked opponent. It tore off the spiked head along with part of the torso and, before it could celebrate its victory, was torn apart by several other creatures that descended on the fresh remains like vultures.

The brutal carnage lasted only minutes but felt like an eternity. In the end, the battlefield was littered with mangled bodies and rivers of black blood.

Only one giant beast remained alive. It swayed from exhaustion and wounds, its body covered in deep gashes from which dark, sticky blood oozed. Its tentacles weakly writhed in the air as if it were still trying to maintain balance.

Gathering its last bit of strength, it moved toward the remains of the other monsters, intending to devour them to regain its strength. But suddenly, its body jerked. The giant beast began thrashing violently, its tentacles spasming in agony, and from its many mouths came piercing, ear-splitting screams.

It twisted as if it were being torn apart from the inside. Its monstrous body convulsed, its numerous eyes bulged, and instead of cries, streams of blood poured from its maws.

Suddenly, it collapsed to the ground, as if all its remaining life force had been drained in an instant.

For a moment, the battlefield fell into dead silence. Only the screeches of the few surviving small creatures broke the eerie calm.

On the body of the dead giant beast, one massive yellow eye, the size of a house, stood out. It stared blankly into the void as if it didn’t comprehend what had just happened.

And then, as if something had exploded inside, the eye shuddered and began to burst, tearing apart from within. With a squelching sound, a hand burst out from the eye socket, ripping the flesh apart as it struggled to break free.

Suddenly, a heavily breathing Alexei, with a wild look in his eyes, emerged from the ruptured eye of the giant beast. His entire body was drenched in black blood mixed with slime and chunks of flesh, as if the abyss itself had spat him back out onto the surface. A caustic steam rose from his body—the remnants of the creature’s stomach acid were eating away at his flesh, creating a strange smoky halo around him.

Alexei looked like a demon emerging from the underworld: his skin was covered in burns that were instantly healing, leaving behind only scars that quickly disappeared under the relentless force of his regeneration.

Taking a few steps, he collapsed onto the remains of the beast, unable to move any further. He had just literally chewed his way to freedom.

Reflecting on how he had managed to avoid death in the monster’s maw, Alexei could hardly believe he had pulled it off. He had contorted his body in an almost impossible way to avoid the creature’s sharp teeth and successfully ended up in its esophagus. There, clinging to the tentacles hanging from the walls, he miraculously avoided a deadly fall into the acidic stomach juices. From there, he began his hellish ascent, gnawing through the giant creature’s flesh, making his way to its brain.

Outside, the bloody battle raged on, and every jolt from the monsters' collisions nearly turned him into minced meat, but Alexei continued to gnaw through the monster's flesh, his body repeatedly healing itself thanks to his self-regeneration.

He lay there for a while, unable to move, his chest rising and falling as the only sign that he was still alive. The remnants of stomach acid continued to eat away at his flesh, but it regenerated just as quickly. Alexei couldn’t recall how many pounds of the creature’s flesh he had devoured while clawing his way to its brain, but it was clearly too much—his head spun, and his body groaned under the overload of energy. He had more than enough energy for regeneration, but this only proved that increasing the amount or quality of energy didn’t mean he could escape the Depths.

With a groan, Alexei pushed himself up, leaning on the sticky, decaying flesh of the creature. Even if he was dead tired, he had no right to rest. The prank of that “fairy” had cost him a lot of time, and if he still hoped to get out of here, he needed to keep moving. Fortunately, almost all the creatures in the area were dead; only the small fry remained.

He might be able to find a passage to the next level, but what was the point? He didn’t even know what he was searching for. Each level brought the same endless slaughter. Even if he found a way to the next level, the story would repeat itself.

With a sigh, Alexei unsteadily got to his feet. Maybe he wouldn’t find anything on the next level either, but if he stayed here, he wouldn’t even have that tiny chance. Out of habit, his hand reached for his half-eaten bag, now just a simple pouch, tattered and smeared with blood. The flesh of this creature was incredibly valuable in itself, and he could search through the remains for something useful. He wasn’t about to leave empty-handed.

Suddenly, a jolt of electricity seemed to run through Alexei’s body, and he froze, his eyes wide as he stared at one point. He hadn’t thought about it before, too focused on survival, but his subconscious already knew the answer and was desperately trying to tell him, pushing him to gather ingredients.

Alexei thought he had nothing, but he had something after all. Alchemy!

How was he supposed to practice alchemy without a cauldron or fire? All those things were purely optional. A cauldron was just a container, and fire was a means of creating the right environment for fusing ingredients. A reasonably skilled alchemist with a couple of elemental spells could brew potions right in the air. Alexei’s skills allowed him to do the same, but he didn’t have the necessary spells and could only dream of it.

He had fallen victim to stereotypical thinking, and only now did it dawn on him that things were different in the Depths. Everything around him, including himself, was infused with mental energy. On Equus, he would have needed fire or elemental spells to process and fuse ingredients, but here… here, he could interact directly with the mental energy within them, making it possible to create something without all that.

One last problem remained—the ingredients.

As he pondered this, Alexei suddenly caught himself wondering: why limit himself to just a potion? In his mind were the memories of Saada, who had dedicated her life to experimenting with chimerization. These images and knowledge surfaced in his consciousness, intertwining with his own thoughts and desires.

Licking his lips, Alexei thoughtfully scanned the battlefield, covered in black blood, the remains of creatures, and scattered entrails.

Ingredients? There were plenty of them here.

"Stop, he's dead," Celestia said quietly but firmly, gently placing her wing on her sister's withers.

The words broke the silence that had settled over the hall like a thunderclap.

Luna blinked, emerging from her heavy thoughts as her gaze gradually focused on the horrifying scene before her. Just a few meters away lay the body of a man, his chest torn open, twisted unnaturally like a broken doll. The threads that had once woven around his body now hung lifeless, their light gradually fading.

The regeneration spell had ended, replaced by the acrid smell of burning. It filled the hall, searing the lungs and filling the space with ominous black smoke emanating from the charred body.

Luna sighed and averted her eyes. It was truly over now.

She hadn't felt any romantic feelings for the man, and their friendship had developed too quickly, like a rapid current in the river of time, driven by circumstances.

She had just returned to a world that had become unfamiliar to her after a thousand years of exile, broken and confused. And then, suddenly, a being appeared, affected by her past actions, but instead of the hatred she deserved, she found… understanding.

Luna felt that Alexei might have truly understood her. Though she hadn’t told him everything, she shared much, and he never judged her. She used to think he was just pretending. But after watching his actions following their escape from the dungeon, she began to wonder if pretense wasn’t necessary—perhaps he had been sincere.

Her thoughts returned once again to his final words. She hadn’t been angry with him for a long time. Yes, he had outwitted her, but it wasn't a betrayal. Most likely, he had been honest with her in all their conversations.

He ended up in this world because of her actions, and she had tried to make amends. For a time, they had been together, and now their paths had diverged. All the slaughter he had caused didn’t directly concern Luna, and he had never harmed her. Honestly, she didn’t care how many caravaners he had killed in that forest—she herself had killed thousands more.

She had pursued him not for revenge, but for catharsis, to talk to him and put all the cards on the table.

Now that was impossible.

Luna slowly turned away from the man’s body, suppressing a surge of emotion, and returned to Celestia.

They continued discussing possible ways to escape the cage they were trapped in. But, as Sombra had predicted, getting out before the appointed time was nearly impossible. Their discussion was dull, as if drained of all hope. Luna spoke automatically, as if her mind were far away, still anchored to what remained of Alexei.

Suddenly, a barely perceptible crackling sound cut through the air, making the alicorns’ ears twitch.

Both sisters looked around in confusion, at first thinking it was just the lingering sounds of still-dissipating energy flowing through the threads. They were about to return to their conversation when a chill ran down their spines.

Both of them simultaneously lifted their heads, staring at the ceiling above the man’s body. Where there had once been solid stone, a crack now gaped, oozing thick darkness that emitted a pale white glow.

Though nothing was visible, the alicorns could swear something was watching them from that crack.

Luna and Celestia froze, stunned by the strange sensation.

From the crack, a slime began to ooze, hissing as it touched the floor, as if the very fabric of space refused to accept it.

Suddenly, the crystal cage that held the man’s body began to shake strangely. Thin cracks spread across its surface, and as if being corroded by an invisible acid, it started to decay from within. The smooth, gleaming crystals dimmed before their eyes, dark spots forming on them, and then slowly crumbled to the floor in black dust. The cage disintegrated, losing its shape, and inexorably fell apart into myriad tiny fragments until nothing remained but ash and a rancid stench.

In the next moment, a flood of black, viscous blood gushed from the crack, spreading across the floor and filling the hall with the stench of death and decay. Along with the blood, writhing organs of unknown creatures and chunks of flesh from countless torn-apart beings spilled out.

The hall quickly filled with this horrific mess, and soon the entire floor resembled the aftermath of a gruesome slaughter, where the victors and the vanquished had merged into a single, filthy sea of blood.

The last thing to fall from the gaping crack was a crystal-clear, glass-like drop. It floated gently through the air and touched the sinister sea of black blood.

In that instant, the blood began to churn, like boiling tar, and then it frothed, rising in thick steam, filling the space with an even more suffocating stench. The writhing organs scattered on the floor began to twitch and, slowly but inexorably, crawled toward the lifeless man’s body. As if driven by an invisible force, they reached out to his torn chest, hungrily burrowing into it like parasites that had found a new host.

The black blood, churning and boiling, swirled in vortices like a raging sea in a storm, then in one swift motion, it surged upward and then abruptly flowed back into the man’s body.

Everything happened so quickly that Luna and Celestia didn't even have time to react. But what followed made them shudder in horror.

Something slipped out of the crack, flashing through the air like lightning, and darted into the man's body, disappearing into its depths. The spatial crack immediately sealed, and a moment later, a dead silence filled the hall.

The alicorn sisters stared intensely at the body that had seemed so completely dead just moments before.

Because of the damned bars, they couldn't interact with anything outside their cage. They could only watch, unable to intervene or understand what was happening.

Time dragged on unbearably; it felt like each heartbeat stretched into centuries, and in that moment, all they could do was watch the man's body lie motionless, like a lifeless doll.

Seconds turned into minutes, but nothing happened.

Finally, the threads wrapped around the man seemed to rot away and disintegrate into dust, scattered across the hall.

"Was it absorbing energy all this time?" Luna's sudden realization struck her.

Bubbling blisters began to appear on the man's skin, as if the surface of his flesh was preparing to explode. Soon, his entire body started to swell, resembling a balloon, relentlessly expanding under internal pressure.

Luna instinctively stepped back as the grotesquely stretched face of the dead man seemed to stare at her, as if his features were drawn on skin stretched to the breaking point.

Inside this grotesque balloon, something gurgled and churned, but nothing happened aside from the terrifying buildup of tension. Suddenly, waves rippled across the balloon's surface like water, and in the next instant, it exploded, spraying blood, pus, and unidentifiable remains everywhere.

The cage protected the alicorns from the spray, but it couldn't shield them from the horrific stench. The air filled with the rancid odor of decay, so thick and revolting that it seemed to invade every corner of the hall, making their throats burn.

Celestia couldn't hold it back and vomited.

She had spent the last thousand years in the comfort of the royal palace, surrounded by luxury and cleanliness. This was more than she could bear. After spitting out the last of the bile, Celestia quickly wove a golden barrier around her body, trying to shield herself from the smell.

But then her attention was drawn to a new scene.

Luna kept her eyes fixed on the center of the hall, where, on a completely clean section of the floor, lay a pale, thin infant, showing no signs of life. Celestia blinked, trying to make sure she wasn't hallucinating.

And right before her eyes, the infant began to grow rapidly.

Within just a minute, it had transformed into a teenager. Hair and nails grew wildly on its body, but they quickly fell off, seemingly reabsorbed back into the flesh.

Another minute passed, and the floor now held the body of a young man, still motionless and lifeless.

Celestia was about to turn to Luna when a dreadful cracking sound filled the hall, the sickening noise of flesh tearing. Both sisters flinched, their hearts frozen in fear of the unknown.

From the belly and sides of the lifeless body, tentacles, slick with blood, emerged.

They slapped onto the floor, lying still for a moment as if unsure of what to do, and then pushed against the ground, slowly lifting the limp body.

Thump.

The sound of a heartbeat echoed through the hall, making the alicorns flinch again. It was faint, but it struck them right to the core.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

The furious heartbeat echoed through the hall, growing louder with each passing second.

Suddenly, the hanging body gasped for air with a raspy, desperate breath, like a newborn taking its first breath, and opened its eyes.

In the next moment, the blood-soaked tentacles quivered like snakes and set the body on its feet.

The creature that stood on its feet blinked, as if coming back to reality after a long sleep. Its head slowly turned, surveying the hall like a predator studying its surroundings.

Its lips twisted into a strange, unnatural smile, and a moment later, the space was filled with wild laughter—insane, raspy, echoing off the walls of the hall. This laughter, full of strange joy and madness, seeped into every corner like poison, infecting the atmosphere with a lingering dread.

"As long as I want to walk, there will always be a path before me," Alexei muttered after his laughter subsided, and his eyes glinted with a mad fire. "And I will laugh like crazy until the very end!"

There was a strange, eerie glee in his voice, which only intensified when his gaze landed on the tentacle protruding from his side. A smirk crossed his lips—everything had truly spiraled out of control.

He only wanted to escape the Depths and heal his body, but instead, this horrifying metamorphosis occurred. The tentacle growing from his stomach was just the tip of the iceberg.

All of his internal organs in the abdominal cavity had been replaced with organs from creatures of the Depths. But it wasn’t just a transplant—they had become a part of him. Alexei felt this with a terrifying certainty: if he lost a kidney, for example, it would regrow, but no longer a human one.

But it wasn't just about the organs. He himself was no longer human.

His flesh had fused with that of the creatures from the Depths, and his body had been recreated into something new, something terrifyingly different. Barely a fifth of him remained human. He could now be loosely described as a mutated human with internal organs of unknown alien origin.

But Alexei didn’t care. Back on Earth, he had read many stories about characters turning into monsters and whining like little bitches about their lost humanity, wistfully sighing over who they used to be. But for Alexei, none of that mattered.

Human? Just a species. European? Russian? Male? Alexei? All these things influenced who he had become to some extent, but nothing more. They were just words, labels that no longer held any meaning for who he was now.

If someone were to ask him who he was, he would have answered...

"Who are you?" Celestia's cold, piercing voice interrupted his thoughts.

She narrowed her eyes, drilling her gaze into the creature before her, trying to understand what kind of beast had crawled out of nowhere and taken over the human’s body. She didn’t even consider that this thing could be the very same person they once knew.

"What a stupid question," Alexei scoffed, his voice sounding mocking and a bit annoyed at being interrupted. "I am who I am!"

Alexei mentally chuckled, hiding his amusement from the stunned faces of the sisters.

He focused on his new body and had to admit, it was simply magnificent! Outwardly, he had barely changed—he looked a bit younger, his skin had paled, and his moles had disappeared, but the internal changes were far more drastic.

First of all, his entire body felt completely different. If before, he had felt trapped in a cage of flesh and bone, now his mind and spirit had merged with his body. Every cell of his being was infused with mental energy, and Alexei could feel even the lightest breeze against his skin. His physical abilities had improved several times over, and that was something to be pleased about.

Secondly, he now had a core. In the beings of Equus, the mental core was located within the soul, but Alexei still didn’t have a soul. His core was deep within his mind. It was only of the first rank, but that was hardly something he could complain about. The lack of meditation techniques meant that the core would soon start showing signs of instability and might even explode, but he still had plenty of time to deal with that problem.

And thirdly… he now had a mental attribute.

"Deceit?" the thought flashed through Alexei's mind as he summoned a bit of gray smoke from his fingertip.

This attribute embodied everything related to deceit: illusions, lies, theft, and much more. The attribute suited him perfectly, but its full potential was yet to be discovered.

Suddenly, Alexei felt a surge of familiar energy and turned his gaze in that direction. His eyes widened slightly in surprise.

"The Elements are still alive?" he mused, and then felt another familiar energy. "What? When did Sombra become so weakened?"

Surprise began to turn into confusion. What had happened during his absence? Right now, Sombra was barely stronger than he was.

The alicorns, who had been watching the muttering creature intently, flinched when a bloodthirsty grin suddenly spread across its face.

Author's Note

Alexei

Chapter 28 - Alone in the Darkness

"That's definitely him," Luna sighed heavily, though there was a note of relief in her voice. "I'm sure of it."

Alexei caught bits and pieces of the alicorns' conversation, who were tensely debating whether what emerged from the mysterious hole was really him or some unknown entity that had taken over his body. Engrossed in exploring the capabilities of his new body, he let them speculate without showing the slightest interest in their arguments.

Of course, Alexei would have preferred to be considered dead, but it would have been far worse if the alicorns started seeing him as an unknown threat coming from a creature that had assumed his form.

However, he didn’t answer their questions and simply ignored them, continuing to manipulate the tentacles, testing the limits of his new body. Any explanation would only complicate the situation and arouse suspicion. He needed the alicorns to reach certain conclusions on their own.

Fortunately, the alicorns weren’t fools, and Luna, with whom he had spent considerable time, quickly realized that she was facing a human, not some sinister entity. Such parasites could take over bodies and copy the personality of the previous hosts, but they always needed time to imitate, and their body language remained unnatural.

After the metamorphosis, his body was filled with new energy, so powerful that it was literally overflowing, unable to find full application within. The excess energy slowly seeped out, like a thin mist, enveloping his figure. He urgently needed to find a way to channel this excess so as not to waste it, and growing tentacles was an excellent option.

The tentacles turned out to be incredibly useful. By directing mental energy into his internal organs, Alexei could grow them and manipulate them at will. Now, numerous thin tentacles were sprouting throughout his body. The idea was simple: just as materials are stitched together to give them shape and increase strength, Alexei was reinforcing his body from within.

He quickly realized another important advantage of his new body—the ability to "turn on" and "off" pain sensations. This discovery thrilled him. Alexei had never been a masochist, and the thought of now being able to avoid pain was exhilarating. That’s why, despite the countless tentacles piercing his flesh from within, his face remained calm and serene, almost indifferent.

Controlling the tentacles, Alexei shifted his focus to the pulsing point within his mind—his core. The core emitted a soft, soothing white-gray light that gradually condensed into a gray mist, filling his consciousness. The power hidden in this mist was almost palpable, like the air before a storm when the sky is charged with energy and tension.

"A new body, magic, and no more pain," Alexei couldn't suppress a smile as the core's energy smoothly flowed through his body. "Life is definitely getting better."

When Alexei emerged from the Depths, he was somewhat out of sorts, but with each moment, his mind grew calmer. His face took on its usual indifferent expression, but inside, he was practically glowing with happiness. This time, he had truly made a significant step toward his goal, and that brought him immeasurable satisfaction.

"So, you've turned into an abomination," Celestia's disdainful voice pulled Alexei out of his thoughts. "Just like you always dreamed, huh?"

Her words were filled with coldness and disgust, but Alexei only smirked, meeting her gaze.

"An abomination?" Alexei chuckled, a challenge flickering in his eyes. "You’ll be lost for words when I’m done."

He already had a few ideas, but there were more pressing concerns at the moment. Like killing Sombra and taking his memories.

Alexei shifted his gaze to the other alicorn, and his lips twitched slightly. Luna. She was possibly the only one genuinely happy that he was still alive, even if she tried to hide it. He knew all too well: without the bars between them, she would have already lashed out at him, unleashing all her frustration and repressed emotions. And yet, it was a bit pleasing. After all, how many beings in this world cared about his life at all?

Of course, his actions had led to this situation, but he regretted nothing. Despite all his rationality, Alexei was a fairly simple guy. He felt no regrets for one simple reason: he always listened to his heart and lived according to his true feelings. Luna might be pleasant company, but he wouldn’t hesitate to betray her if it was advantageous for him.

Sometimes Alexei felt like an outsider in this world. Yes, he truly was a stranger, but it wasn’t just about his origins; it was about his mentality. When he first arrived in Equestria and learned about all the possibilities magic offered, the fire of ambition reignited in his soul. With each passing day, this fire grew fiercer until it turned into a full-blown storm.

However, the local inhabitants turned out to be different. While there was no shortage of ambitious creatures among them, striving toward their goals, the pony society mostly resembled human society. They formed bonds, started families, and raised children.

Alexei could understand why they did this, but at the same time, he absolutely couldn’t understand them.

Friends, love, family—all of this was nothing more than privileges in a man’s life. He had a choice; he could have stayed with Imani or even with Luna. Sooner or later, Luna might have developed genuine feelings for him. But he had no qualms about discarding all these relationships like unnecessary junk.

We’re all born alone, and Alexei was never bothered by solitude—in fact, he relished it. Family? Children? They’re nothing more than instincts for reproduction and a desire to achieve symbolic immortality by passing on one’s DNA. Alexei understood why that made sense on Earth, but in a world where there was a real possibility of becoming immortal, all of that seemed cheap.

That "fairy" from the Depths mocked him, thinking he was crazy after he talked about good and evil. Sometimes he felt like everyone around him was insane. And they probably were—after all, each of us is mad in our own way; we just have different reasons.

In this world, there was no need for eternal questions like morality, ethics, or the meaning of life. In a world where one being could stand at the top of everything, the meaning of life was determined by power. If you’re weak, a random passing dragon could turn you to ash, and no one would seek justice for you.

Still, Alexei had often heard debates about right and wrong in Canterlot. It was strange to him to watch these ponies burden themselves with such pointless questions. Perhaps the ponies of the Crystal Empire also engaged in such thoughts until Sombra came along and showed them what truly mattered. Power stands above any definitions of good and evil, and these ponies realized that too late.

In a world where one being could become so powerful that rules and morals would bow before them, such things had no value. Yet, many continued to live in illusions, refusing to accept reality.

Luna had been silent all this time, as if assessing the situation from afar. Her restraint was almost palpable, like a taut string ready to snap at any moment. She didn’t even attempt to speak, perhaps due to her sister’s presence, or maybe she simply couldn’t find the words. They stared at each other for several long moments, then Alexei smirked, winked at Luna, and turned toward the exit.

His gaze slid to the floor and stopped on a charred spot. The remnants of Chrysalis’s blood served as a reminder of recent events. Before beginning the mad ritual, he had, of course, removed all unnecessary items from his insides and pushed them far from the cage. But the vial of blood hadn’t survived his crazy alchemical shenanigans and had exploded.

Alexei merely sighed inwardly. He had risked his life and made every effort to obtain that blood, but in the end, he didn’t get a chance to use it. Well, that’s just how life goes.

The blood itself no longer held much value for him, but it was still a piece of a high-ranking creature. He could drink it, but of course, he’d need to dilute it first, or it would burn through his stomach.

Now, with the stomach of one of the Depths creatures, Alexei already knew that he had become truly omnivorous. He could digest anything: from the flesh of beings to metals, transforming it into mental energy.

Of course, it wasn’t that simple. Digesting meat was much easier than metal or stone, and the process of transforming energy also required its own costs. It would be more beneficial for him to eat, say, a zebra, who had a higher concentration of mental energy from birth than a pegasus or unicorn. Even better would be to feed on creatures made mostly of mental energy, like those beings from the Depths.

Who would’ve thought that his offhand comment to that "fairy" would come true so quickly—it seemed he really would be returning to the Depths soon.

But energy was just a resource. The most important thing was to obtain the "blueprint" on which to build the foundation of his power—a meditation technique. Without clear instructions and direction, his path would eventually lead to a dead end, no matter how much energy he accumulated.

If he could get such a technique, his development would progress even faster than that of the nobles. They could spend astronomical sums on potions that sustained and restored magical energy, but Alexei’s situation was much simpler: he just needed to keep eating creatures from the Depths. The main thing now was to get a meditation technique. He’d likely have to create one himself, but there were still some hopes pinned on reference materials from Sombra.

"Wait!" came a dual voice from behind him. "What was that noise, and what happened to Ele..."

Alexei didn’t even turn around. As if he was going to satisfy their curiosity.

Approaching the corroded door, he carefully grasped the handle and slowly turned it. There were no traces of spells on the door—if there had been any, they’d vanished during his metamorphosis. He was just concerned that the door might fall apart in his hands.

The corridor of the Crystal Empire’s castle appeared before his eyes. Everything around seemed shrouded in a ghostly mist. The stone walls, usually gleaming with cleanliness, were now covered in cracks and deep scratches. Debris from columns and fragments of marble tiles lay scattered everywhere, a reminder of the recent battle. Golden chandeliers hung from the ceiling, some twisted and torn from their fixtures. The remnants of carpets, once adorned with intricate patterns, were now torn to shreds, with only a few rare pieces of fabric hinting at their former splendor.

Alexei felt the energy fluctuations coming from afar, indicating that the battle between the Elements and Sombra was in full swing. But he still had time.

They say that to achieve success, you have to work hard. Alexei always considered that a fairy tale for naive commoners. He worked to reach a minimal level of power and the ability to act more freely, but he certainly wasn’t going to limit himself to just those methods.

Why work hard when you can rob those who have what you need? True success comes not to those who just work, but to those who know how to seize opportunities.

Hidden from the alicorns’ sight, Alexei could finally focus on the main issue—his attribute. He wasn’t about to experiment with it in front of them. Even though they were behind bars, they might suspect something, even if they couldn’t sense anything specific. Why reveal his cards to them when it was better to keep them in the dark?

Concentrating, Alexei carefully released a small wisp of gray smoke from his fingertip. The smoke began to thicken, quickly taking shape, and within moments, a tiny figure of Celestia appeared on his left palm.

The small replica, surprisingly lifelike, glared at him with an expression of rage and contempt. Her long mane flowed as gracefully as the original’s, as if blown by an invisible wind, and even tiny, almost imperceptible particles of light danced in her hair. The curved eyelashes, piercing eyes, and slightly twitching wings—everything about this illusion seemed completely real.

Alexei couldn’t suppress a faint smirk. His lips twitched slightly, and with a flick of his finger, he tapped the tiny Celestia on the nose, feeling a strange sense of satisfaction. Mini-Celestia snorted angrily, her nostrils flaring, and she spread her tiny wings, hissing at him like some village goose. The comparison made Alexei chuckle quietly—too many memories from his rural childhood.

Chuckling to himself, Alexei clenched his fist, instantly dispelling the illusion. The figure vanished as if it had never existed, leaving only a faint trace of smoke that quickly dissipated in the air. He was pleased with the result.

After obtaining the attribute of deceit, his mind buzzed with ideas for new spells. The attribute was like new hands that had just been given to him.

Imagine a person born without hands who spent years studying card tricks, listening to lectures on finger dexterity. Even if given prosthetics indistinguishable from real hands, could they become a good magician? It all depended on their intelligence, perseverance, and desire to explore their new capabilities. This description perfectly fit unicorns. But those born with hands could learn tricks without lectures, just by experimenting.

And that was the essence of the attribute. Besides enhancing a specific type of magic, the deceit attribute opened new horizons for Alexei. Illusions were just one form of deceit, and he knew there were far more interesting ways to apply them. Several times, his thoughts brushed against the surface of these new possibilities, but each time, he seemed to hit an invisible wall. He had to master the basic use of the attribute and understand the true nature of deceit before attempting to use it at a more advanced level. This was the level of understanding he sought. Pegasi constantly interacted with the wind, striving to grasp its true essence. Alexei, it seemed, would have to constantly deceive everyone around him.

Amusingly, his understanding of the wind might have even surpassed that of some pegasi. Fire, earth, water, air—aren’t these the four states of matter? Alexei wasn’t sure if Earth’s knowledge applied to Equus, where elements were given mystical significance, but his scientific perspective still helped him better understand what was happening.

After conducting a few more experiments, Alexei was satisfied with the results. He could create not only visual and auditory illusions but also mimic energy. For example, he could make an opponent think he suddenly appeared behind them. These effects might seem insignificant, but combined with his attribute, they were indistinguishable from reality. Alexei immediately found hundreds of ways to use such simple illusions in both combat and various schemes.

Now, only one thing remained to be tested.

Raising his hand, Alexei began feeling the space in front of him, carefully tapping his fingers on random points as if searching for something. His face grew more focused, his features becoming sharper, and his gaze fixed on an invisible target.

Finally, after five minutes of searching, he seemed to find what he was looking for. His fingers touched something invisible but tangible. He pressed slightly on the spot, and gray smoke began to flow from his finger.

Suddenly, a crack appeared in the space. It spread slowly, like a thin layer of ice underfoot, revealing solid darkness beyond, from which a pale mist oozed. The crack was accompanied by a strange sound, both hissing and the creaking of old boards. The darkness inside seemed alive, breathing, moving, as if trying to escape. Alexei listened to the faint whisper emanating from the void, but there were no words, only a sound, like wind rushing through closed corridors.

A satisfied smile appeared on Alexei’s face. This was the source of his confidence—like any creature from the Depths, he could open a rift and return there at any moment. But unlike other inhabitants of this world, he wasn’t fully bound to the Depths. His rebirth had taken place on Equus, and he didn’t need complex rituals and sacrifices to escape those horrific places. Now Alexei could enter and leave the Depths at will, as if it were his own home. At any moment, he could open a rift and disappear, slipping away right under the noses of Sombra and the alicorns.

However, there was one problem: he had no idea where he would end up when he opened a rift. Even now, with the darkness yawning before him, he couldn’t see what lay on the other side. Alexei could only vaguely sense the immediate surroundings in the Depths, but the place was too distorted. Every time he touched a new point in space, a new layer of the Depths opened before him. During five minutes of searching, he hadn’t touched the same layer twice.

Creating a rift took only a few seconds, but finding the right spot for the transition could take much longer. And all because he felt the presence of powerful beings or hazardous environments near every point. This rule likely worked in reverse—who knows where he might end up? What if one day he appeared right in Celestia’s chambers? With his luck, that was entirely possible. Good thing alicorns’ rooms were protected by thousands of runes, or sooner or later, that could really happen.

Alexei’s face, deep in thought about the dangers of his personal teleportation analog, suddenly twitched. He quickly jumped aside, and the next moment, a tentacle covered in slick slime burst from the rift. It was as thick as his leg, dark, shiny, and reeking of foulness. The folds of its skin writhed as if alive, and bulging spots that resembled eyes appeared and disappeared on its surface.

The edges of the rift crackled, unable to contain the entire creature, but the tentacle stubbornly continued pushing through, trying to grab Alexei.

The tentacle thrashed on the floor, leaving greasy trails of slime behind. It pounded the walls furiously, trying to feel out its prey, but Alexei, staying out of the tentacle’s owner’s line of sight, was already predicting its moves.

The tentacle began slowly retracting back into the rift, realizing its prey had escaped. Alexei wasn’t about to wait for it to disappear completely. With a wave of his hand, he released a cloud of gray smoke. The rift slammed shut with a thunderous crack, slicing the tentacle in half. The remaining piece fell lifelessly to the floor, emitting a foul, suffocating stench.

Alexei frowned as he looked at the writhing stump on the ground. So, these are the first dangers...

When he opened the rift, he hadn’t sensed any threat nearby, but something on the other side had picked up on the disturbance and came to investigate. The difference in the flow of time gave the creature more than enough time to react. There was another risk too: if someone were to attack the rift at the moment he was passing through it, he could be sliced in half, just like this tentacle. Such a wound probably wouldn’t kill him in his current state, but it wouldn’t be pleasant either.

Reaching out, Alexei mentally commanded the severed tentacle to come to him. Obeying his will, it slithered towards his hand. As soon as it touched his fingers, it began to writhe, trying to coil around his body and crush his bones. But Alexei was ready. Several of his own tentacles burst from his body with a wet hiss, instantly wrapping around the aggressive appendage and holding it in place.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Alexei sank his teeth into the tentacle’s flesh, tearing off a juicy chunk. The taste was strange, barely perceptible, but definitely rich with energy.

This is what he meant by using opportunities. The food had come to him, and Alexei saw no reason to refuse such a treat.

The hall was filled with a powerful, deafening bang that echoed through the space with a wild, cracking sound. In the next moment, there was a sinister crunch of bones, and the room fell silent.

The brief quiet was shattered by a piercing scream—Pinkie Pie’s cry, sharp and shrill, tore through the silence. Shocked and in pain, she lost consciousness and collapsed to the floor, her right foreleg a bloody mess. Bones jutted out in all directions, the limb twisted and shredded as if it had been put through a meat grinder.

Why were there so few users of spatial attributes in this world? The answer lay not only in its rarity. The real reason was that such mages often died very early on. The slightest mistake in handling spatial magic could result in their bodies being torn to pieces by the spatial distortions of failed spells. The danger was too great, and many didn’t survive long enough to master this powerful yet complex attribute.

Sombra let out a cold snort and unleashed several shadow blades that viciously struck Twilight’s multi-layered shield, forcing her to raise her defenses again. Without paying attention to what was happening, he rushed to the door and sprinted down the corridor toward a specific room.

Despite his iron will, forged over a thousand years, Sombra was irritated. He had already taken five hits from the Elements of Harmony and couldn’t find enough time to recover. Some cursed artifact, which had left a mark on his soul, allowed the Elements to track his movements easily. He didn’t have enough power to remove this mark or counter its effects. This constant threat, unpredictable attacks, and the need for continuous defense had worn him down. Every time he tried to recuperate, those pesky ponies would attack him again, giving him no respite.

The Elements of Harmony couldn’t be used in combination with other spells, but these ponies had found a way, which even surprised Sombra. Perhaps it was because it was the innate magic of one of the Elements, supported by the purple unicorn, the embodiment of Magic itself.

Their strategy was simple but effective: they tracked his location using the artifact, the pink pony used her attribute, and a Harmony beam shot through a mini-portal directly at Sombra’s head, piercing any defensive spells.

While he was weakened, they would catch up and engage him in battle. It was a relentless assault, with Sombra suffering from the backlash of the ritual, which manifested at the most inconvenient moments. He couldn’t break this vicious cycle. With the defensive artifacts the Elements possessed, he couldn’t kill them, and they couldn’t kill him.

But now, he had a chance. He would have an entire hour to recover, and during that time, he planned to regain at least his fourth or fifth rank. After that, there would be nothing left of the Elements but ashes. Sombra’s eyes gleamed with cold determination as he raced down the corridor.

Fluttershy flew over to Pinkie and, ignoring the mangled limb, touched her head with a wing surrounded by green energy. With a sigh of relief, Fluttershy used another spell to stop the bleeding.

Groaning, Pinkie opened her eyes.

“What...” she mumbled in confusion, her gaze darting toward her leg, only to be blocked by the pegasus.

“It’s okay,” Fluttershy whispered, wrapping her wings around Pinkie’s head. “Don’t look.”

Pinkie blinked in confusion as the pegasus gently stroked her sweat-matted fur. She distinctly remembered something happening to her leg, but now she felt nothing… And what was that melody playing in her head?

Fluttershy glanced at Rarity, who hesitantly took a few steps toward them. The paleness of her face was evident even through her snow-white fur. If it weren’t for a few spells and calming potions, she would have fainted at the sight of the bloody mess that had once been a leg.

Gritting her teeth, Rarity lit her horn, and a multitude of blue threads swirled around her. These threads shot towards the injured leg, wrapping around it and beginning to pull tight. With a sickening crunch that made Rarity wince, they started to restore the mangled limb to a more recognizable shape. The leg, gradually returning to its original form, was encased in a cocoon, hiding everything happening inside.

Suddenly, a potion bottle surrounded by a purple aura appeared beside Fluttershy. She nodded gratefully to Twilight, who was grimacing from a headache, and quickly poured the potion into Pinkie’s mouth.

“Just lie still for a while,” Fluttershy said, gently releasing Pinkie’s head. “Your leg will be fine.”

Pinkie cast a quick glance at her leg, hidden behind the many threads, and with a groan, fell back.

Fluttershy’s gaze swept across the hall, assessing the condition of the other ponies.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack were unconscious, but their lives weren’t in danger. Twilight had a nosebleed and a few minor wounds, but she had already tended to them herself. Rarity, though unharmed, was exhausted both mentally and physically. The pegasus herself had a few minor injuries. Naturally, Sombra had targeted the team’s healer first, but her protective artifact turned out to be the strongest among those present.

Fluttershy was the first to recover from the shock. She approached Rainbow Dash and Applejack, gently placing her wings on them and infusing them with healing energy. A soft glow enveloped their bodies, gradually bringing them back to consciousness. With quiet groans, still unsure of what had happened, both ponies slowly opened their eyes. Though they still felt weak, they were ready to take action again.

Meanwhile, the others rested, regaining their strength after the brutal encounter.

There was no time to lose. Once everyone was back on their hooves, they gathered in a small circle for a quick meeting. They all understood the urgency of chasing after Sombra—every moment he used to recover could be their last chance to stop him. Their voices were tense, each pony fully aware of the critical nature of the situation.

The decision was made—to press on despite their injuries and fatigue. The time for rest was over.

Pinkie’s leg had partially healed thanks to the high-quality potions, but she could barely walk and was noticeably limping. Rarity noticed this immediately and rushed to her. Ignoring her friend’s protests, she gently lifted Pinkie with her telekinesis and placed her on her back. To her surprise, Pinkie was very light.

Despite her own exhaustion, Rarity knew that no one else could take on this task. Applejack was constantly on the front lines, protecting the others; Dash depended on her speed and agility; Fluttershy was the primary target of Sombra’s attacks; and Twilight, as their main powerhouse, was also unsuitable for this role. Rarity, despite her fears and fatigue, understood that she was the only one who could take care of her friend.

Once they were ready, Twilight once again used the artifact to locate Sombra. Alarmed by how quickly he could regain his strength, she focused, and within a few seconds, all the ponies knew which direction to go. The Elements of Harmony were still recharging, and they wouldn’t be able to use them again anytime soon. This forced them to act even faster and more decisively.

They moved through the corridors, trying to advance as quickly as possible while remaining vigilant of every corner and wall, wary of potential traps. Their steps were quiet but full of determination. The tense silence, broken only by the faint echo of their footsteps, hung in the air, and every movement was accompanied by restrained tension. The walls around them seemed too close, the darkness ominously thickening in the corners, but they pressed on, determined to finish what they had started.

Soon, they reached the door beyond which, according to the artifact's readings, Sombra's trail ended.

They exchanged quick glances, checking each other’s readiness. Everyone understood that a mistake here could cost them their lives.

After receiving confirmation of readiness from her friends, Twilight resolutely stepped toward the door and tried to open it, intending to storm inside under Applejack’s cover. But the door wouldn’t budge.

Gritting her teeth and narrowing her eyes, Twilight focused her magical power, lit up her horn, and unleashed all her might on the barrier. With a terrifying crack, the door was obliterated, and part of the wall along with it exploded into pieces. The smell of burning and hot stone instantly filled the air as chunks of the destroyed walls crumbled to the floor, turning into dust and rubble.

But Twilight only frowned—through the smoke and debris, she noticed a faintly shimmering transparent barrier behind the demolished wall. Twilight blinked in disbelief—the seemingly fragile barrier had easily blocked her full-force attack and also obscured all her senses.

Nevertheless, the barrier was transparent, and they could see everything happening inside the room.

The ponies’ eyes widened in shock—a scene of primal brutality unfolded before them.

The grand hall in the Crystal Empire’s castle was a somber reflection of its former glory, like a frozen monument from a bygone era. The dark crystal walls, once shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow, now appeared dull and lifeless. The soft light of magical candles barely touched the floor, casting long, wavering shadows. The ceiling, towering high above, seemed infinitely distant, shrouded in darkness, from which faint rustling sounds occasionally emerged, as if the castle whispered in its ancient language.

Along the walls hung old tapestries depicting scenes from the Empire’s history. One tapestry, particularly striking due to its size and vivid colors, drew attention—it depicted graceful unicorns soaring above crystal palaces. But time had not spared even this treasure: the fabric had torn in places, the golden threads had faded, and deep shadows obscured the embroidery's details, making the image ghostly and eerie.

When Sombra stormed into the hall, the heavy door slammed shut behind him with a loud echo. His horn instantly lit up with a sinister purple light, and the air grew tense. At that moment, a faint creak sounded from the center of the hall, and the entire room was enveloped by a translucent barrier, shimmering with a soft blue light.

The barrier was made of the same material as the cage that had held the alicorns—the remains of Imperfection. After creating that cage, Sombra had a small amount of this rare and dangerous substance left, and he had prudently created several such halls protected by barriers for emergencies. Although this barrier was weaker and would only last an hour, it was still capable of containing most beings, even powerful forces like the Elements of Harmony. For the next hour, nothing and no one could enter or leave the hall. This time was what Sombra needed to recover his strength, and he knew it would be enough.

Exhaling in relief, Sombra lowered himself onto the cold floor in the center of the hall, crossing his front hooves. Closing his eyes, he began to meditate, focusing on restoring his magical energy. The hall plunged into a tense silence, broken only by the barely audible whisper of the wind seeping through the narrow windows.

Suddenly, his horn flared, and several shadowy needles shot towards the old tapestry with a screech. But before they could touch the fabric, a bipedal figure emerged from behind the tapestry, with gray smoke quickly dissipating around it.

Sombra squinted instantly, his eyes flashing as he scowled at the intruder.

“You really thought I wouldn’t notice?” Sombra’s voice was cold and threatening as he scrutinized the uninvited guest.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Alexei smirked as he began slowly circling Sombra. “I’m still learning.”

They exchanged glances filled with hidden menace and tension. Sombra carefully studied the man, analyzing his every step and movement. In turn, Alexei didn’t rush to attack, as if waiting for the right moment.

Sombra, however, had no desire to fight. He was surprised that this bipedal being had survived their last encounter and even somehow managed to rise to the first rank. But all of that seemed secondary; what truly concerned him was that his peace had once again been disturbed.

Sombra had no idea why this man had come. Did he want revenge for what happened before, or did he sense an opportunity and seek to strike a deal? Last time, when scanning Alexei’s memory, Sombra had focused only on key moments, such as his arsenal of spells and combat skills, without delving into the details of his life. As a result, the man’s identity remained a mystery to him.

“I don’t know how you managed it, but you survived and are free,” Sombra finally said, his voice cautious but tinged with respect. “You truly have talent. You can leave the Crystal Empire. I won’t chase after you or make your life difficult.”

Alexei’s eyebrow arched slightly, and in the next moment, he burst into loud laughter, as if he’d heard the funniest joke in the world. Sombra frowned, looking at him in confusion.

“What’s so funny—” Sombra began, but his words were cut off as he suddenly sensed danger. His eyes widened, and his horn flared with magic.

At that moment, numerous tentacles burst from Alexei’s sides, and he lunged forward, launching a direct attack on Sombra!

As Alexei charged at Sombra, his instincts kicked in instantly. Being a spellcaster, Sombra did what any unicorn in his position would do—he attempted to widen the distance. Activating a teleportation spell immediately, he prepared to move to a safe distance, but something went wrong.

A piercing screech filled the hall as a ghostly figure of a girl appeared on Alexei’s shoulder. Sombra’s spell abruptly faltered, leaving behind a disorienting hum. In the next instant, there was a horrific sound of flesh tearing, and Alexei appeared before him, seemingly out of nowhere.

Gritting his teeth, Sombra instinctively activated a magical shield, but his effort was in vain—moments later, a powerful blow sent him flying.

Half of his shield shattered under the force. Sombra felt blood trickle from his nose, but he wasn’t seriously injured. Without wasting a second, he used teleportation again, reappearing on the other side of the hall.

Sombra’s horn constantly flickered—he had quickly learned his lesson and wasn’t going to let the human disrupt his spells so easily again.

Suddenly, Sombra's horn sparked with energy, and a black-and-white sphere appeared in the center of the hall, which instantly exploded with a brilliant light, consuming everything around it. The light was blinding, like a small sun being born and dying in the blink of an eye.

Blinking, Alexei tried to regain his vision, and when his eyes finally adjusted to the brightness, he was surprised to find that the hall had completely transformed. Instead of the familiar interior of the Crystal Empire, he was now in a completely white space. In this silent hall, dozens of shadowy figures of Sombra wandered aimlessly, moving slowly as if they were trapped in a dream.

Alexei froze, not rushing into action, while his eyes carefully studied each figure. He tuned into his senses, trying to catch even the slightest hint of the real Sombra’s presence.

Suddenly, he lunged at one of the shadows, stabbing its head with his tentacles. The shadow instantly solidified, turning into the real Sombra, but only for a moment—then it shattered into pieces and vanished. A new shadowy figure immediately appeared behind him, replacing the fallen one.

Alexei frowned—he didn’t feel any difference.

He had an attribute of deceit that should have allowed him to easily distinguish illusions from reality, but now it was useless. When he had stabbed the shadow with his tentacles, it had felt like real flesh, but from the start, it was just a fake. His senses told him that all the shadows, despite their illusory nature, were real. Alexei had no idea whether Sombra was hiding among the shadows or somewhere else, but one thing was clear: Sombra had no intention of fighting—he was just hiding, calmly regaining his strength.

Alexei's face grew more intense with each passing moment. He scanned the surroundings with mental energy multiple times but still couldn’t locate the real Sombra. The hall seemed empty, yet at the same time filled with countless shadows, any of which could be either an enemy or just another deception.

So he stood there in the middle of the hall, with the figure of a ghostly girl hovering behind him, her misty outlines blending with the surrounding light. Sombra tried to fool him, constantly flashing his horn, but Alexei did the same, not in a hurry to dismiss the ghostly figure and constantly threatening a mental attack. Both had been trying to deceive each other from the very beginning of the battle.

“I can’t unravel this spell,” Alexei sighed mentally, ceasing his scanning.

It was an extremely complex spell with multiple effects, all within a low-level first-rank spell. Sombra truly lived up to his reputation. But even if Alexei couldn’t unravel the spell, he still had options.

The many tentacles growing from his sides began to intertwine and merge, forming four larger, more powerful appendages.

Suddenly, he began striking the floor with the tentacles, sending waves of mental energy in all directions, resonating with each other. At first, the tremors were barely noticeable, but with each new wave, they intensified, becoming more and more palpable.

The shadows, restlessly wandering through the hall, began to ripple and distort, like reflections on the surface of a pond after a stone is thrown into it. Suddenly, several of Alexei's thin tentacles ignited with a crimson light, and like snakes, they darted to a single point in the center of the hall.

The tentacles were part of his body, his limbs, and he could use them as a resource for blood magic spells. Technically, they were also his internal organs, but he didn’t have the appropriate spell.

As soon as the tentacles reached their target, a powerful explosion followed, illuminating the hall with a rich red light. The flash consumed everything around it, and Sombra's spell collapsed, revealing the familiar interior of the hall. In the center, barely standing, was Sombra, weakened by the backlash of his shattered spell.

Alexei immediately located Sombra and dashed toward him, propelling himself forward with a sharp strike of his tentacles against the ground, like a massive whip.

Despite his weakness, Sombra responded instantly with a barrage of shadowy beams. Alexei twisted in midair, dodging most of the attacks, but a few beams still hit their mark, leaving several holes in his body and tentacles. The ghostly figure of the girl accompanying him was completely obliterated by this barrage, her form dissipating like smoke under the blows of magic.

Sombra’s horn flared again, preparing to teleport, when Alexei opened his mouth and let out a wild, unnatural screech. The sound was not of this world, piercing, like the scream of a thousand dying souls, and it instantly disrupted Sombra’s spell, plunging his mind into chaos and pain.

When Alexei first discovered this ability of his body, he had only mentally rolled his eyes. Barely receiving a spell in Canterlot that became the second mental attack in his arsenal, now he had a third. Another similar attack seemed excessive to him, but now it played to his advantage. He had deliberately let the ghostly figure take the beams, knowing that Sombra wouldn’t expect it. Alexei had also suffered from the backlash of the shattered spell, but it was still worth it.

Sombra staggered as the mental attack struck his mind like a hammer shattering fragile glass.

The next second, he heard the sickening crunch of tearing flesh, and his instincts screamed danger. He tried to cast a spell, but it was already too late.

Alexei was already upon him. One of his tentacles suddenly unraveled into a mesh of flesh that fused with his right arm. The mesh of thin tentacles wrapped around his arm, tightened, and there was a gruesome tearing sound.

In the next instant, Alexei put all his strength into one devastating punch.

A burst of blood and chunks of flesh painted the hall’s walls and floor in crimson. Bones shattered and flew in all directions like shards of glass, and in the next moment, Sombra’s lifeless body collapsed to the floor. The upper half of his body was completely destroyed.

Alexei's arm hung limp, like a whip, all the muscles torn to shreds from the monstrous strain, but it concerned him little at the moment. Numerous tentacles rushed toward Sombra's remains, intending to rip out his soul, but they were too late. A shadowy figure shot out from the corpse and immediately dissolved into the air.

Alexei immediately began scanning the hall, trying to locate Sombra's soul. But it was nowhere to be found.

Suddenly, a soul-chilling scream of a foal echoed through the air. Alexei quickly turned around and saw a small, round pool on the floor, emanating thick shadows, with something furiously stirring in its depths.

Alexei's tentacles instantly ignited with crimson light and struck at the pool, attempting to destroy it. There was a powerful explosion, deafening and bright, like a star’s flare, but the shadowy pool only flickered and reappeared in another part of the hall.

Alexei let out a cold snort, realizing that he wouldn’t be able to interrupt the resurrection process. All he could do was watch as everything unfolded before his eyes.

Grabbing Sombra’s corpse with his tentacles, he began ravenously devouring it, absorbing the energy with every cell of his body. The tentacles writhed like hungry snakes, tearing into the flesh, all while he kept his eyes fixed on the seething shadow pool.

Within less than a minute, the pool's surface began to bubble, the shadows stirred, and slowly, Sombra rose from it. The unicorn was now at the second rank.

Author's Note

Rarity

Alexei watches as Sombra is resurrected

Chapter 29 - The King is dead

Author's Note

Dear readers,

I understand that my break has lasted longer than I initially planned, and I want to apologize to you for that. I had promised to resolve my issues sooner, but unfortunately, the circumstances turned out to be more complicated than I expected, leading to a slight delay.

Life sometimes throws unexpected challenges our way, and the past few months have been exactly that for me. But despite all the difficulties, I’m happy to announce that I’ve finally returned to working on the story. I’ve truly missed your enthusiasm and discussions, and I hope you will continue to follow my creative process just as actively as before.

I have some good news for the future. I plan not only to release new chapters regularly, but also to change their format. Instead of longer chapters that were released less frequently, they will now be shorter, allowing for much more frequent updates. This way, we’ll have more reasons to connect and discuss the story on a regular basis!

I’m very grateful for your patience and support. I value each and every one of you and your comments—it’s your engagement that inspires me to keep working on the story.

In the near future, I’ll have a few surprises for those who want to dive deeper into the world of the story. Stay tuned—I promise there’s a lot of exciting things ahead!

Thank you for sticking with me. I’m full of energy and enthusiasm to continue, and I believe our journey together will only become more thrilling.

With best wishes,
Serene Wish

Chapter 29 - The King is dead

Sombra’s hoof slammed into Alexei’s chest with relentless force. A loud crack echoed, like the snapping of dry branches under monstrous pressure, as his ribs shattered. The air seemed to freeze for a moment, and then Alexei, like a ragdoll, was hurled into the air.

His body crashed against the hall’s wall, adorned with black crystals that splintered and scattered in all directions. The shards hung in the air, filling it with thick, black dust, resembling dense fog. The dust quickly swirled around the impact site, concealing the man’s body behind a thick curtain of darkness.

Wasting no time, Sombra’s horn flared with dark light. In the next instant, several shadowy beams shot from its tip, tearing through the air and striking where Alexei had disappeared. Each beam was accompanied by an explosion that reverberated through the hall, shaking the space around them. But Sombra couldn’t tell if his attack had hit its mark—part of his attention was diverted to a much more pressing problem.

A severed tentacle was protruding from a wound in Sombra’s side—a grotesque mass that began disintegrating into numerous tiny larvae. These vile creatures quickly burrowed into Sombra’s flesh, consuming not just his body, but also his magical energy. They multiplied at an alarming rate, and if he didn’t act immediately, his body would soon be drained and weakened to a dangerous degree.

Gritting his teeth, Sombra tore the remaining piece of tentacle from the wound. His horn flared again, and in the next second, his body became ethereal, cloaked in a shimmering shadow. But to his surprise, the larvae that had fed on his flesh were recognized by the spell as part of him, becoming incorporeal along with him. A flash of astonishment crossed his eyes for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure.

Sombra’s horn glowed again, and he cast a new spell. A low hum filled the air, and short bursts of energy radiated from the unicorn’s body, warping the space around him. Moments later, deformed corpses of the larvae fell from his body—burnt by the magical energy, they dropped to the ground like charred embers, having once posed a threat to his existence.

Sombra exhaled in relief. The crisis had been averted. His rank reduction had sharply limited the spells available to him, restricting him to first- and second-tier magic. How long had it been since he had first begun his path in magic? Over fifteen hundred years ago, he had used these spells regularly. Now, despite his vast experience, he could barely remember most of them. But his preparation for situations like this had not failed him.

A sudden impact shattered the silence. Sombra instantly teleported to the side, and right where he had stood a second earlier, a figure streaked by with a wild shriek. The unicorn turned his head and saw a man abruptly halt at the far end of the hall.

“He’s sped up again,” Sombra noted, casting a glance at the figure of Alexei, who had come to a stop on the opposite side of the hall.

The relaxed expression was gone from his face. This battle was starkly different from his past encounters with the Elements. Despite their power, those ponies wanted to win. What a naive desire. This being, Alexei, was different. Every movement he made, every strike, every feint or false emotion on his face—it all had one goal: to kill. Sombra understood that he couldn’t afford a moment of relaxation.

They had been fighting for over half an hour, and with each passing minute, Alexei’s control over his mutated body only grew. His speed had now reached an unimaginable level. But there was always a price to pay—Sombra could see the pinkish sweat streaming down the man’s body. Even from this distance, he could hear the wild rhythm of Alexei’s heart, beating so fiercely that it seemed on the verge of bursting. His pulse was approaching three hundred beats per minute—Alexei was going all in, squeezing the last drops of strength from his body, disregarding the devastating consequences.

Sombra knew that time was running out. The barrier would soon fall, and he would be able to teleport out of the hall. This man, clearly aware of that, was trying to end the fight while he still had a chance.

Yet, Sombra was far from pleased with how the battle was going. While Alexei could no longer inflict serious damage on him, Sombra also couldn’t find a way to kill or trap the man.

Increasing the rank of one’s magical core enhanced not only magical abilities but also physical endurance, strength, senses, cognitive speed, and even lifespan—the entire body underwent qualitative changes under the influence of magical energy. The inhabitants of Equestria who had chosen the alternative path were deprived of all this—mental energy only enhanced the two organs it directly interacted with: the soul and the brain.

Alexei, having traded his humanity for power, enjoyed the benefits of both paths: like the creatures from the Depths, every cell in his body was filled with mental energy. His cognitive speed not only matched but surpassed that of Sombra, who had fallen to the second rank.

The situation had reached an impasse, and now it was a matter of endurance. If Sombra held out until the barrier dropped—he would win. If not... Resurrection spells could be considered divine miracles, but all of them required preparation and had their limitations—you couldn’t pre-cast a hundred spells and enjoy endless resurrection. Sombra had already used two of his prepared methods. Once after the ritual’s failure, and the second time—in this very hall. He had one last resurrection method left, but...

The third resurrection spell, his final secret card, was quite peculiar. It would activate automatically after his death, its effect was powerful, and most importantly, incredibly subtle, but the situation wasn’t ideal for it. Ideally, he would have preferred to be killed by alicorns or that purple unicorn, not this man.

And so, a wet slap marked the start of a new attack. Alexei, propelled by his tentacles, charged at Sombra. The unicorn snapped his neck, tracing a blinding arc with his horn. In the next moment, all the shadows in the hall trembled and, like a predator, leaped from the walls, swiftly engulfing them both in impenetrable darkness, like prey caught in the fangs of the night.

The darkness abruptly lifted, revealing the hall where the unicorn and the man still stood. But something had changed: the space around them seemed to stretch, and the distance between Sombra and Alexei rapidly increased. Even the air between them seemed to elongate, as if reality itself was toying with their perception.

Alexei froze for a moment, his gaze warily scanning the hall like a trapped animal. He surveyed his surroundings, expecting a trick, and soon glanced behind him: a thick, impenetrable darkness was swiftly closing in on him. It moved as relentlessly as a raging storm, ready to swallow everything in its path.

Grimacing in frustration, Alexei bolted forward again, his body blurring with speed. But no matter how fast he moved or how hard he pushed himself, the distance between him and Sombra kept growing. The space continued to warp, as if it were a living entity, preventing him from reaching his target.

Sombra exhaled in satisfaction as he watched. He knew Alexei had no long-range attacks—his blood magic only worked at close or mid-range. The spell Sombra had cast might not kill the human, but it gave him the much-needed reprieve. Now, he had time to recover his strength.

During his long years of study, he had learned from changelings and mastered their abilities. Love wasn’t his source of sustenance, but he could absorb and convert negative emotions into magical energy.

Earlier, Sombra had invaded Alexei’s mind, destroyed his nightmare, and trapped him in a cage. The man might try to hide his feelings behind a stony face, but Sombra was certain there was plenty for him to feed on.

Dark shadows, tinged with green and purple light, flickered around Sombra’s eyes. He cast a spell that allowed him to see his opponent’s emotional aura. Now, he could choose what to consume. Expecting a surge of fear, anger, or hatred, he prepared to devour a torrent of negative emotions.

But in the next moment, his eyes widened in shock at what he saw. Alexei’s aura was glowing with just three colors: a soft golden light surrounded him, pierced by flashes of bright white, while a dense, dark-red mist swirled around.

Sombra blinked, thinking it was a mistake in the spell, but nothing changed. The golden light signified inner peace and tranquility, the white was joy and happiness, and the dark-red mist was the lust for blood and battle. This man not only harbored no ill will toward Sombra—he was literally radiating happiness, with only the battle lust tainting his aura in dangerous red. Without that, Sombra might’ve thought his spell was broken.

The shock quickly turned into seriousness. Sombra could be fierce and ruthless, but he was also rational. Rational beings feared the reckless, and the reckless feared those who didn’t care about their own lives. Even though Sombra was stronger and his rank higher, he felt an unease creeping in. This was the kind of madman who didn’t care if he lived or died. Was there anything this lunatic wouldn’t do?

“Stalling for time is no longer an option—I need to regain control,” Sombra thought, keeping a close eye on the approaching figure. “Who knows what he’ll try next? This method, though…”

Sombra had one way to fully heal, a spell that could even restore his magical energy. But it required precise use, and Sombra had hoped to save it for later. Now, however, the circumstances had changed dramatically—there was no more time to delay.

The space around them suddenly trembled, signaling the end of the spell. In the next instant, Alexei was already in front of Sombra. His fist shot forward, poised to strike, while tendrils erupting from his sides aimed for the unicorn’s eyes. But Sombra’s silhouette blurred and vanished, reappearing a few meters to the side, once again evading the attack.

Alexei spun sharply, using his tendrils for balance, and charged at him again. This time, Sombra engaged in close combat. He couldn’t teleport anymore—his energy was nearly drained.

Alexei lunged at Sombra, unleashing a flurry of quick, brutal strikes. His fist connected with Sombra’s side just as one of the tendrils snaked toward the unicorn’s throat. But Sombra reacted in time, deflecting the attack, his horn flaring as he parried the tendril with a magical burst.

Alexei didn’t let up. He attacked with elbows, knees, targeting vulnerable spots with ruthless precision. His tendrils writhed, trying to ensnare Sombra, while his arms and legs struck with deadly accuracy. One of his hits landed on Sombra’s leg joint, sending a sharp pain through the unicorn’s body. Alexei immediately followed up with an attempt to strike Sombra’s ribs, while his tendrils lunged toward his head. Sombra blocked both attacks but could already feel exhaustion tightening its grip on his movements.

Sombra’s horn suddenly flared, emitting a powerful aura as it encased him in a sturdy magical shield. Alexei roared in fury, slamming two tendrils against the shield with a dull, resounding thud that made it hum with tension like a bell, but the magical defense held strong. The shield, crackling with energy, continued to withstand the relentless assault.

“Good, I’ve prepared the spell,” Sombra thought with satisfaction, watching as the man pounded against the shield as though trying to break through an iron wall. “I just need to wait for the right moment.”

The unicorn hadn’t created this shield to hide behind and catch his breath. He needed time to prepare a complex spell, requiring complete focus. Its effect was incredibly powerful but had one crucial detail: it had to be timed to the exact second. The spell required five seconds to activate, and its trigger had to perfectly coincide with the moment of Alexei’s killing blow.

“I’ll make it seem like the shield has broken and re-engage in combat while retreating,” Sombra calculated, plotting his opponent’s next moves. “He’ll attack with a series of strikes to knock the wind out of me, then follow with a feint to the head, before going for the heart. If he changes the plan, I’ll just let myself get hit.”

Sombra was sure the final blow would target his heart. Though outwardly focused on the cracks forming on the surface of the shield, he saw everything. One of the tendrils protruding from Alexei’s lower back was gathering energy at its tip. Based on its position and length, Sombra could tell without a doubt that Alexei intended to distract him with a head strike. At the moment Sombra reacted to defend or dodge, the tendril would strike from behind, aiming for his heart.

"Let's begin," Sombra thought resolutely, as the shield shattered into pieces, forcing the unicorn back into close combat.

Alexei immediately attacked with a lightning-fast series of blows, just as Sombra had expected.

"Five... four... three... two... two... one!" Sombra dodged the strike aimed at his head, and the spell flared up inside him, ready to be activated. "Now!"

In that instant, Alexei's tentacle shot forward, just as Sombra had predicted, aiming directly at his heart.

With a sharp whistle, the tentacle plunged into Sombra’s side, piercing his heart. Pain exploded within his body like a searing blade cutting through his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs.

For a moment, everything froze inside him, only for the pain to return tenfold. The tentacle instantly splintered into dozens of thin tendrils, which, like predatory snakes, rushed inside, shredding his heart to pieces. A moment later, a powerful hand grabbed his horn and broke it off with a violent snap. The sharp, ripping pain coursed through Sombra's entire body, making him jerk and cough up blood. Red streaks remained on his lips, but even through the agony, his expression stayed satisfied. Everything was going according to plan...

"...What?"

Sombra's pupils suddenly widened in shock as he felt his own spell strike his internal organs. The energy he had so carefully controlled was now out of his grasp. The spell had failed!

Out of the corner of his eye, Sombra noticed a tiny larva crawling out from his cheek, disintegrating into gray smoke almost instantly. His gaze wavered, his mind filling with questions.

Hadn't he eradicated all of those larvae? Where had this one come from? What had it done? Was it an illusion?

Alexei had often been caught in Sombra’s illusions before, only to break free each time through sheer brute force. He had never been able to distinguish reality from fiction, wandering blind. Sombra had always believed that in illusions, he was in control. If this was indeed illusion, what had it accomplished?

Sombra’s gaze wavered again as realization dawned on him. The countdown... He had counted "two" twice! That thing had tampered with his mind and distorted his perception. The growing unease and discomfort that had haunted him since the beginning... Could it be?

Sombra looked up and locked eyes with Alexei’s cold, indifferent stare. A faint, barely noticeable smile played on Alexei's lips—the smile of someone who had gotten exactly what they wanted. Throughout the entire battle, Alexei had never once used his attribute of deceit. He had endured all of Sombra’s attacks, moving through the illusions, patiently laying the groundwork for this one moment.

"Wai—" Sombra began, but couldn’t finish.

The tentacles cracked and squelched as they tore into his body, ripping him apart. One by one, they shredded flesh, muscle, and bone, until finally, Sombra’s body burst into pieces. Chunks of his flesh, splattered with blood and bits of skin and organs, scattered across the floor. It was over.

From the ruined remains of Sombra’s body, a dark sphere emerged, composed of many layers of black, each darker than the last. Like a shadow, it tried to flee, but was immediately ensnared by Alexei's tentacle, from which gray smoke poured. The tentacle unfurled, and from its depths, dozens of thin tendrils emerged, latching onto Sombra's soul like predators seizing their prey.

A fierce struggle for control began.

The black sphere thrashed like a wild animal, clawing at reality, twisting and writhing in an attempt to escape. But the grip of Alexei's tentacles, which had seized it, slowly but surely tightened. Alexei held it in an iron grasp, increasing his pressure with each passing moment. The battle raged on for long seconds, but gradually, it became clear—the sphere was losing.

Just as the outcome seemed inevitable, a sharp crack sounded. Fractures began to spread across Sombra’s soul, emitting a blinding light that pierced the space around them. Alexei's gaze instantly shifted—Sombra was trying to detonate his soul!

Without hesitation, Alexei grabbed the soul with his bare hands and closed his eyes, concentrating. Gray smoke surged into the soul through the cracks. This wasn’t the first time Alexei had faced something like this—in the Everfree Forest, some of his subjects had tried to destroy their souls in a similar fashion. Back then, he had relied on alchemy and Saada's help to stop them, but now, it wasn’t necessary.

Alexei's fingers trembled, but with quick, precise movements, he touched the cracking soul here and there, as if soothing it. The blinding light began to dim, while the gray smoke sealed the fractures. The solution was temporary, but that was all he needed.

At last, the soul seemed to stabilize.

"Wait," came Sombra’s urgent voice inside Alexei’s mind. "I know you don't hold a grudge against me. So why this hostility? Our goals align. As long as the Tree exists, you can forget your dream. And without my help, you won’t defeat it. Why not work together?"

"It’s possible," Alexei responded thoughtfully, still struggling for control over the unicorn’s soul. "But only on one condition."

Why had Sombra tried to destroy his soul before offering to cooperate? Did he find the idea of submission so repulsive? Or was there something more? Alexei could sense the scent of conspiracy. His mind was fully focused on gaining control over Sombra's soul.

"What condition?" Sombra snapped, still fiercely resisting.

The soul trembled in Alexei's hands like a wild beast caught in a cage. The unicorn could sense his end drawing near, but he wasn’t going down without a fight.

“Collaboration is only possible if both sides are equals,” Alexei replied, as one thin tentacle began to slowly envelop itself in gray smoke. “And I am stronger than you.”

At that moment, as if sensing the reaction, the tentacle struck, piercing one of the most vulnerable points in Sombra’s soul. The soul shuddered for a brief moment, and then... it quietly submitted. The final barrier fell, leaving Alexei in full control.

“Well said,” Sombra chuckled, though his voice was growing weaker, fainter, as if dissolving into the endless shadows. “But can you face the consequences?”

His final words echoed in the void before fading away entirely, and at last, the voice was gone. Sombra’s soul now lay in Alexei’s hands, no longer resisting. It was as if it had been burned out from within, drained of its former power, and Sombra was dead.

"These unicorns and their mysteries..." Alexei thought with mild irritation as he looked at the pale, fragile essence before him.

The soul grew weaker with each passing second, as if on the verge of falling apart, but Alexei wasn’t in a rush. He knew better than to hurry.

After carefully inspecting it, he concluded that Sombra’s soul was fine—there were no traps.

After countless resurrections, Sombra’s soul had been significantly weakened, and if there had been any problems, Alexei would’ve noticed with his current level of power. Besides, the unicorn had followed a path of magical energy, otherwise, Alexei wouldn’t have even considered such a bold act as consuming Sombra’s soul.

Of course, there could always be hidden dangers, but there was nothing to be done about that. If he let every potential risk stop him, he would still be stuck back in that tribe.

He squeezed the soul, opened his mouth, and swallowed it whole in one swift motion. Everything Sombra knew would now become his memories once the soul was fully digested.

Finished with that, Alexei glanced briefly at his trembling hand, then slowly bent down and picked up Sombra’s broken horn—it was somewhat interesting.

Wincing from dizziness, he scanned the room for Sombra’s remains, thinking that a quick snack wouldn’t be a bad idea. His energy was nearly depleted, and he was barely standing.

Suddenly, something caught his attention. His head snapped toward the far end of the hall. Six figures emerged from the shattered wall, illuminated by a bright, blinding white light. It was the six mares—the Elements of Harmony.

It seemed that while he was inspecting the soul, the barrier had already fallen, and they had arrived.

Alexei met them with an empty, indifferent gaze, briefly noticing the conflicted expressions on Applejack’s and Fluttershy’s faces. It looked like they didn’t quite approve of this situation. He tried to take a step toward the exit, but his legs cramped, and he nearly collapsed. Sombra’s soul had just begun to digest, and his own strength was running out.

Suddenly, from the center of the Elements of Harmony, a bright beam of light, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow, shot forward. It aimed straight at Alexei, illuminating the dark hall in an instant.

Chapter 30 - Long live the King!

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Chapter 31 - Huge benefits

Alexei slowly walked down the corridor, leaning against the wall. His jaws worked tensely, tearing through raw flesh. Tough tendons and fibers resisted, and the raw meat, thick and dense, carried the metallic taste of blood, unpleasantly sticking to his teeth. It was the taste of life, but at the same time—of death. It was far from a delicacy. The fur, still covering the chunk, clogged his throat, triggering coughing fits, but Alexei only clenched his teeth harder. He needed to regain his strength as quickly as possible.

However, despite everything, the power of his jaws amazed him. He knew he had grown stronger, but the feeling of how easily he tore through flesh and shattered bones into fragments was truly surprising. His own body was becoming something far more than he had ever imagined.

Alexei no longer feared the pursuit of the Elements of Harmony. Not at all. He had mentioned the whereabouts of the alicorns not just to attract Twilight’s attention, and certainly not because he was a good guy. He wanted the Elements to stay in one place, not running around the castle looking for the princesses. They would soon find the alicorns, and that meant they’d stay with them. The barrier in the room had already withstood an attack from the Elements of Harmony, and the cage holding the princesses would certainly hold up as well.

And even if the princesses explained to the Elements that Alexei had tricked them, they wouldn’t pursue him. Both Twilight and the princesses would understand—by that time, he would have recovered, and chasing him would be far too dangerous for the Elements.

The six mares, especially Twilight, still posed a threat to him. But Alexei knew that now, if necessary, he could escape. He just didn’t want to waste his time on them. And if he killed or ate them, Celestia would be so offended that she might even forget about Chrysalis for a while.

Besides, there was no point in it. He wouldn’t gain anything significant by eating them. Sure, it would speed up the restoration of his strength, but his energy was already recovering on its own, albeit slowly.

He had already learned from his experience with Sombra that consuming local beings was extremely inefficient. The losses in converting magical energy into mental energy were enormous. Even in Sombra's liver, which contained about ten units of energy, after digestion, he only received two. The rest was lost in the conversion or simply wasted. It was far more economical to feed on zebras, and even better—on their souls. But, of course, nothing could compare to the creatures from the Depths.

“Actually...” Alexei mused, swallowing another piece of meat. Interesting ideas were already forming in his mind. “I could use Twilight and turn her against Celestia.”

But he quickly shook his head and dismissed those thoughts. Now was not the right time for such considerations.

Above all, Alexei always prepared for the worst. This habit had saved him many times. Even now, he reflected on Sombra's death.

Was he really dead? Alexei had killed him with his own hands, consumed his soul, and was now finishing off his leg. And yet... it seemed too easy.

He had expected a much more difficult battle, thought he’d have to team up with the Elements to defeat Sombra. Sombra certainly should have had some tricks up his sleeve. Why had Sombra been running around the castle from them at all? If he couldn’t win, why didn’t he just teleport far away? Was he too weak for such magic, or was the problem in the miasma?

And was the unicorn he killed really Sombra? Even Alexei could erase someone's memories and implant his own, creating something like a clone that would believe it was the original. Sombra was certainly capable of much more. And these memories left behind... Alexei felt something was off. Hundreds of questions and theories filled his mind, but there was no proof.

Finally, he asked himself one simple question: “What’s the worst-case scenario?” The answer was obvious: Sombra was alive and wanted revenge, and Discord decided to support him.

What could Alexei do in that case? Nothing. If Discord decided to find him—there would be no hiding place in the world. Perhaps the Depths could serve as a temporary refuge, but Alexei couldn’t stay there forever due to the risk of being assimilated. His only hope was that Discord was still asleep and that Sombra had more important matters than taking revenge on an insignificant ant like him.

Alexei often thought about the abilities of beings like Discord. But maybe he was overestimating them. He really didn’t know what they were capable of. The fact that he had removed all his blood and bits of flesh from the room should have made it difficult for anyone to track him down. Without a sample of his blood or energy, could even Discord scan the entire planet to find him?

Of course, the alicorns might still have samples of his blood from when he was in the dungeon, but they were now useless. Alexei was no longer the person to whom that blood had belonged. Those remnants of his former body had become trash, useless for any magical ritual or spell to locate him.

And Sombra’s memories didn’t reveal much. All Alexei had learned was that Sombra was of the seventh rank, like the alicorns. The limit of this world seemed to be the sixth rank, and Sombra, along with the alicorns, had become exceptions, anomalies that broke through that limit. But despite that, they too had stopped. There was no further path.

Sombra’s memories had given him something more interesting than just information about his rank. According to calculations, in ten years, "that thing" inside the Tree of Harmony would awaken and consume most of the living beings in this world. And if Discord had cooperated with Sombra, it meant he too shared the concern about this threat. So, there was a high probability that it wasn’t just Sombra’s delusion.

Nevertheless, knowing that in some time a primordial monster capable of destroying the entire world would awaken was oddly calming. At least if Sombra was alive and Discord shared his concerns, they were unlikely to have time to worry about a human who, in the grand scheme of things, was just an insignificant ant to them.

“But why did he leave me these memories?” Alexei sighed, stopping in the middle of the empty corridor. “If he saw me as his successor, he would have passed on everything to make my task easier. What am I missing?”

He had a dozen theories spinning in his head, ranging from the idea that Sombra was playing mind games with him to musings on the metaphysics of the Tree of Harmony. He was wandering in the dark, clinging to theories and guesses without the slightest confidence in his reasoning.

Lost in these thoughts, Alexei finally approached the massive doors behind which lay one of the most secret places of the Crystal Empire.

He stood before the majestic gates, carved from dark crystal, towering like guardians of secrets. The doors were adorned with intricate patterns, each curve of which glowed faintly with a soft blue light. Rows of runes covered the surface of the doors, their meaning and origin lost in antiquity.

Alexei noticed familiar protective symbols—standard for such vaults: humidity control, shielding from foreign energy radiation, magical sterilization. But surprisingly, there were no offensive or identification runes that he had expected to see on such an important object.

Skeptically eyeing the doors, he looked at the gnawed hoof of Sombra, which he still held in his hand—perfect for a makeshift probe. Carefully touching the doors with it, he felt nothing—no reaction. Then he pressed harder. Suddenly, the massive doors creaked open. Cold air rushed into the corridor, brushing against his face, but fortunately, nothing more sinister happened.

Beyond the doors lay a spacious hall, more like an ancient library or laboratory. Tall bookshelves lined both sides, filled with neatly arranged books, some of which seemed incredibly old. Laboratory tables were cluttered with various artifacts, magical instruments, and mysterious crystals emitting a faint glow.

Surveying the corridor, Alexei spotted a stone statue of a unicorn on a pedestal.

Without much hesitation, he lifted it off the stand and smashed it to the floor with force. The powerful impact of his tentacle shattered the statue into pieces, and without wasting time, Alexei began tossing the fragments into the room. The shards clattered loudly on the stone floor, but nothing happened. Not the slightest sign of a trap.

His caution, however, was bordering on paranoia. It was too easy. Alexei didn’t trust this place. He was aware that Sombra had spent fifteen hundred years here in solitude, so maybe there hadn’t been a need for traps. Still, the lack of security measures gave him an uneasy feeling.

To make sure, Alexei detached one of his tentacles, filled it with some gray smoke, and tossed it into the room. The tentacle landed softly on the floor and began slowly crawling, exploring every corner, every object.

Alexei stood patiently, tuning into his sensations. He let the tentacle crawl around the room for about ten minutes, carefully watching its every movement. Better to be overly cautious than a little dead.

But as before, nothing happened.

Alexei chewed on his lip thoughtfully, weighing his doubts, and took a step forward. Silence still reigned. Slowly, step by step, he approached the nearest table, ready to leap back at the slightest hint of danger.

Reaching the table, he gently tapped his finger on the surface, and the sound echoed through the empty room, but nothing happened. Alexei picked up a random flask, twisting it in his hands, confirming that everything was in order. Finally, he sighed with relief.

Retrieving his tentacle, which was still gliding across the floor in search of possible traps, Alexei cast a fresh glance around the room.

Now, his focus shifted from threats to treasures. He carefully scanned the room, searching for anything of value. Of course, the most valuable items were undoubtedly the collection of books, lining the walls in majestic shelves.

He immediately headed toward them, pulling out a random book. The cover had no title, just a bunch of incomprehensible symbols. The texture of the cover felt like skin—unusually dense and cold.

Flipping through the pages, Alexei smiled, but not just because the text was in a language he understood—Equestrian.

“Demonology,” he muttered thoughtfully, placing the book back. He had a very good feeling about the contents of these books.

However, despite the allure of the knowledge within the books, Alexei decided to examine the laboratory first. Too many unknowns remained. He couldn’t take all these shelves with him, which pained him greatly.

There was still hope: perhaps the treasury ahead would contain a spatial artifact. If, of course, it wasn’t protected either.

His gaze landed on the experiment tables. Rows of cages, their bars stained with dried blood, caught his attention. Only three cages.

Alexei understood that Sombra hadn’t kept all his specimens here—this was a workspace, a place for experiments, not for housing live creatures.

Wandering around the laboratory, Alexei found nothing remarkable. The tables were piled with all sorts of magical instruments, dried fragments, crystals, and shards. All of these things might have had value, but compared to the books, they seemed like junk to Alexei.

Just as he was about to return to the bookshelves, he suddenly noticed a modest table in the corner. The table didn’t stand out, but the papers on it made Alexei step closer.

On the table lay a pile of handwritten notes, and atop them sat an old, worn bronze chalice.

“Sombra’s experiment records,” Alexei realized, stepping closer.

He quickly skimmed through the pages and reached for the chalice to move it aside. The moment his fingers touched the metal, his pupils dilated.

In an instant, he jumped back, crashing into the bookshelf behind him, sending it toppling down in a heavy avalanche. But that didn’t concern him. Alexei’s gaze remained locked on the chalice sitting on the table.

Outwardly, it appeared to be an ordinary chalice, but it radiated a powerful energy reaction that Alexei hadn’t felt earlier, despite continuously scanning every object in the laboratory.

Licking his dry lips, Alexei finally relaxed and slowly approached the chalice, picking it up once more. This time, he deliberately infused it with a bit of his mental energy. His gaze flickered when he realized he was holding a spatial artifact.

“No way…” Alexei muttered, hardly believing his luck. “Did I just hit the jackpot?”

But the next moment made his heart race even faster. His pupils dilated so much it seemed they swallowed his irises. The space inside the chalice was enormous—so vast that Alexei could barely comprehend it.

He saw a spherical space before him, filled with daylight, towering over a hundred meters high and nearly two kilometers in diameter.

Inside the chalice was an entire park, seemingly designed for leisurely strolls: soft grass covered the ground, and narrow paths wound among the flowers. There were several tables neatly arranged with magical instruments. But the most striking sight for Alexei were the three small trees, as black as night.

His gaze wavered. He instantly understood what they were. These were saplings of the same black tree that Sombra had cultivated. Apparently, Sombra had prudently taken a few branches and planted them here, in this spatial sanctuary.

Alexei grabbed a random book from the shelf, letting his fingers glide over its ancient, worn cover. Then, focusing, he had the book absorbed by the chalice until it disappeared completely. Peeking inside, Alexei confirmed that the book was intact—it lay undisturbed inside the artifact. With a mere thought, he summoned it back, and the book leaped from the chalice.

Thoughtfully gazing at the chalice, Alexei replayed in his mind the fact that as soon as he touched the object, the artifact recognized him as its new owner. This was yet another confirmation that the chalice’s previous owner, Sombra, was truly and permanently dead.

Sighing, Alexei quickly pushed these thoughts aside, unwilling to dwell on theories. Time was pressing—the alicorn cage could only hold for an unknown amount of time. Sombra’s memories didn’t even hint at how long that magical prison could last.

Determined to make full use of the chalice, Alexei conducted a few quick experiments. He placed and retrieved items of various sizes, manipulating the chalice to test its capabilities. The results came swiftly: not only was the artifact spacious, but it was also self-sustaining. The chalice had its own power source—Alexei only expended energy to interact with it, while the process of moving objects was powered by the artifact itself. The chalice’s magic slowly but steadily regenerated, drawing energy from the surrounding world. Additionally, the chalice could be controlled—its size and shape could be altered. However, this didn’t affect its capacity: even when reduced to the size of an egg, the chalice could absorb any item Alexei offered it.

Immediately shrinking the chalice to a miniature size, Alexei stashed away Sombra’s horn and hoof, then surveyed the laboratory with a predatory glint in his eyes. It was time for his favorite activity—looting.

Twenty minutes later, Alexei was exiting the laboratory, utterly pleased with himself.

Nothing remained inside—he had cleaned it out down to the last crystal. He’d even taken the magical lanterns off the walls, not to mention the alchemical tools and the massive cauldron he had initially ignored because of its bulk. Now everything was in the chalice.

Alexei couldn’t suppress a satisfied smile, feeling that life was truly wonderful.

With the chalice in hand, he rushed down the corridors toward the treasury. His heart was racing, not from fear but from anticipation.

Finally, massive doors appeared before him, similar to those guarding the laboratory. Wasting no time, Alexei repeated the same procedure—examining the doors, assessing the magical runes, and once again using the gnawed hoof to open them. The doors swung open before him, releasing a rush of cold air.

But when he stepped inside, instead of treasures and artifacts, he was met with… disappointment.

A pile of gold coins lay on the floor, along with a handful of magical crystals and a few bottles of alchemical ingredients. That was it.

Sure, one could say that such a pile of gold made him wealthy, but in this world, gold wasn’t particularly valuable. Moreover, the coins were stamped with the crest of the Crystal Empire—they couldn’t be used as currency. Essentially, it was nothing more than useless junk that even the black tree hadn’t bothered to consume.

Alexei mentally sighed, though his face remained calm. At another time, he might have called Sombra a pauper, but right now, he was too satisfied with the chalice to be upset by an empty treasury.

Picking up a few coins, he tossed them into the chalice, watching as they disappeared.

“Even if there’s plenty of space inside the chalice, there’s one problem,” Alexei thought, looking over the pile of gold before him.

The chalice could certainly store multiple items at once, but it wasn’t some kind of black hole. It created only a temporary spatial passage that could pull in any object it touched. This meant that to haul away the entire pile of gold, Alexei would have to “vacuum” it up with the chalice, touching the coins bit by bit. The task would take hours, and Alexei saw no point in it. He took a few coins out of curiosity and, without a second thought, turned away from the meaningless heap of gold.

He already knew where all the artifacts and most of the magical crystals had gone. Sombra had used them as fertilizer for his black tree. That plant was as omnivorous as Alexei himself now, devouring any source of power. Yet, despite understanding this harsh truth, Alexei still clung to the hope that something valuable had survived.

Unfortunately, those hopes crumbled one by one as he surveyed the nearly empty treasury.

Alexei began inspecting every corner of the vault, searching for anything Sombra might have overlooked or intentionally hidden.

His frustration grew with each new empty spot, but suddenly, in the farthest corner, tangled in cobwebs, he felt a faint magical pulse. Pausing, Alexei tuned into his senses, carefully reached out, and, brushing away the spiders, pulled out a small artifact.

It was an odd item—a small piece of fine mesh, adorned with tiny crimson beads.

Alexei examined the find closely and realized it was a low-level artifact. He had a vague idea of its purpose but was sure it couldn’t harm him. With slight hesitation, Alexei activated the artifact, and it flared with a bright light, instantly merging with his left forearm, leaving behind a tattoo in the shape of the same mesh.

Cautiously activating the tattoo, Alexei felt it absorb a small amount of his blood, and suddenly, invisible threads swirled around him. The next second, they collapsed to the ground, losing their form.

Alexei blinked, stunned, and then finally understood what the artifact did. Closing his eyes, he visualized a specific outfit and reactivated the mesh. This time, the threads whirled around him, quickly merging into clothing. In a moment, Alexei stood dressed in simple black pants and a T-shirt. Even light cloth shoes with firm soles appeared on his feet.

“Interesting,” Alexei muttered, examining his new outfit. “When was the last time I wore clothes?”

Judging by the blood-activated mechanism and its tattoo form, the artifact was clearly of zebra origin. Still, Alexei had no idea why zebras would need a quick-change outfit. They probably used such things for their ritual dances or other mysterious ceremonies.

"In any case, more junk," he thought with a smirk, resuming his search.

Now that he had a spatial artifact, all the necessary clothing could be stored in the chalice. The mesh was convenient, but he doubted he’d be wearing clothes anytime soon. Most of the time, he’d likely be in the form of the locals, who used a simple spell to conceal all intimate parts of their body—a life magic, as they called it. They could say whatever they wanted, but Alexei believed it was blood magic. The spell consumed a bit of the user’s stamina along with magical energy, and even non-unicorns could cast it. What else could it be if not blood magic?

But even if it was blood magic, no one would publicly admit it—the spell was just too useful.

For a moment, he grimaced, recalling how much of a headache that spell had caused him. Alexei couldn’t use it due to the magical energy requirement, so he had to completely rework his transformation potion recipe, or else the locals would have found him strange. On top of that, he had to create a potion from scratch to temporarily remove the concealment effect.

After thoroughly searching the treasury, Alexei found nothing else of value—except for one thing. In the far corner lay his old bag—the very one Sombra had taken from him long ago. Alexei picked it up, checked the contents, and was relieved to find everything, including the vial of tree sap, still intact. The bag even contained the mind-protecting artifact he had taken from Twilight. Alexei immediately discarded it without even touching it: the artifact bore Celestia’s magic, and continuing to carry it around would be asking for trouble.

Quickly gathering the remaining magical crystals and stashing them in the chalice, Alexei pondered his next move. Should he continue searching the castle?

Shaking his head, Alexei decided not to take the risk. He had already collected everything of value to him and didn’t want to waste time on scraps. But there was one last thing he wanted to retrieve.

Navigating the endless corridors of the castle, Alexei sprinted outside. His footsteps echoed in the silence of the empty halls, and the air felt thick with staleness and fatigue.

Finally, he burst outside and abruptly stopped, looking around. The miasma that had once been thick and nearly tangible had begun to dissipate. The clear sky was becoming more visible, which could only mean one thing—Equestrian forces would soon arrive.

“Time’s running out,” Alexei thought as he dashed toward the clearing where he had last seen the black tree.

His run was swift, almost instinctive—only a few crystal ponies crossed his path. Their eyes, wide with fear, darted away at the mere sight of Alexei, and they fled, desperately trying to avoid him. However, there were no problems—Alexei bore no hostility toward them. His focus was entirely elsewhere.

But when he reached the clearing, his face darkened. Instead of the tree, he was met with an empty crater in the ground.

Author's Note

“Demonology,” he muttered thoughtfully, placing the book back. He had a very good feeling about the contents of these books.

Chapter 32 - Woe from wit

"So, it really has been destroyed," muttered Alexei, casting a glance over the empty crater where the tree once stood. "I should get back to searching for the vault."

Scratching his head, he turned and headed thoughtfully back toward the castle. After walking a few steps, Alexei suddenly nodded, as if he had made a decision, and quickened his pace, breaking into a run.

His face remained calm, but inside, Alexei was tense, alert to every sensation. A thought pulsed in his mind like a warning signal: “Who took the tree?” He was sure it had survived the ritual. “Is Discord already here? Is Sombra still alive? Or is it a third party? Griffons?”

Aside from Equestria, the griffons were the closest to the Crystal Empire, so their interference was quite possible. The miasma had almost completely dispersed, and now, with minimal protection, one could enter this place without much trouble. But what worried him most was the thought that whoever took the tree might be watching him right now.

Rushing into the castle, Alexei navigated by memory to a room with magically reinforced walls—likely a place for important guests in the past. He slipped inside and shut the door behind him. The room went silent, the only sound a faint echo of his footsteps disturbing the stillness.

Without wasting time, Alexei began quickly tapping the air in front of him. Each touch sent faint, transparent ripples, as if an invisible surface under his fingers were liquid. Unfortunately, his luck seemed to have run out—each layer of the Depths he touched was unsuitable for crossing.

Alexei continued his attempts methodically, creating waves in the space each time. But with each try, he either sensed the presence of dangerous creatures near a potential passage or found that the environment on the other side was too extreme. Still, he didn’t stop and kept searching.

After forty minutes of relentless effort, Alexei finally sensed he had found a suitable spot. Fixing his finger in place, he released gray smoke and pressed against the invisible boundary. A soft crackle sounded, and a rift opened in front of him, yawning with familiar darkness. Alexei exhaled in relief—finding it had taken so long that he had nearly exhausted his energy.

Suddenly, a magical pulse surged through the castle, and the air trembled under its pressure—the alicorns, it seemed, were not in a good mood. The rift quivered, its edges distorting as if about to collapse.

Alexei’s gaze wavered. Without hesitation, he sacrificed his tendrils, turning them into gray smoke that rushed toward the rift, stabilizing it. The pressure in the air gradually lessened, and Alexei managed to keep the rift from closing. Pressing his bleeding nose, he quickly scanned the room to ensure he left no trace. Then, without hesitation, he jumped into the rift. It was time to say goodbye to the Crystal Empire.

In the next instant, Alexei dropped from a five-meter height onto soft ground, covered in silky grass and scattered with flowers of every color in the rainbow. Unfortunately, he couldn’t enjoy their scent—his nose was full of blood. Spitting out bits of grass and dirt, he slowly got up, squinted, and looked around.

An endless sea of green stretched around him. The landscape seemed perfect, but the lack of any creatures unsettled Alexei. He would have preferred a scene of utter chaos: a bloody battlefield, a fight for survival. But here—silence, which could mean only one thing…

“Something here ate everything,” thought Alexei, carefully surveying the surroundings.

The vast, open plain stretched for miles, with no visible threat in sight. But that didn’t calm him—his encounter with that tiny “fairy” that devoured monsters the size of thirty-story buildings was still fresh in his mind.

With a sigh, Alexei lay down on the soft grass and closed his eyes. His body slowly began to recover, and his mind to relax. Even if a hungry monster roamed this world, Alexei couldn’t move on just yet. His energy was nearly drained, and he could feel the overload setting in. His core was unstable, and without meditation techniques to support it, it could explode at any moment. Facing either a local monster or the explosion of his own core—neither outcome would be survivable.

Lying on the soft grass, Alexei could feel the energy of the Depths slowly but steadily seeping into his body, striving to assimilate his being.

Judging its effects, Alexei roughly estimated he could last here about four days. If he didn’t leave by then, the Depths would bind him to themselves, and escaping would become extremely difficult. Like the local creatures, he would need outside help from the beings of Equus—rituals, sacrifices, and other complex procedures to return to the world. And considering that almost no one knew of his existence, there was little hope for summoning rituals.

The thought of being summoned as a sort of demon brought a smirk to Alexei’s face. With each passing second, he felt himself drifting further from his former human life.

“Speaking of which,” he suddenly thought, “What if I were summoned? Then I could choose my entry point instead of randomly popping up.”

All he had to do was create a cult, gather followers, and develop the proper rituals. With a sigh, Alexei returned to resting.

After lying for about an hour, he felt his strength gradually returning, filling every cell of his body. His mind cleared, and taking a deep breath, he stood up, ready to open another rift. He didn’t want to stay here a moment longer.

Focusing intently on the space around him, he sought the right point, catching the faintest tremors of Depth energy. This time, it took him only about fifteen minutes to find it. The rift opened softly and with little resistance, and Alexei promptly slipped into it, leaving the Depths behind.

The rift closed silently as if it had never been there, and only a light breeze stirred the tall grass, covering the recent traces of his presence. Everything returned to silence, with only the soft rustling of the grass breaking this illusion of peace.

A few minutes later, near the spot where Alexei was resting, a muffled snort was followed by a piercing, disgruntled screech that echoed across the entire layer.

Alexei, having emerged from the rift, stood on the edge of a sand dune overlooking an endless ocean of sand. The desert stretched to the horizon, with only sparse dunes breaking up the monotony of the landscape. The dry air was thick with warmth, promising a hot day.

Alexei glanced up at the morning sun, steadily rising above the horizon, and quickly put two and two together. It was already evening in the Crystal Empire—meaning he was on the Western continent.

He couldn’t help but marvel at this ability—teleporting over such vast distances with minimal energy cost! Although, of course, it wasn’t true teleportation. He was simply using the Depths as a shortcut between two points in space. The only issue was that he never knew exactly where he would end up. He could only vaguely sense the general features of the surroundings. It was risky, but at this moment, he felt almost content.

Standing atop the dune, Alexei noticed a herd of strange creatures moving slowly along the sandy hills in the distance. They resembled gazelles or antelopes, but with long, curved horns that shimmered with a faint silvery light. Their bodies glistened with green and blue hues, as if covered in scales, and instead of hooves, they seemed to tread on wide paws with soft pads. Long tails trailed behind them like silken ribbons, and a powerful aura radiated from their majestic movements.

Even from here, Alexei could sense that each of these creatures was at the third rank or higher. This herd could easily dispatch him, a weakened Sombra, or even the Elements if they found themselves here.

Fortunately, they were moving in the opposite direction, and Alexei watched this stunning sight with interest.

Suddenly, a giant sandworm burst from the sand near the herd, emitting an oppressive aura as it effortlessly swallowed two of the gazelle-like creatures. Blood sprayed into the air along with pieces of flesh, staining the yellow sands a vivid red. The worm appeared to have not only excellent camouflage but also powerful, saw-like teeth that tore through its prey in an instant.

At the sight, the remaining gazelle-like creatures immediately scattered, their sleek bodies maintaining grace as they seemed to dissolve into the sea of sand. The worm lazily but swiftly dove back into the sand, dragging its massive body behind.

Everything fell silent, as if nothing had happened. Alexei, frowning slightly, looked down at his feet.

Just in case, he scanned the area with his senses, cautiously extending a thin tendril and sinking it into the sand.

A few moments later, he pulled out a small scorpion. It wriggled, trying to sting the tendril, but Alexei held it firmly, watching as it flailed its legs and curved its sharp stinger toward him.

Now it was time for the final test he hadn’t yet had a chance to perform.

Taking out a chalice, Alexei placed the scorpion inside and began observing. The small creature scurried around in confusion. Alexei waited a few minutes and, satisfied that the chalice’s interior was suitable for living creatures, retrieved the scorpion.

Afterward, he ate his catch, dug a small pit nearby, and placed the chalice inside, carefully burying it beneath a layer of loose sand. Once he finished, he stepped inside the spatial artifact.

Standing on the path, Alexei looked around at the chalice’s inner world with interest. The landscape was modest, if not monotonous: grass everywhere, three black trees, and a few simple tables. In a distant corner lay all the loot he had managed to gather in the Crystal Empire, though even that treasure paled compared to the chalice itself. Only books containing ancient knowledge and forbidden spells could rival it in value.

“Isn’t this perfect?” Alexei said with a smile, spreading his arms as if to embrace the scene before him. “This isn’t just a spatial artifact. This thing could completely change my life!”

Even in him, always calm and rational, a nagging thought began to grow—could this good fortune be the harbinger of something terrible? But even this thought couldn’t spoil his mood.

The ability to house living creatures here changed everything for him. While in the Depths, he existed in a parallel world, almost undetectable among millions of layers. And within the chalice, he was in an isolated space, detached from Equus, with the chalice itself possessing concealing properties—he wouldn’t have realized it was an artifact until he touched it.

If Alexei continued moving between the Depths and the chalice, wouldn’t he become nearly undetectable?

There was only one moment when he could be found: upon returning to Equus. But if he was careful, it should go smoothly. Of course, there was always the chance that things wouldn’t go as planned.

Unable to wait any longer, Alexei plunged into the pile of books, eagerly scanning their contents for anything that might give him even the slightest clue on topics of interest.

Soon, a stack of selected books began to grow beside him, their titles speaking for themselves. He picked one up with particular interest: a massive tome with a scratched cover titled Dark Magic and Advanced Techniques of Meditative Fusion.

Without delay, Alexei lay on the ground and immersed himself in the text from the very first word.

There were books on mental meditation techniques, whereas dark magic was entirely unsuitable for him. However, he decided to start with indirect methods—none of the techniques in these books would suit him anyway. But the knowledge might prove useful, even if only for basic comparisons.

He read with a speed that his former self would have found incredible: page after page flicked by, and the rustle of paper filled the air. It only took him a few seconds per page, and if not for the help of telekinesis, he might have torn the book apart in his impatience.

After twenty minutes, Alexei closed the book and relaxed, closing his eyes to focus on the new information. With his body filled with mental energy, his mind had become sharper than ever. Even his memory had improved—now he could retrieve any detail he had ever known.

Meditation techniques in the magical world were divided into two main types: external and internal. It all depended on the sources of power the mage tapped into while practicing.

For example, dark magic was closely tied to emotions, and many of its techniques required the mage to manipulate these emotions for success. Some of the methods Alexei found in the book could be considered rather disturbing.

One of the most powerful techniques described in this book required the following: to begin using this technique, one first had to make someone fall in love with them, then convince the victim that their family and friends had betrayed them. Any method could be used, but one could not control the target's mind directly. By fostering despair and hatred in the victim, they were to be driven to the point where they would eliminate those they once loved with their own hands. Following this, the victim would receive a final betrayal—a knife in the back from the one they considered everything in their life—and their emotions would be carefully gathered. Only then could one proudly call themselves a dark mage.

This meditation technique required the emotions of others and thus fell into the "external" category.

Both external and internal techniques had their advantages and disadvantages: external techniques allowed for rapid development but depended on specific resources—certain emotions, conditions, rare materials, or energies that weren’t always easy to obtain.

Internal techniques, by contrast, developed slowly but steadily; the result depended entirely on personal effort and persistence, allowing the mage to progress without relying on circumstances.

He delved into the books, one after another, studying theories of meditation related to dark magic, blood magic, universal unicorn magic, and mental magic.

Why were meditation techniques so closely tied to specific schools of magic and elements? The answer was simple: each technique was specifically adapted to its magical direction, strengthening the particular energy it was associated with.

Of course, there were also neutral or basic techniques designed purely for core stabilization without enhancing energy or gaining special abilities. For example, his recent trick with the energy rings stabilizing the nightmare could be considered a basic technique.

However, choosing the right technique was a step toward power. Pegasi, for example, who used wind magic, would prefer a technique related to wind to further enhance their abilities.

It was certainly possible to study magic accessible to all creatures, such as mental, dark, necromancy, or blood magic. But why learn blood magic and memorize spells if nature had granted a talent for wind control, allowing one to intuitively use elemental magic? Developing one’s innate power had always been more appealing.

Among all the magical races, perhaps only zebras were an exception—they had no specific attribute like unicorns but possessed natural sensitivity to all energies. Among them were a diverse mix of mages practicing all kinds of magic available to all races.

In a book on mental magic, Alexei stumbled upon one high-level technique that he found particularly intriguing. It developed the mage’s evil thoughts, and although it didn’t require external sources, it altered the practitioner’s personality.

The technique provided the ability to penetrate others' thoughts, feel their emotions, and improve the quality of mental energy, allowing for influence over minds and even objects. The prospects were tempting, but the price—distorting his own personality—dampened his enthusiasm.

Besides, Alexei had no intention of using it anyway: possessing the attribute of deceit, he knew he needed a technique capable of fully unlocking his potential, and he wouldn’t settle for less. He just found this technique somewhat interesting.

Since he didn’t find anything similar in the books, he would have to create his own technique, carefully studying the philosophy and principles of existing practices.

Pondering this, Alexei wondered: what is deceit? What did he want to put into his technique? The obvious path lay through an external technique dependent on deceiving others, but this idea didn’t sit right with him. The speed of such a path could be illusory, and relying on others seemed like a weakness. So, what would be the essence of his technique?

His thoughts were interrupted by a sharp pain in his temples, as if something had squeezed his head in a vise. Alexei grimaced, set the book aside, and lay down directly on the grass, closing his eyes. He hadn’t had a chance to rest, yet he was already absorbing information in massive amounts—and now here was the result.

The best way to recover now was obvious—sleep. Luna certainly wouldn’t rush into the Dream Realm immediately after breaking free, which gave him a sense of security. With his mental abilities, falling asleep was effortless, and all his dreams were now lucid. In a moment, he was already drifting off, sinking smoothly into the dark void where his mind would restore itself, traveling through absolute darkness.

Meanwhile, beyond his senses, in the depths of the dream, a figure of a gray unicorn appeared. His red eyes watched Alexei intently as thin threads began to appear around him, slowly and inexorably connecting the unicorn to his surroundings.

He lowered his gaze to his hoof, where the knots and streams of energy extended from him to the surrounding space. The unicorn could only sigh mentally: this was why he had wanted to be "killed" by the alicorns or Twilight—the third resurrection method had its own peculiarities.

Darkness enveloped the Realm of Shadow, transforming it into an eerie reflection of the deepest, unseen fears. Between thin flickers of ghostly light, barely penetrating the dense gloom, shadowy figures emerged, wavering as if they were living beings, born from the very ground, reaching out for any glimpse of light only to vanish back into the black depths. This world existed in the space between waking and dreaming, like shadows that dwell between light and darkness. Everything here felt fragile, as if one careless move could disrupt the balance and trap one forever in its darkness.

In the center of a forest clearing, surrounded by thick, oppressive silence, stood a massive black tree. Its twisted branches reached toward the sky like giant claws, eager to grasp anything that entered their shadow.

Around its roots lay the bodies of crystal ponies—thousands of lifeless forms, arranged in an unnatural order. The air was heavy with the scent of blood, thick and metallic, disturbingly strong yet somehow enticing, drawing more ponies to the tree, their eyes empty and glassy. Silently, as if in a trance, they bent toward its roots, twisting their necks before falling, adding to the bloody carpet surrounding the tree.

Stepping back a few paces, a white unicorn looked over his creation with satisfaction. The dark cracks in the tree's bark had already begun to heal, and its dry flesh was slowly reviving, filling with new sap. Its roots stirred, writhing like living serpents as they pierced the remains of the ponies, feeding on their essence. With each new body, the tree grew stronger, and with it, the unicorn’s power increased.

Sombra felt almost fond toward this tree—for, after all, it had been his refuge, his second mother, for the past thousand years. Not to mention its importance to the grand plan. What were the lives of these ponies if the sacrifice of just a few tens of thousands could be the key to greatness? Only a handful of them had returned to Equus—in the Realm of Shadow, millions remained.

With a flick of his horn, Sombra summoned a soft armchair from the void, resembling a thick cushion, and settled into it, observing the endless procession of ponies heading toward the tree. He had much to ponder.

It all began one thousand and seventy years ago, when his experiments with the tree first began to bear fruit. Back then, he left his old body behind and, implanting a shard of his soul with altered memories into it, merged with the tree, starting a long process of metamorphosis.

Since then, he had grown in this body, nourished by the energies of ancient roots, while his clone wandered, believing himself to be the real Sombra. And now, the whole world thought he was dead, while his plan entered its decisive phase.

The clone had lived, thinking himself to be Sombra, even conversing with the tree, believing it was gaining consciousness. Little did he know that he was, in fact, speaking to his creator, who had fused with the wood’s flesh. The clone thought the main goal of the ritual was to weaken the Tree of Harmony, but that was only a secondary task—a trial before the grand design.

"As if it were that simple," Sombra sighed, realizing that the Tree of Harmony, the guardian of Equus created by powerful entities, was nearly invulnerable.

Its power extended across all of Equus, like magic itself, bestowing life and fate on all living things. To challenge the Tree of Harmony was akin to fighting the very source of his existence, like a river trying to flow against its source. A single blow from the Tree would be enough to end Sombra’s existence.

But he already had a plan to avoid such a fate. Sombra knew how to temporarily weaken the Tree to create an opening for himself. He had spent a thousand years merging with the tree, absorbing its strength to create his opportunity when the time came.

This tree was connected to the one who had grown it, so Sombra allowed this being—a human—to take the saplings, even leaving him some useful items. All for the sake of an experiment.

Was this human truly a creature from another universe? What would happen if he grew his own tree? Could it surpass what Sombra had created? Despite his strength, even after absorbing a fraction of the Tree of Harmony’s authority, Sombra didn’t know if his plan would work. So he certainly wouldn’t refuse a backup option.

There were other candidates, like the creatures from the Depths, but… they were too difficult to control, and mind control left magical traces, rendering the experiment pointless.

As for controlling this human, Sombra was not concerned in the least: his clone had an excellent resurrection method, triggered by his killer—the Imperfection ability from which his horn had been crafted. The moment the human killed the clone, his fate was sealed. Even the mighty alicorns and the Elements of Harmony were powerless against the shield crafted from the remains of such a being, so what could a mere human do? Inevitably, he would grow the saplings and fulfill his role, and afterward, he wouldn’t even notice that his body no longer belonged to him.

But there was one thought Sombra couldn’t shake. His clone believed the ritual had ended in total failure, but that wasn’t true. Still, at the end, strange disturbances had indeed arisen. Could he have miscalculated somewhere? Or perhaps…

“Did Discord betray me?” Sombra murmured thoughtfully, opening his eyes. “No, he couldn’t have. Unless… that’s not Discord anymore.”

Chapter 33 - Meditating with spiders

Luna stood over Sombra's remains, gazing at his agony-distorted features, though her gaze seemed to pass right through him, wandering somewhere far back in the past. She didn’t see the blood on her hooves, nor noticed the faint glimmers of fading magic around her. Her thoughts, like a gust of wind, raced toward old memories that made her heart stir—not with a chill of fear but with a warm, almost forgotten sense of peace. In that fleeting moment, everything became clear: the battle was over, but her true struggle had always been with herself.

“It’s good that you killed him,” she murmured, slowly pulling herself away from her thoughts. Her voice sounded detached, as if the words were coming from somewhere deep in her subconscious. “Because I might not have been able to. Not the old me.”

She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with cool air, feeling for the first time in a long time a lightness in her chest, unburdened by inner weight. She felt free, not only from the cage Sombra had built but also from the invisible chains that had bound her mind.

A bright ray seemed to pierce the darkness of her mind, and now she knew the answer to a question she hadn’t even asked herself. She found it in the eyes of a human, the one who had looked at her through those bars, in their brief silence, in that moment when the world seemed to dissolve. In those moments, she understood everything she needed to, and that realization became her new air, her new freedom.

Now, reflecting, Luna realized that all these years, she had been chasing illusions: the approval of ponies, the acceptance of her sister, her futile attempts to prove something to the world that had seemed so important. The craving for acceptance and fear of loneliness. And then there came one who truly understood her. The human. He saw her true self, peering into the dark corners of her soul, places she herself feared to recall. But he did not judge. He did not reject. He, so much like her, gazed into the depths of her being and stayed. And only when she thought she had found a kindred soul, he left.

Luna couldn’t understand this. Was he not lonely? Was he not seeking the same understanding? He sought eternity, but did he realize how lifeless it was, how full of solitude and regrets? And only now, standing alone among the ruins, Luna understood: she could never fully understand him, just as he couldn’t fully understand her. Every mind is inherently doomed to loneliness. Just as when they had silently watched each other through the bars—so close yet so far.

Now, she no longer needed the ponies' approval, nor their understanding. All the questions she had wanted to ask the human faded on their own. Their encounter, strange and brief, was but an echo of an eternal truth: each of them was merely a fleeting passerby in the other’s life.

Instead of bitterness and sadness, Luna felt a lightness, as if a great weight had fallen to the ground. Now she knew what to do. Now she was truly free.

But this moment was interrupted by a sudden burst of bright flame. Out of the fire stepped Celestia, her gaze fierce, and Luna was brought back to reality.

“The Tree is gone, the Crystal Heart too,” Celestia growled, her footsteps echoing through the hall. “That... that damnable fucking human has vanished too!”

An almost imperceptible smirk played across Luna’s lips as she averted her gaze.

“Why are you smirking?” Celestia seemed, for a moment, to be at a loss for words in her indignation. “That slippery bastard took everything, including Sombra’s memory! Do you understand what this means? Problems! And… weren’t you the one who wanted to capture him the most?”

“Was I?” Luna laughed, her laugh ringing out through the hall like a light breeze, breaking free after long years of confinement. “Was it something like that?”

Celestia looked at her with grim suspicion, studying her sister as if trying to decipher what was on her mind. But Luna only smiled back slightly, relaxed and at peace.

Celestia could only leave it at that, knowing her sister's nature.

“It doesn’t matter,” Celestia finally shook her head as if shaking off something from her shoulders. “The military will handle the rest. We can return to Canterlot and continue the search for Cadence. Problems keep piling up…”

A hint of guilt flickered in her eyes. She knew she should have been by Luna's side after her return, that her sister was her first priority, but the endless concerns for Equestria’s safety and for those she cared about consumed her time. She couldn’t ignore Equestria, the kingdom they had built together, nor forget Cadence, whom she had raised like a daughter.

Of course, if forced to choose, she would choose Luna, but each new threat required priorities, no matter what she felt. Sometimes it seemed the best decision would be to sever all ties, leave all affairs behind, and perhaps venture on a distant journey with Luna. After all, she hadn’t left the Central Continent in a thousand years… But Celestia understood these dreams would never come to pass. Everything she had created and loved bound her here with unbreakable ties.

In the midst of these thoughts, Luna unexpectedly extended her wings and softly embraced her sister, pressing her forehead to hers.

“It’s alright,” Luna whispered, her voice soft as a lullaby but filled with strength. “We’ll get through this together. Come on, let’s find the Elements and get out of here.”

Luna turned and, playfully tickling Celestia’s nose with her wing, caused an unexpected sneeze. Celestia frowned for a moment, then snorted, smiling, and followed after Luna.

Gathering the Elements, the alicorns ignited their horns, and in the next second, the entire group appeared outside the Crystal Empire.

A unicorn in light armor immediately approached, reporting on the current situation. While Celestia listened to his words, officers of the command gathered around her, each bringing urgent news. The Elements were promptly sent for medical examination to ensure no possible traces of corruption remained.

Finding out what had happened in their absence, Celestia began issuing clear instructions. Luna only half-listened to her, watching the Crystal Empire slowly freeing itself from the miasma. There was still much to be done—soldiers needed to clear the area of monsters, restore order, and capture the maddened crystal ponies. Perhaps they could still be saved.

The sisters observed the officers rushing back and forth, gathering their units and preparing them to return to the Empire. Here, at the very edge, there was a sense of tension and vigilance. The fog of unease hadn’t fully lifted, and every soldier felt as though they were stepping onto a newly charted path.

“Huh?” Luna suddenly pricked up her ears, turning eastward. “Someone’s approaching.”

Celestia followed her gaze, squinting into the distance. At first, there were only vague dots against the sky, but with each passing second, they grew closer and more distinct.

As the distance closed, it became clear they were griffons, flying in a streamlined formation, with one figure standing out at the front—a figure Celestia recognized instantly. Her expression hardened, her gaze turning icy.

Almost simultaneously, both alicorns felt a rhythmic trembling beneath them. In the distance, massive figures began to appear on the horizon.

Minotaurs, mounted on giant lizards, thundered towards them, leaving a rumbling wake as the ground shook from their approach, a sign that this meeting would be more than mere words.

The griffons landed a respectful distance away, close enough for their presence to be felt like a weight in the air. They numbered in the thousands—a restless sea of talons and feathers, their wings slightly flared, standing in silent, threatening stillness. Like a watchful predator, they waited, exuding a proud, almost tangible readiness.

One of the griffons stepped forward from the crowd, flanked by two larger guards, striding confidently toward the alicorns.

“Do you know him?” Luna whispered, watching as the approaching griffon kept his eyes fixed on Celestia.

“Jarl Einarr of the Stormwing Clan,” Celestia replied curtly, pursing her lips. “A battle-crazed maniac, sly as a fox, and… one of the chief contenders for the throne.”

Luna recalled that the title of “jarl” in griffon hierarchy was roughly equivalent to that of a duke. She shifted her gaze to Einarr, studying him closely.

The griffon’s appearance was rugged and intimidating—a warrior to his core, more resembling a mercenary than a would-be ruler. His dark feathers had a faint silver sheen, like metal tempered by fire, and his beak and eyes held a sharp, predatory glint, typical of those who lived on the edge of life and death. His powerful sixth-rank aura was almost palpable—he didn’t hide it; he displayed it, warning everyone around him of his might.

Celestia gave a barely noticeable signal to the troops. She and Luna moved toward the approaching griffons, accompanied by a unicorn commander, whose presence lent an air of formality to the encounter.

Both sides met on neutral ground, between two armies that were ready to charge at any moment.

“Princess Celestia, Princess Luna,” Einarr greeted them with cold politeness, inclining his head slightly. “I trust you’re well? A pleasure to see you.”

“Jarl Einarr,” Celestia replied with a strained smile, her gaze assessing. “I didn’t expect to find you here. I thought your internal affairs would keep you entirely occupied…”

The two griffons behind Einarr frowned. They were well aware that Equestria was not above meddling in others’ conflicts, especially civil wars, and such remarks felt like a provocation. Especially considering that Equestria was already intervening in their war.

“You mean the assassins you keep sending my way, Princess Celestia?” Einarr smirked, lowering his voice to a nearly friendly tone. “Thanks to you, I’m always in top form. How could I not appear here, knowing you’re here too? And with such an occasion—the return of the Crystal Empire…”

“Are you accusing me of something, Jarl Einarr?” Celestia narrowed her eyes, keeping her composure. “That’s a serious claim. Do you have proof?”

“I merely mentioned it in passing,” the griffon chuckled, his laughter mocking. “Don’t take everything so personally, Princess.”

Meanwhile, the minotaur detachment arrived among the griffons, seamlessly joining their ranks. The towering figures of the heavily armed minotaurs on their giant lizards added a massive, grim presence to the scene. The hooves and claws of the beasts sank into the ground, the vibrations of their movement palpable even at a considerable distance. Now, the armies had merged into one formidable mass, standing menacingly opposite the forces of Equestria.

“Well, Jarl,” Celestia said, shifting her gaze to Einarr, barely concealing the chill in her eyes. “Might I know the purpose of your visit? The Crystal Empire is a vassal of Equestria. I would ask that you withdraw your forces.”

“Vassal?” Einarr scratched his neck mockingly, as though sincerely trying to remember. “I don’t recall that being formalized. As for our purpose… How do you say it in Equestria? We simply came… to claim our piece of the cake.”

Celestia’s brow furrowed, and her gaze instantly grew heavier. She understood not to take his words as a simple joke.

“Vassal or not—it matters to no one,” Einarr drawled lazily, though a bloodthirsty gleam flashed in his eyes. “Everyone knows that, in the end, only one thing matters. So why not settle this between us?”

He grinned predatorily, and the two griffons, sensing the mood, began to cautiously step back.

“Jarl Einarr,” Celestia said softly, forcing a taut smile. “It seems you’re not quite…”

She paused, catching a scent—a metallic hint of ozone, as if a storm had just passed. Electric sparks flickered over the griffon’s body, and the unicorn commander nearby felt his armor begin to pull toward Einarr as though he were a living magnet.

In the next moment, the alicorns’ eyes widened: Einarr’s aura suddenly surged to the seventh rank.

A lifeless fog crept across the gray, sullen ground, and the forest seemed frozen in eternal mourning. Bare trees, twisted and dry, reached toward the sky like mangled hands in a final cry of despair. No grass, no greenery—only dead, ominous silence surrounded any reckless soul daring to enter this forsaken place. The sky was shrouded in gray clouds, with only a faint light piercing through, casting eerie shadows that made the forest seem even more ghostly.

In this deathly silence, a man in black clothing walked cautiously between the trees. He moved slowly, as if searching for something among the dark trunks. His gaze scanned each tree, each dry branch, each empty shadow, as though something important, almost intangible, lay hidden in the dead forest.

The crack of a dry branch sounded under his foot, and he instinctively looked down. In the same instant, something long and transparent flickered in his field of vision, darting toward his head.

Alexei reacted instantly: he extended a tendril, simultaneously jerking his head to the side. Despite the lightning-fast movement, the transparent stinger barely missed its mark, piercing the tendril and catching his hair.

Another tendril lashed out at the translucent figure lurking on a branch above. The creature screeched, its silhouette trembling like a mirage, but the tendril had already wrapped around its prey, preventing it from escaping. The figure froze, revealing the true form of the monster—a giant spider, the size of a large dog. It let out a final, pitiful screech but could no longer break free from the hold.

The spider seemed like a nightmare incarnate, and its horrifying appearance only emphasized this. Its body, covered in gray-green scales, was dotted with sharp spikes, and a long stinger protruded from its mouth like a flexible dagger, ready to pierce any careless target. The spider's eyes were nearly invisible, camouflaged by glistening crystals that absorbed light, making the creature almost imperceptible. Its legs, sharp and curved, swayed slightly, poised to strike at any moment.

These creatures possessed a unique ability to become invisible, hiding in the treetops as if dissolving into the darkness, waiting for someone to pass beneath. When the prey was within reach, the spiders would extend their long stinger, which, like a giant straw, would pierce straight into the victim’s head, consuming the brain while the target was still alive.

Alexei had recently found himself in this strange layer of the Depths and had been wandering here for several hours, encountering various species of spiders along the way.

The invisible predators were the least dangerous among them—there was a region veiled in dense layers of webbing where each step was filled with an unbearable sense of dread. With a strong sense of foreboding, he had backed out of that area without hesitation.

“I think that’s enough for now,” Alexei muttered thoughtfully, tossing the screeching spider into his chalice.

He probed the nearby trees with his tendrils, making sure there were no more threats, and stepped inside the chalice’s interior. There, dozens of spiders were waiting for him, crammed into the three cages he’d brought from Sombra’s lab. As soon as Alexei entered, his ears were filled with a deafening screech. The spiders shrieked, their nauseating sounds grating on his nerves and chilling him to the bone.

Grimacing, Alexei let out his own low, terrifying screech, and a few spiders immediately fell from the bars while the others backed away into the corners of the cage.

“That’s better,” he nodded with satisfaction, throwing in the last captured spider and closing the cage.

Momentarily forgetting the irritating shrieking creatures, Alexei approached the cauldron standing on the floor and, grabbing some firewood, began to make a fire.

Focusing, he created a grayish flame in his palm. The flame flickered, as if an illusion, but it was hot enough to ignite the firewood. Soon, a fire was blazing under the cauldron, and Alexei, pausing for a moment, looked at the cauldron, smirking; Sombra would hardly appreciate his high-grade creation being used as an ordinary cooking pot.

But Alexei had no other cookware, and he had grown tired of dried meat and various raw morsels on this journey. He craved simple, normal food—something that could fill an inner emptiness, not physical but rather spiritual. Since the beginning of Chrysalis’s invasion and all the way to the Crystal Empire, he hadn’t had a chance to eat properly.

With a sigh, Alexei looked at his palm, where the gray flame had flickered moments before—there was still a hint of disappointment in it. The simple spell he used was called “Produce Flame,” and this version was his personal modification. But the result was still faint, illusory, and far from a typical fire.

At one point, Alexei had become interested in nightmares, fascinated by their ability to use unicorn spells by replacing magical energy with pure mental energy. And now, Alexei could do the same: modifying spell formulas, he used his own mental energy, infused with shades of his essence. He’d adapted a few of the simplest spells, accessible even to foals, and though they worked, the results disappointed him.

Such spells required one and a half to twice as much energy and were about a third weaker than those of unicorns. Most frustrating of all, they reflected his own deceit attribute: the flame became illusory and gray, insubstantial, lacking the true qualities of fire.

"In short, complete garbage," Alexei muttered in irritation, brushing these thoughts aside.

Even though he could use unicorn spells, they remained useless in combat—expensive and ineffective. They might be handy for everyday tasks, but for real battles, they were too weak. All he could do was hope that his new talent, the attribute of deceit, would become more useful. For now... he had to press forward, relying on his patience.

By mastering their attribute to a certain level, beings could use it to mimic the effects of other forms of magic. This path expanded the boundaries of possibility, allowing skills characteristic of entirely different types of magic to be embodied.

For example, Fluttershy, a pegasus, wielded wind magic, yet despite her youth, she mastered healing spells, mimicking them through her attribute. She couldn’t even be called a genius—more of a monster. And Alexei aspired to that same level of mastery.

While the soup cooked, he had time to work on his experiments. He took a spider from the cage, tore off a small piece from his tendril, and infused it with a stream of gray smoke. Holding the spider tightly, Alexei allowed the tendril to slowly, like a snake, penetrate the creature's mouth until it ceased resisting. With a mere thought, the thin tendrils within the spider began to spread, transforming into countless fine threads, which, like fungal mycelium, wove through the creature’s insides, spreading throughout its body.

After a couple of minutes, with a light flick of his finger, like the wave of a conductor’s baton, Alexei made the spider take a few unsteady steps. The creature’s consciousness still flickered like the dim light of a candle, but its body responded to his every signal as long as he remained nearby.

Reaching for the table, he picked up a stack of written pages. Crooked symbols and diagrams, interspersed with complex schematics and calculations, covered the pages, resembling a mix of abstract art and mathematics.

In the few days that had passed on Equus, he had already experienced two weeks in the Depths, where time flowed much faster. He was now moving between worlds in a particular rhythm: a day in the Depths, then a few hours on Equus to recover from the effects of assimilation. Most of his time he spent in the space of the chalice, pondering and developing a meditation technique intended to expand his control over his attribute and stabilize his core. Finally, his idea had taken shape, and it was time for the first basic tests.

At first, he planned to test the technique on rats, but the Depths’ inhabitants proved to be more suitable subjects. Like him, they lacked a soul. Of course, neither the rats nor the creatures of the Depths could replace tests on sentient beings—after all, they were vastly different from each other.

Sentient beings required meditation and growth to steadily increase their rank; their cores demanded constant refinement. The animals of Equus and creatures of the Depths needed none of this—their cores were stable from birth, and they could rank up simply through the process of living.

However, spider trials were enough to reveal gross errors.

The spider, now under full control, sat down on the ground, closed its eyes, and a faint halo of gray smoke began to form around its head. The smoke wavered like a ghostly mirage, at times blending with the shadows, at others taking on dense outlines. It seemed like an illusion—a translucent cloud reflecting shadows—yet, like a living fabric, it absorbed light and vibrations.

Suddenly, the space around him filled with powerful vibrations, and in the next instant, the spider's head exploded, scattering flesh and bits of gray liquid. The viscous remains of its brain, gray and damp, splattered in all directions, leaving black streaks on the ground, while shards of chitin scattered, leaving the spot where the spider had been empty and charred.

Alexei sighed heavily, wiping his face—this was already the fifteenth failure.

Author's Note

Einarr

People are always asking me if I know Tyler... Ahem.

Actually, people often ask if I’m planning to set up an account on Patreon or similar platforms. They say they’d love to support the story, but it’s taught them to look for some perks. They want early access to chapters, special bonuses, and for everything to fall into place with just one button click. "Author, make it happen!"

Well, I’ve heard your requests. It’s coming soon.

Chapter 34 - Just be yourself

The sunset sky blazed, lit up with fiery reflections, as though every sunbeam had been seized and shattered by fierce flames. Tongues of light and shadow swirled like whirlwinds, flaring in a broad panorama of blurred crimson and scarlet strokes. The ground, cloaked in a bloody haze, reflected the glow, lending the whole scene a sinister, mystical atmosphere.

Suddenly, the figure of a griffon, enveloped in a protective dome of lightning, crashed into the ground with a thunderous impact, sending up a cloud of dust and debris. The impact was so powerful that the earth cracked and hummed, leaving a deep groove. Chunks of earth and shreds of grass flew in all directions, exposing black roots and charred rocks. The crater, still smoldering and infused with the scent of burning, now encircled the silent, motionless figure of the griffon.

Einarr shook his head slightly, trying to shake off the ringing in his ears. He stood up, stepping heavily, as though weighed down by his own exhaustion. His feathers were blackened and charred, and in some places, burned patches of skin showed through, covered in scabs and small cracks. His once-dominant aura had weakened, dropping to the sixth rank.

But even so, he did not take his eyes off the snow-white alicorn calmly hovering in the air.

"Strong… So strong!" Einarr growled, ignoring the blood streaming down his face. "Simply magnificent!"

"Already deflated?" Celestia drawled mockingly, appearing in a fiery flash nearby. "You're like a little pussy, puffing up its tail to look bigger."

Celestia’s wing slowly lifted, and streams of white fire gathered at the edge, creating a gleaming blade. Her eyes flashed with confidence, certain that the arrogant griffon, consumed by rage, would immediately rush at her, and then…

"I surrender," Einarr suddenly announced loudly, in a completely calm tone. "You've won. We’re leaving. I disrespected you, and I apologize for my hot blood. I’ll compensate you."

Celestia’s gaze hardened, her eyes blazing with an ancient fire.

"You come here, challenge me, and think you can just leave?" Celestia narrowed her eyes, and heat rose around her as if erupting from the depths of the earth. "Why don’t you just… die?"

Her flaming figure lunged at the griffon, intending to cleave him in half with a single strike.

But in a furious flash of lightning, two griffons and a massive minotaur appeared before her, each wielding an artifact in the form of a large shield. These shields instantly encircled their owners, creating an energy hemisphere into which Celestia’s flames crashed head-on. An earsplitting explosion followed, and a wave of heat and light reflected off the protective spheres.

Two artifacts shattered into pieces, and the griffons were thrown back, while the sole remaining shield held against the fiery assault. Behind it stood the minotaur, gritting his teeth and battling the unbearable pressure.

"Princess Celestia, your actions are excessive," he said with difficulty, trembling under the intensity of her aura. "This was a friendly sparring match, and he already surrendered."

Taking advantage of the distraction, several griffons approached Einarr, and with a faint wave to Celestia, he disappeared in a flash of teleportation.

Celestia’s eyes twitched, and she turned her gaze to the minotaur, still holding the weakened shield. The minotaur swallowed hard, sweat beading on his brow as icy fear crept beneath his skin.

Celestia snorted, releasing tendrils of flame from her nostrils, and, turning, slowly headed toward her army.

Once they brought Cadance back, she would take this griffon and his gang very seriously, and then...

"Still thinking about that incident?" A cheerful voice interrupted her thoughts. "You’re looking at that salad like it insulted your entire family."

Celestia blinked, returning to reality. In front of her on the table was indeed a salad — she hadn’t even noticed the dishes being served, so deep in thought she’d been.

"It’s just a bit annoying," she sighed, glancing at Luna, who was enthusiastically piling her plate high.

Looking back at her own plate, Celestia felt an involuntary pang of disappointment. Fresh greens and bright fruit slices in a dressing looked appetizing, but her gaze immediately caught on pieces of grapefruit, a fruit she had always disliked — its bitter taste never failed to sour her mood. Gently pushing them to the side with her fork, she noticed that Luna had already taken the ripest berries and mango slices from the shared platter. A small flicker of irritation stirred in her, and she sighed again, casting a quick glance at the salad that was far from appetizing.

Luna only nodded understandingly — Einarr had indeed dared to use Celestia as a stepping stone to his own fame.

After all the trials they had gone through in the Crystal Empire, they finally understood the griffon’s true motives in hindsight, once his duel with Celestia had ended.

The minotaurs, despite close ties with the griffons, were in no rush to side with any of the throne contenders. Their policy remained clear: neutrality and detachment.

Einarr, however, saw this arrangement to his advantage. His ostentatious battle with Celestia became an opportunity to show the doubtful minotaurs his power, comparable to that of an alicorn. He knew he had to demonstrate that his determination and potential could allow him to face the ruler of Equestria on equal ground, even if only briefly.

Luna nodded to her sister, and they began their meal.

"‘However, this Einar has a few interesting tricks,’ she thought, popping a piece of ripe fruit into her mouth."

Her gaze grew thoughtful. Even if only for a few minutes, he had managed to reach the seventh rank—a level accessible only to alicorns and the most skilled masters of magic. An extraordinarily talented griffon.

Touching upon the topic of griffons, Luna recalled Alexei’s stories. In his world, griffons existed only in myths, and yet both he and Luna agreed on one thing: the griffons of Earth were pitiful creatures. Half-eagle, half-lion, with mismatched body parts that didn’t harmonize at all. Luna imagined them with disdain, awkwardly moving along the ground due to their front eagle half, while in flight they had to pull up their hind legs to maintain balance.

Creatures stuck between sky and earth, losing both agility and grace. Truly pitiful beings.

But in Equus, griffons were something else entirely. Their bodies and limbs merged into an ideal predatory form, with sleek, cat-like lines—agile and powerful, with predatory beaks and steely gazes. Equus griffons combined the strength of the earth and the swiftness of the sky, becoming true warriors and unbeatable hunters.

“Do you think I went overboard with the reward?” Celestia’s thoughtful voice broke in.

“No,” Luna simply answered, swallowing a piece of pineapple. “We don’t know exactly what he received, so your concerns are justified.”

Celestia squinted at her sister, struggling to decide whether to be happy for her or worried. Since their return from the Crystal Empire, it was as if Luna had been enlightened. Yesterday, she’d even walked around Canterlot!

Usually avoiding trips into the city, she decided to visit the exhibitions and indulge in the new pastries that had appeared during her long absence.

Celestia couldn’t help but ask what had brought about such changes. Luna just smiled and replied that she now saw the illusion of everything around them and had decided to take life more lightly. Celestia didn’t fully understand her explanation but was glad her sister had found a way to escape the prison that had held her for a millennium.

Of course, Luna wasn’t just wandering the streets and savoring the joys of life. The calm she had gained had made her not only wiser but also more focused. She was helping in the search for Cadance, diving into the Dream Realm and scouring it in detail. Her personality had simply become less extreme, as though she’d found inner peace, which puzzled Celestia somewhat.

Suddenly, the silence of the hall was broken by a knock at the door, and Celestia, holding back her irritation at yet another interruption to her lunch, ordered softly:

“Come in.”

The door creaked open, and a unicorn guard in armor entered the hall. He bowed but hesitated to speak, visibly nervous under the intense gaze of both princesses.

“Um…” he began uncertainly, as though afraid to disturb the silence. “I beg your pardon, Your Majesty. A zebra requests an audience with you. She says you know her. She calls herself… the Seer.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow, slightly perplexed. Was this really a good reason to interrupt lunch? Of course, with new recruits in the Royal Guard since Chrysalis’s invasion, some still needed training. Perhaps it was time to remind the captain of the importance of observing proper protocol.

“If she’s really a seer, she should have foreseen how I’d react to this,” Celestia remarked mockingly, scrutinizing the guard. “Don’t you think?”

The unicorn suddenly straightened, and his expression grew unexpectedly serious.

“She did, Your Majesty,” he replied, tilting his head slightly. “She said you’d order her thrown out and replace me. All because you’re… displeased with your salad. And that griffon, who… well, I wouldn’t dare repeat it.”

The hall fell into a palpable silence. Luna froze, momentarily forgetting her meal, and stared cheerfully at the guard, who seemed almost paralyzed with anxiety. He quickly reached into his armor pocket and pulled out a small item.

“This… this was with her,” he stammered, extending a token and trying not to meet the sisters’ eyes. “I checked—it’s genuine.”

Celestia and Luna’s eyes fixed on the familiar golden token, adorned with engravings of the sun and moon, skillfully intertwined in a single symbol. The metal seemed to emit a faint glow, shimmering in the daylight, and the two princesses exchanged a glance. For a brief moment, it was as if they were reading each other’s thoughts.

“Could it really be… her?” Luna whispered.

Then they turned to the guard, who shuddered, as though their gaze held tangible power.

“Bring her in!” Celestia ordered.

The unicorn, barely escaping a heart attack, hurried to carry out the order. All he hoped was that the zebra’s prophecy would come true and that he wouldn’t actually lose his job.

In the darkness of the Hive's underground corridors, sparse fireflies flickered like fragments of lost stars, casting a mysterious light along the path. Pale blue mushrooms growing on the walls emitted a soft, ghostly glow, piercing the gloom with patches of cold, steady light. Changelings slid through the corridors, busy with their daily tasks: some carried sealed capsules filled with energy concentrate, while others perched on rocky ledges, sipping thick, spicy brews from underground herbs that emitted a pungent aroma.

Small changelings scurried along the walls, processing materials to fortify them, crystallizing and securing them to ensure that no ray of outside light would penetrate the Hive.

In some alcoves, a quiet whisper could be heard—mentors teaching the younger generation the skills of camouflage and the ancient art of transformation, passing down knowledge from one generation to the next. Echoes of their voices filled the winding passages, blending with the background hum, creating the feeling of a living, breathing structure that never rested, day or night.

In one of the rooms hidden deep within the Hive’s labyrinth, Cadance sat on a mat. A metallic ring encircled her horn, emitting a cold, dark gleam, as though absorbing the surrounding light. Over the ring lay a layer of greenish substance, as if cast from amber, completely paralyzing her magical abilities.

The weary, dim expression in Cadance’s eyes and the dark circles beneath them spoke of long days in captivity. She chewed her meager rations slowly, more out of habit than any desire to sate her hunger.

But suddenly her gaze focused on something invisible. She shuddered, as if feeling a cold wave, and stared down at the floor for a moment, a stifled, fading sound escaping her throat.

Beneath the Hive, in the deepest reaches, lay a small, dark room. Thousands of runes glowed on the walls like a protective shield guarding the single capsule at the center of the room.

The capsule’s greenish-transparent shell shimmered in the light, and inside, submerged in thick, nutrient-rich liquid, floated Chrysalis. Her body appeared motionless, with only rare air bubbles rising to the surface, escaping from her barely parted lips.

Suddenly, her eyes snapped open, coldly gleaming like two icy emeralds in the dark water. Moments later, Chrysalis’ hoof tore through the capsule from within, sending liquid splashing everywhere, and she slowly, with undeniable dignity, stepped out.

Her wings were stuck together from the viscous mass, hanging limply, but with a sharp shake, she scattered tiny droplets, and her wings unfolded gently, stretching outward, as though refreshed after a long slumber. Chrysalis’ form had changed subtly, becoming noticeably more refined. The lines of her body gained smoothness, and her graceful stance enhanced her beauty, making her appearance nearly flawless.

Blinking, Chrysalis felt the pleasant weight of newfound power, and with a satisfied smile, she looked upward. Her horn glowed, and the ceiling above her slowly parted, like a living being, granting her passage. She shook her wings, dispersing the remnants of the slime, and with a confident flap, she soared up the long tunnel, heading toward the central part of the Hive.

Her sudden arrival in the common area immediately caught the attention of many changelings. One by one, they froze, lifting their gaze toward their queen; some set aside their cups filled with thick herbal infusions, while others, leaving their tasks, turned to her, stunned by her majestic appearance. The entire Hive stilled in awe, not a single subject uttering a sound.

With a barely perceptible smile, Chrysalis cast her gaze over the gathered crowd and closed her eyes, focusing. She froze, hovering in midair with wings spread wide. Suddenly, a deep beat resounded from within her chest, and a powerful wave of pink energy rolled through the Hive, spreading through narrow corridors and nourishing the walls, the ceiling, the floor, and everyone nearby.

For a moment, the changelings stood in shock, but in the next second, they recognized the familiar energy of love in the pink light and immediately began to absorb it hungrily. Their eyes glazed over with pink, their gazes turning warm and intoxicating, and their expressions softened. One, shivering, spread his wings, savoring the energy; another bowed his head, closing his eyes, surrendering to this ineffable feeling. The entire Hive was enveloped in quiet rapture, and even the walls seemed to soak in the pink glow, drawn by its magnetic allure.

Chrysalis chuckled, watching her subjects, intoxicated by the abundance of love she granted them. Her satisfied smile turned into a slight smirk.

After watching for a few moments, she lit her horn and vanished from sight—it was time for another test.

Teleportation took her to the furthest reaches of the Hive, where a lake of molten lava stretched near the walls. The grim archway, bathed in an orange-red glow, hung low, and the walls, scorched in the hottest places, looked like frozen blood. The surface of the lava flared and bubbled, filling the space with thick clouds of stinging heat.

Chrysalis stepped forward, undeterred even as the temperature rose to incredible levels. Under her hooves, the ground hissed, emitting small streams of smoke, but the heat caused her no harm.

Chrysalis approached the lake’s edge, pausing only for a moment, then stepped forward into the lava without hesitation. Her body sank into the fiery waves, and after taking a few steps, she disappeared entirely beneath the molten surface.

Silence reigned in the cavern. The only sounds were the occasional splashes of lava and the faint hissing from cracks in the stone, giving the impression that the very air was electrified, ready to explode with the slightest movement. The cavern’s corners briefly illuminated with flickers of molten light, and only the endless heat continued to warm the air.

Several minutes later, the lava on the opposite side bubbled, and Chrysalis, completely unharmed, stepped out. She shook off the thick, viscous lava droplets, which crystallized into a thin layer of minerals, and her spread wings gleamed, reflecting the full spectrum of the lake’s light. Her body appeared just as perfect and unscathed, as if she had merely taken a stroll across a cool meadow.

Casting one last glance at the lava lake, Chrysalis snorted and suddenly burst into wild, triumphant laughter. Today marked her victory.

Not only had she obtained Cadance’s blood, but she had also managed to secure a drop of Celestia’s blood during the battle in Canterlot. The metamorphosis had been successful, and here she was, unharmed, bathing in lava, her body the embodiment of power.

As if in response to her thoughts, a halberd appeared beside her, gleaming with a powerful aura and dancing around her.

Chrysalis met it with a gaze full of satisfaction and warmth, but soon her expression turned serious, and her triumph began to fade, making room for cold rationality. She knew that despite the new powers she had gained, her primary problem remained unsolved. Even the blood of the Alicorn of Love had not become the key that could grant the changelings freedom.

“It’s still not enough,” Chrysalis muttered, frowning. “We still can’t escape His grasp.”

Under the dense green canopy of the forest, a deep silence reigned, occasionally broken by the gentle rustling of leaves and the distant echo of calls. The trees towered like giants, their crowns entwining above, letting almost no sunlight through. This made it seem as if the entire forest was wrapped in twilight, like a living blanket of shadows.

Along a barely visible path among these trees, three zebras walked slowly, each burdened with heavy bags. From their packs protruded various tools, including sickles meant for gathering rare plants. This was a signal to those familiar with their trade: they weren’t here for a casual stroll but for seeking and collecting alchemical ingredients.

The zebras chatted cheerfully, their quiet voices seeming to breathe life into the silent forest. Yet, they constantly scanned their surroundings. Though this part of the Everfree Forest was considered relatively safe, they knew it was always wise to remain vigilant here. The forest lived by its own rules, unpredictable and with sudden dangers, turning even familiar paths into potential traps.

Suddenly, one of the zebras, as if remembering something, reached into her bag and pulled out a crisp, newly printed flyer, unfolding it before her companions’ eyes. The others immediately took notice, and a lively discussion ensued. They exchanged opinions, whispered, pointing at the words and image on the paper, as though they had found something quite intriguing.

Before long, however, their interest in the flyer faded. The zebra shrugged and attempted to stuff it back in her pocket. But just as she was about to forget about it, a random branch on the path brushed her bag, and the flyer slipped out, landing at the edge of the trail.

None of the three noticed, and they continued onward, immersed in conversation, occasionally glancing around.

A minute passed, and from behind the trees, a two-legged figure appeared—a man in black clothing, following the zebras’ trail. Alexei glanced in the direction the trio had gone, as if confirming they were far enough away, and then approached the flyer, carefully picking it up from the ground.

Before him was his own portrait, rendered in black and white, with large letters below announcing he was wanted. His name, description, and details were all listed clearly, so that anyone, even the inattentive, would instantly understand who they were dealing with.

The reward offered for his capture was especially generous. The Equestrian authorities spared no resources, spells, or techniques suitable for a level-five rank. These words were highlighted in bold, clearly designed to catch the eyes of potential hunters. "Alive only" was emphasized in large font, suggesting that delivering him dead would not meet the patrons' requirements.

Alexei smirked as he looked over the lengthy and eloquent list of accusations.

…murder, mass murder, crimes against ponykind, cannibalism, experimentation on sapient beings, use of blood and dark magic…

The list seemed endless, mentioning vandalism, theft, kidnappings, resisting arrest, forming an organized crime syndicate, and finally ending with a mundane note: "tax evasion."

“‘Just be yourself,’ they said,” Alexei chuckled, folding the flyer and tucking it into his pocket.

Then, glancing in the direction the trio of zebras had gone, he set off after them, lost in thought.

Lately, the spiders had been exploding less frequently—a promising sign, no doubt.

Chapter 35 - Experiments

A creature resembling a porcupine, with scaly skin and razor-sharp spines, hissed as it charged at the zebras, launching a barrage of tiny quills that cut through the air with a dull whistle. Its jagged claws tore at the ground, and its bloodshot, fierce eyes tracked their every movement, waiting for the moment to strike again.

One of the zebras, a tall and sturdy stallion, raised a hoof, and a phantom bear appeared beside him, glowing with a dense, pulsating light. The bear dropped onto its forepaws, blocking the creature's path. Sensing danger, it snarled, baring long fangs.

The phantom beast’s heavy paw slammed down, pinning the monster to the ground, forcing it to pause for a second. Seizing the moment, the other two zebras stepped forward, their own spirit beasts—a panther and an eagle—emerging onto the field, attacking in unison.

The panther circled the foe gracefully, its predatory eyes flashing in rhythm with each attack, claws slicing into the beast’s scales, preventing it from rising again. The eagle soared high, trailing a blinding light before swooping down, wings spread wide, aiming at the creature’s head. Its hiss mixed with a final death cry as, pierced by the eagle’s beak, it collapsed to the ground, frozen in its last grimace.

The zebras sighed in relief, sinking to the ground in exhaustion. Their sides were scraped raw, every part of their bodies ached in protest, and the embedded quills turned them into walking pin cushions.

Soon, the phantom beasts returned to their masters, melding smoothly into their bodies and fading into tattoos that now lay calm on their battered flanks.

The zebras exchanged glances, each seemingly hearing the same thought: “We need to get out of this damned forest.”

Today had been a dreadful day—one that felt cursed, with attack after attack. Though the trophies were valuable, a single look at their injuries made it clear they’d be at a loss no matter what.

“Let’s call it a day,” sighed the stallion who commanded the phantom bear. “These quills are worth something… we can count that as luck.”

The two zebras plucking quills from their hides rolled their eyes but said nothing. He was right: the day was ending, and it was time to find a safe place for the night; tomorrow, they would resume their search. They had a few days left here to gather enough alchemical ingredients before the long trek back to the nearest settlement.

They had barely reached for their healing potions when a soft rustling sound came from the forest. Instantly, all three tensed, rising quickly and turning toward the noise.

“Apologies if I startled you; I was just passing by,” a calm voice came from the shadows of the trees. “I need help.”

The words relaxed them just enough to keep from attacking instantly, though they remained wary.

A figure emerged from behind a tree, wrapped from head to toe in heavy cloth, so unexpectedly that the zebras glanced at each other in confusion. Then it hit them: they’d seen this face only a few hours ago, on a wanted poster! A face they remembered in every detail.

The tattoos on their flanks flashed, ready for a summoning, but a sharp pain pierced down their spines, and they collapsed to the ground, paralyzed.

Their vision began to blur, and soon they sank into darkness.

Of course, Alexei had been the one guiding the beasts to wear them down, exhausting their strength for this moment. While the zebras fought the monster, he lay hidden in the forest, growing a hollow tentacle, compressing air inside it, and shooting a tiny tendril into each of them. Amid the chaos of battle and the storm of quills, the zebras hadn’t noticed a thing.

Nor did they notice as the tendrils burrowed into their bodies, reaching their spines to temporarily paralyze their nervous systems, forcing them into unconsciousness. No spell necessary.

“Not bad at all,” Alexei thought to himself, stepping closer to the motionless bodies. “Now I’m a mage, but with pneumatic weaponry… or is it biological?”

Suddenly, a piercing headache tore through his mind, like lightning splitting his very self apart. It surged, transforming into a storm that shattered everything in its path. Alexei doubled over, clutching his temples, stifling a silent scream desperate to escape. Waves of agony struck him again and again, knocking his senses as hot blood dripped from his nose.

He grimaced, attempting to suppress the flash of pain searing through his head, but it was useless—the usual trick to dull sensations wasn’t working. Time, however, wouldn’t wait.

Pulling himself together, he quickly erased the battle’s traces, tossing the bodies of the zebras and the quilled beast into the void of a pocket dimension.

After half an hour spent finding a suitable layer, he finally opened a rift to the Depths. At that moment, his anxiety was crushed by resolve: the time for real experiments had come.

Time flowed faster in the Depths than on Equus, a convenient factor for him, but it also meant that his core was nearing collapse even more quickly. The intensifying headache refused to leave him, a constant reminder of the approaching crisis.

“Grandmother Nadira,” Celestia smiled, embracing her tightly as if they hadn’t seen each other in ages. “What brings you here? I thought you…”

“Thought I’d kicked the bucket already?” The zebra snorted, gently but skillfully nudging the princess aside. “And since when am I your grandmother? I’m younger than you… well, by a bit.”

Celestia laughed, making no attempt to argue. This nickname, “Grandmother,” was more of a secret title, a mark of respect she held for the zebra. After all, it was Nadira who had once foretold the return of Nightmare Moon, along with countless other major events. She was a great seer, only a few decades younger than Celestia herself, and her ability to peer into the future had, no doubt, contributed to her long life. Who knew what methods and secret longevity techniques she’d uncovered in her travels?

But Nadira herself looked nothing like an ancient, wise oracle. She was a zebra with vibrant blue eyes, saddlebags barely hanging onto her sides, and a red scarf that looked as though it had accompanied her on every wild road across the world.

Breaking free of Celestia’s embrace, Nadira turned her gaze to Luna, who stood a little apart.

“Glad to see you’re all right,” her gaze softened, and a faint warmth surfaced in her eyes. “Prophecies can be so vague…”

“It’s all thanks to you,” Luna replied quietly, bowing slightly. “I will repay my debt to you. If you need anything…”

“Then bring me something to eat,” the zebra chuckled, cutting her off. “I’m as hungry as a pack of manticores.”

“As if it’s our fault,” Celestia rolled her eyes with a sigh. “Who made you tease my guards? You could have just sent a signal.”

“Too boring,” Nadira replied with a pleased smile. “You just don’t know how to have fun, Tia.”

The alicorns merely shook their heads, resigned to the eccentric seer’s antics.

At Celestia’s signal, the servants began setting out dishes, and soon the table was laden with every delicacy royal kitchens could offer. Fortunately, becoming an alicorn meant not only gaining powerful abilities but also an endless appetite.

The zebra immediately dove into the food, like a manticore indeed, playfully teasing Celestia and telling Luna amusing stories along the way. The princesses tried to maintain their royal composure as their striped guest happily devoured dish after dish.

When all was eaten, Nadira leaned back with a satisfied sigh.

The princesses exchanged glances, and Luna, with a slight shrug, gestured for her sister to take the lead.

“So… why are you here?” Celestia began, trying to sound welcoming yet with a hint of curiosity. “We’re always glad to see you, but…”

“Don’t worry, nothing terrible has happened,” Nadira waved a hoof, licking her lips and eyeing the empty table like a victor. “I’ll help you with finding Cadance. That cloaking artifact has caused you trouble, hasn’t it?”

“We’re in your debt,” Celestia sighed in relief. “With you, finding her will be much easier. You arrived so quickly that…”

“Actually, I’m not here because of her,” Nadira slowly shook her head, lifting a glass of juice to her lips.

The princesses exchanged worried looks, sensing a strange unease. The zebra seemed in no hurry to continue, which only added to the tension.

“Then… why?” Celestia finally broke the silence.

“I’m not entirely sure myself,” Nadira replied thoughtfully, staring into the rippling orange juice. “But I feel a prophecy coming soon.”

The stallion felt a pang in his heart as he looked at his magical core, encircled by a single ring that marked the first rank.

Clenching his teeth, he exhaled slowly and focused. As if obeying his singular thought, the ring disintegrated with a faint hiss, shattering his protection. In an instant, the core cracked and dimmed, and a surge of powerful energy shot through his body. The stallion cried out, collapsing to the ground, blood streaming from his ears and nostrils, staining the earth red. Breathing heavily, he lay there, drained and exhausted.

A hand gently lifted his head, tilting his jaw, and poured a cold liquid into his mouth. He coughed as some of the potion went down the wrong way, involuntarily swallowing the rest, tasting its bitter flavor. Gradually, his breathing steadied, and his wounds began to close.

Lifting his head, he saw a man intently studying some papers.

Turning his head, he noticed his companions, locked in cages. The mares watched him anxiously, silent but with eyes full of quiet support. His nostrils flared, and anger boiled in his chest at the thought of the one responsible for their captivity—this…

“I think you’ve recovered,” a voice came from behind, startling the stallion.

“Yes,” he replied hoarsely, swallowing as he turned to face the man, who was now looking at him. “What am I supposed to do next?”

“Study this,” Alexei said with a slight smile, handing him three folded sheets of paper. “Please, be thorough. It’s in your best interest.”

The stallion’s eyes skimmed the pages. The sheets detailed a mental meditation technique, complete with notes and commentary, explaining potential challenges and how to overcome them.

He knew they were being used as test subjects, but he could do nothing about it: since their awakening, they had lost their tattoos, their belongings were confiscated, and they were under the effects of a strange poison. But this meditation technique could be their chance to break free. If he could master it, he might use the new strength against this man.

Alexei was particularly impressed by the zebras’ attitude. For the first time since arriving in this world, he hadn’t had to resort to threats, tricks, or force. Once the zebras awakened and realized their situation, they quickly composed themselves and began cooperating with him.

“Reputation really does open many doors,” Alexei mused inwardly.

Perhaps it was due to the leaflet, or maybe it was their heightened intuition that allowed them to sense danger and hostile auras. The zebras clearly felt something was off about him. They looked at him with the same awe and apprehension that he himself felt toward those colossal monsters from the Depths.

An hour later, the stallion had memorized the technique and internalized the mental energy control diagrams, feeling prepared for the next step. Setting the sheets aside, he looked up at Alexei, who sat in the shadow of a black tree looming ominously behind him. The mere proximity of this tree made the stallion’s fur stand on end.

“Do you remember your promise?” the stallion asked quietly, watching the man.

“Of course,” Alexei replied with a serious nod. “If everything goes well, I’ll release you. But I’ll have to erase your memories of what happened here.”

“If I manage to do this…” the stallion said, gritting his teeth, “then at least release them.”

“Then do your best,” Alexei smirked, staring intently at the zebra. “Did you really believe what was written there? ‘Alive only,’ ha! I happened upon a few secrets, and the alicorns want to get their hooves on them, so they slandered me. I’m no monster.”

The stallion might not know the whole truth, but he doubted the accusations were entirely false.

It wasn’t just the tentacles or the ominous black trees. One look at this man sent a chill down the stallion’s spine. What unsettled him even more were the man’s eyes: there was no anger, no other emotion—only an endless, terrifying void.

Settling himself comfortably, the stallion closed his eyes and allowed his mind to sink into ringing emptiness. Whispering the first steps under his breath, he began to channel mental energy, creating fine streams that flowed precisely along the described patterns. He felt his energy swirling and coalescing into a single, tiny point in the core of his soul.

Bright and radiant, this point quivered momentarily before stabilizing, and the stallion exhaled in relief. Though unfamiliar with mental energy techniques, the experience reminded him of the early steps in creating a magical core.

Sinking into a trance-like state, he guided the mental energy rhythmically, forming a ring of gray smoke around the core, wisps drifting toward his face, slowly obscuring his features and turning him into a faceless figure.

Alexei stood nearby, observing the process with a pleased smile. Everything was proceeding as planned—the modified technique, which he’d painstakingly refined day and night, was finally bearing fruit.

Despite concerns over a potential conflict between magical and mental energy, so far, things looked smooth. The stallion had passed through the necessary stages: breaking the previous technique had weakened his magical core, allowing mental energy to take the place of magic. That was the fundamental basis.

Magic stemmed from two sources: magical and mental energy. If magical energy served as fuel, mental energy provided direction, like a command directing the source of power. As long as one energy dominated, they worked in harmony, but developing both simultaneously was a risky endeavor. Few could balance both energies, and only exceptional beings, like Luna, possessed the strength to create two distinct cores.

Zebras, however, possessed potent mental energy, inherent from birth; their heightened senses gave them a remarkable advantage.

Thanks to potions made from creatures of the Depths, the mental energy of this stallion had reached a level sufficient for forming a complete mental core. Alexei understood that this rapid enhancement and the type of ingredients used would have consequences for the stallion, but that wasn’t his concern.

Watching the silent, trance-immersed stallion, Alexei touched his chin thoughtfully, then decided to prepare dinner—there was nothing more he could do for now except wait.

Time passed, but the stallion remained in his trance, with gray wisps of smoke continuing to mask his face.

Alexei routinely checked the zebra’s condition, but when nothing changed, he merely shrugged and went back to his usual tasks.

He continued moving between Equus and the Depths, monitoring the stallion and supporting his companions.

His presence went unnoticed—caution was second nature to him. Even with the bounty leaflet out, Alexei knew he was safe. He had prudently erased all traces of his mental energy in the Crystal Empire and removed any possible blood evidence. The alicorns had nothing on him!

Otherwise, they would have attached an energy sample to the leaflet. Even the portrait was useless for identifying him, as he could alter his appearance. Sure, visiting populated areas had become risky due to bounty hunters and those who might see through his disguise, but Alexei accepted that as an obvious part of the game.

On the fourth day, as Alexei had just immersed himself in a book, the gray smoke suddenly dissipated from the stallion’s face, and he collapsed to the ground, exhausted as if waking from a deep sleep.

Alexei rose and approached him, but the stallion suddenly opened his eyes, froze for a moment, then roared like an enraged bear and tried to strike him with his hoof.

The stallion posed no real threat to Alexei, and it was easy for him to restrain and subdue the furious zebra.

Using mental energy, he carefully scanned the stallion.

“In a way, it’s a success,” Alexei murmured thoughtfully, raising an eyebrow after a while. “There are still a few issues with the technique, but it’s not just that…”

Alexei cast a calm glance at the stallion, then shifted his gaze to the zebras in the cages. In the end, he still needed more data for success—and the resources were right within reach.

Author's Note

Nadira

The pace has slowed down a bit, and the last two chapters have been rather everyday, haven’t they? Wrong! Don’t you feel it? This is the calm before the storm! Now, onto the main announcement.

Dear readers,

I’m incredibly thrilled that we’ve been having more regular updates recently and that the story is gaining new depth, thanks to your active involvement and support. Your responses inspire me to keep going, giving me the strength to create quality chapters more frequently, so everyone can enjoy this world.

Today, I’d like to share some news with you—I’ve created a page on Boosty! It was not an easy step, but I realized that with your support, I can not only improve the regularity of chapter releases but also expand the possibilities of the story and develop the plot in greater detail.

What is Boosty, anyway? Well, essentially, it's similar to Patreon.

What does this mean for you?
Chapters will still be available for free. Boosty is just an option for those who want to access new chapters early and support the story directly. Your subscriptions will help me dedicate more time to writing and work on enhancing the quality.

For subscribers, I also plan to add some enjoyable perks: early access to chapters, an invitation to the Discord server, and unique materials that I won’t be able to release publicly.

For anyone who wants to support—here’s my Boosty. Subscribing is entirely optional, and even without it, you’ll always remain an essential part of this story.

Thank you for joining me on this journey! None of this would be possible without you. I hope that together, we can create something even greater.

With gratitude and respect,
Serene Wish.

P.S. Discord might be a bit... rough around the edges at the moment. I created it just a few minutes ago, but content will be added there soon.

Chapter 1 - No regrets

“No!” the unicorn screamed, desperately veering to the side. His hooves slid across the damp earth, stumbling over roots and stones, but fear pushed him forward, not allowing him to stop. “Please, don’t…”

The sounds faded, swallowed by the predatory whisper with which a thick root erupted from the ground. The unicorn barely had time to turn, and at that very moment, a rough, slippery tentacle lashed out, striking him and piercing through him.

It was as if time slowed down when his body trembled with pain. His hind legs buckled, but he kept standing, fighting until the end. He felt the root pulling the life from him, his strength leaving his body, flowing into the resonant depths of the earth. Thoughts, emotions, memories—all turned into fading light.

Finally, the unicorn collapsed, and around him, new roots began to push up from the soil, eager and hungry. They coiled around him, covering his body with writhing rings, absorbing what was left of the creature. One more moment—and he no longer existed.

The ground around was littered with the bodies of all sorts of creatures from Equus—ponies and pegasi, unicorns and griffins, diamond dogs and many others. But there was no peace for them, even in death. At first, the earth trembled faintly, almost imperceptibly, but then the cracking grew louder, spreading across the planet.

Roots burst from the cracks in the soil, like ominous serpents, stretching toward the bodies, wrapping around them, consuming them, dissolving them into themselves. The lifeless remains became part of a vast network, nourishing something ancient and terrifying.

Across the planet, in every corner of it, the roots continued their deadly march, taking away every spark of life.

All of this was heading toward the massive tree that towered over the world. Its trunk stretched into the heavens, its branches interwoven into a thick canopy, and its roots, spreading beneath the earth, connected all of Equus into a single whole. One by one, sparks of life flowed to the tree, its roots absorbing the strength of the creatures, filling it with their sap, soaking in their energy.

Time passed, and at last, the tree was sated. It seemed as if even its leaves no longer rustled, as if the tree was falling into a deep slumber, keeping the absorbed life within itself.

In their hiding places, the few survivors crouched, hidden deep in caves, in damp and dark burrows. They trembled in fear, feeling how the world around them slowly quieted, how silence—unnatural and heavy—grew in its place, as if it no longer belonged to this place. The echoes of life on the surface were nearly gone, as if the earth itself had forgotten what life was.

Filled with power, the roots slowly began to retreat into the earth, as though dissolving into it. They vanished, leaving behind a barren, lifeless soil where not a single body remained.

Years passed, decades, centuries, millennia. Time carried on its way, leaving only shadows of memories of that catastrophe, until one day…

The dense night pressed around the ancient altar in the heart of the forest, thick as wine, concealing a temple lost in the embrace of misty shadows. This temple—or rather, its ruins—remembered a time when the forest was younger and the sun shone brighter. Now, walls without a roof barely held together, overgrown with moss and winding roots. In the cracks between the stones, resilient plants had sprouted over the years, living symbols of nature reclaiming an ancient legacy.

However, the space before the altar had been meticulously cleared, and the patch free of grass and weeds bore numerous ancient symbols carved into the stone in an intricate pattern. This was a complex array, where those who understood could see a refined ritual geometry, something both majestic and ominous.

The air quivered, saturated with magic and tension, as if every particle held a secret. The silver horns of the unicorns gathered before the altar emitted an ethereal glow, reflected on the mossy walls. Their dark garments—tight cloaks adorned with symbols of the moon and stars—had bright sparks that looked like living eyes. Each of them, surrounded by shadows and ancient magic, stood still, filled with determination and unwavering devotion.

“We must free the Lady,” came a hoarse, strained voice from the eldest cultist, known as Midnight Veil. His gaze shone with fanatic resolve. “Our queen suffers on the Moon, and we must break her chains, release her from the bonds of harmony and fate itself!”

He looked slowly around at the gathered, each word fueling their faith.

His words were met with approving murmurs from the unicorns and thestrals.

“You all know the prophecy: in four years, the seal will fall, and the Mother of Night will be freed from her confinement. But our Lady’s triumph will be shadowed by enemies, servants of deceitful ‘harmony’—the Elements of Harmony,” he pronounced the last phrase with barely concealed disdain.

The mention of these enemies stirred a wave of resentful murmurs among the assembly. Voices rose above the forest: curses upon harmony, its guardians, and everything associated with it. Some praised their Lady aloud, calling her the Mother of Night, the Queen of Dreams and Stars, known to many as Nightmare Moon.

“We’ll destroy those fools!”

“Cursed be the false harmony!”

“Our Lady will be free!”

“Glory to the Mother of Night! Glory to the Mother of Night!”

The shouts grew louder, rising like a wave, until Midnight raised a hoof, calling for silence. The noise subsided, and all eyes turned back to their leader.

“Your faith is strong, and our Lady will honor it,” Midnight said with a restrained smile, revealing a sphere glowing with a faint blue light. “The Mother left us this: an artifact containing a fragment of her power. With it, we shall shatter harmony’s chains and pave the way to her freedom.”

A surge of elation swept through the crowd. The eyes of the fanatics blazed, some whispering prayers to their Lady, falling into a trance.

“I see you’re eager,” Midnight smirked, turning to a mare unicorn standing nearby. “Silent Shade, is the inspection complete?”

“Yes, we checked all the symbols as you instructed, Primus,” she replied with a deep bow.

“Excellent. Let us begin,” declared Midnight, looking at the gathered. “This will mark the dawn of a new era, the end of harmony! Bring forth the sacrifices, for they are honored to serve our Lady.”

With these words, the devoted cultists dispersed, preparing for the ritual’s final stage. In the nocturnal forest, a tense anticipation hung in the air, and the ancient altar seemed to come alive, anticipating what was soon to unfold.

A sweltering summer day had long since given way to the coolness of night. The heat seemed to dissolve into the air, like an echo of the past, making room for a fresh, almost awakened space of the night. The asphalt, scorched by the sun all day, was beginning to release its accumulated warmth, exuding the smell of heated stone and dust.

Along this deserted road, under the faint light of sporadic street lamps, walked a slender man with short dark hair. His steps were light and confident, like those of someone unaccustomed to delay.

At first glance, he might have seemed quite young, but meeting his gaze made it clear: he was over thirty. His eyes—dark, with a piercing gleam—seemed to hold endless roads already traveled and dreams of new ones yet to be discovered.

The backpack and rolled-up sleeping mat on his back easily marked him as a hitchhiker, one of those who had taken to the roads this summer. Perhaps, an onlooker might wonder what had brought him here, alone in the middle of an empty road, serene yet solitary, as clouds loomed in the distance, promising rain.

But the man seemed to need neither questions nor explanations. He walked, smiling slightly, as if he held within himself the answer to everything this summer night's sky might ask. Sometimes he listened to the music in his headphones, oblivious to the distant, barely discernible, yet relentless rumbling of thunder. His gaze was fixed ahead, beyond the horizon, where the night merged with the sky, fading into the endless dark.

His faithful companions—the backpack and sleeping mat—seemed to be the only witnesses to the freedom he felt in that moment. In the cool darkness of the night, under the open sky with the faint taste of an impending storm in the air, he was free and happy, as if each step was carrying him toward something long awaited.

“What’s happening?!” Midnight Veil shouted anxiously, his voice cutting through the rumble of the ritual chamber.

“The ritual is spiraling out of control! We’ve lost our connection to the artifact!” Silent Shade yelled hysterically, panic evident in her voice. “Something is warping our magical arrays!”

An ominous light flared over the ritual circle, and the magical symbols on the floor began to flicker in a mad rhythm, pulsing in sync with the tremors in the very fabric of space. Once orderly and precise, the symbols now sparked and danced in chaotic frenzy, creating horrific distortions that caused the walls and floor to ripple like thin fabric tearing under an invisible force.

The ritual, intended to free their mistress, wasn’t just fraying—it was becoming a storm of chaos, tearing everything around them apart. There was irony in that, considering their queen's future plans, but the cultists had neither the time nor the mood to appreciate it.

“We have to stop this!” Nightfall shouted, his voice almost breaking. In his tone, barely audible over the thunder of magical waves, there was fear, revealing the desperation of those who had called forth this catastrophe. “It’s gone too far! We’re all going to die if we don’t stop it!”

Attempting to contain the ritual, the cultists tried to restrain the surging magic, but… it was futile. Thousands of meticulously inscribed runes on the floor began to spread like streams of liquid fire, each second making them more uncontrollable.

Loud cracks and magical explosions filled the air, tearing through the space; everything around them hummed ominously, and then wormholes started opening up throughout the room.

They blinked into existence and vanished unpredictably, swallowing everything within their reach. The screams of those being sucked into these all-consuming rifts were cut off with a sickening splat, as they were crushed into shapeless masses.

For others, pulled into the less stable rifts, it was instant—a flash, and their bodies disintegrated into dust—their ambitions dissolving into the void.

“What is this?!” Midnight shouted in horror, looking around wildly. His eyes darted from one side to another, unable to focus on any single source of the danger, as it came from everywhere.

“Wormholes! They’re appearing from nowhere!” Silent Shade screamed desperately. Her face was frozen in terror—everything they had built was crumbling before their eyes.

The unicorns, barely able to orient themselves, scrambled to dodge magical explosions and spatial tears, but the chaos grew like an avalanche. Wormholes appeared faster and faster, merging into swirling vortices of darkness. Rift after rift swallowed them with merciless brutality, and one by one, the cultists disappeared, leaving only emptiness behind.

In front of the altar stood the last one left, somehow miraculously untouched. His eyes were wide open, his voice barely audible above the crashing waves of magic.

“We failed…” Midnight Veil whispered, weakened and hollow. “Why? Why…”

But he received no answer. A new rift flared beside him, instantly constricting his body like a steel vice. His silhouette twisted, compressed into a bloody lump no bigger than a seed, and then it was sucked into the portal, devouring his life and desperate scream.

The portals continued to blink in and out of existence, obeying some monstrous logic of their own, as if defying the local order. With each collision of wormholes, the world shattered into fragments, sending out waves of spatial disruption that deformed the surrounding terrain.

Finally, at the heart of the ritual circle, three wormholes flared simultaneously. There was no explosion; everything seemed to collapse into a single point, and in an instant, without a sound, everything within a hundred-meter radius simply vanished.

An absolute silence fell, as if the world, stunned by the chaos, paused in mute astonishment. And then, as if snapping back to reality, the air rushed into the void with a deafening clap, followed by the earth itself, collapsing rapidly and filling the gaping chasm.

Nature, silent and eternal, seemed to have been waiting for this moment, immediately beginning its work.

The night was enveloping the world in a thick, dense veil, turning the road stretching into the distance into a mystical bridge leading to the unknown. The man stopped, and his footsteps fell silent, leaving only the faint whisper of the wind in the air.

He took off his backpack, exhaling wearily, and carefully set it down by the roots of an old tree standing by the roadside. His headphones and phone landed gently on the fabric, as if releasing him from the sounds of the everyday world.

He stretched his arms upward, feeling the cool night air seep into every cell, filling his body with a long-awaited freshness. The sky above stretched like an endless ocean studded with stars, in whose shimmering he saw his own reflection, lost among the dusty lights and mirages of eternity. The chirping of night insects blended with the gentle rustle of the wind, creating a harmony capable of lulling any traveler who had stopped here, in the heart of the night.

A faint, delightful smile touched his lips, and he was ready to melt into this peace… if not for a strange sound that sliced through the quiet.

The sound, barely perceptible, was like a whisper—thin, muffled, but persistent—and, even stranger, it seemed to come not from outside but from within his own mind. An unsettling thought of a hallucination or even a stroke flickered through him, but a sudden flash of light overhead distracted him, making him quickly look up.

There, in the inky darkness, a sphere glowed, like a drop of pure, cold light cutting through the night sky. It grew brighter, drawing closer with astonishing speed, and just as it seemed that its radiance would eclipse the stars, it shot downward, straight toward the earth.

Soundlessly, with a faint sigh of the night air, the sphere touched down in a small clearing nearby, raising a gentle cloud of dust and strange ripples that spread through the area like waves on water.

Unable to resist the sharp pull of curiosity, the man walked slowly toward the place where the sphere had fallen, his steps becoming more cautious, his heartbeat quickening. Ahead of him, a small clearing opened, and at its center, within an uneven crater, glowed an oval portal.

The man froze in shock, unable to look away from the alien world pushing through the portal’s depths. Light spilled onto the trees, casting bright, almost sunny shadows, illuminating unfamiliar plants and birds on the other side. The forest bathed in light appeared magical to him, and yet something eerie lurked at the very edge of the portal.

Its surface pulsed constantly, shifting as if one force was fiercely trying to tear the space apart, while another struggled to keep it stable. These distorted lines, appearing and vanishing at unimaginable speed, created the impression that someone had momentarily disrupted the fabric of reality.

The man stood still, captivated by the spectacle before him. He was as unmoving as a rock, but inside, a storm raged. The portal was an invitation to the unknown, a chance he knew he couldn’t pass up. His thoughts clashed and collided, trying to make sense of his feelings.

The portal presented an opportunity he couldn’t ignore. His mind raced, analyzing the situation, weighing all the risks and possible rewards.

A desire, long buried deep within his mind, began to rise, like a fire finally allowed to ignite.

What if what he longed for lay beyond that threshold?

Some things, no matter how hard you try, simply can’t be attained on Earth. Reality was indeed beautiful in its cruelty. But what about another world? What if his chance awaited him on the other side of the portal?

Of course, there was also the other possibility—instant death. But that didn’t bother him. How long do people live, anyway? Eighty, maybe a hundred years? It’s as fleeting as a dream, ending in an instant. He didn’t want to die, but he also wasn’t afraid of death.

Lost in thought, he suddenly noticed the portal was shrinking, and the longer he hesitated, the faster his opportunity was slipping away. Four meters, then three, then two. He had only minutes, or even seconds—any longer, and the chance would be lost.

The man froze, a cold fear replacing the heat within him. Conflicting thoughts and a paralyzing survival instinct gripped him as a voice inside shouted, “You’ve been fine without it; why do you need this portal?”

But then his face cleared, freed from doubt. A hoarse laugh escaped him, sounding bold and desperate, full of a freedom he hadn’t felt in years. He laughed at himself, at the world, and at life itself.

“When was the last time I felt this alive?” he thought, inhaling the air from the portal, filled with strange scents and boundless mystery.

Laughing, he stepped toward the portal, a defiant grin spreading across his face, and his green eyes sparkled with a resolve he hadn’t felt in years.

Without another doubt, he leapt into the portal.

Chapter 2 - Brave New World

Gravity. It was this force that the man felt with every part of his body. His body was subjected to an unrelenting pressure, as if every cell in his body was being squeezed. Blood flowed from his nose, eyes, and ears, and his bones began to crack under this incredible strain.

But to his luck, all this agony did not last long. Suddenly another gravitational force grabbed him and pulled him to the other side. He flew several meters through the air before he slammed into some trees and lost consciousness. Darkness engulfed his mind.

This was how the mysterious world welcomed its new inhabitant.

The man slowly opened his eyes, feeling consciousness return to him. The brief loss of consciousness left behind a sensation of aching pain that pierced his body. The sun was still shining all around him. It seemed like not much time had passed, which was no surprise. Only characters in movies or books faint for hours. In reality, you can lose consciousness for a couple of minutes at most, or forever. Of course, there are exceptions, when fainting lasts up to half an hour, but let's not talk about that.

The man tried to concentrate to analyze the state of his body. No fractures showed up, but the cuts on his skin spoke of a hard collision with a tree. The headache was an unpleasant reminder of what he had just experienced. Flicking a finger near his ear, the man found to his relief that his eardrums had somehow survived this interdimensional jaunt. There were some extraneous noises and the sound came through a layer of absorbent cotton, but that was something he could work with.

Feeling a throbbing in his temples, the man decided to check his memories for possible amnesia. The check began with a name.

"Alexei. My name is Alexei," the man mumbled. "What about the rest of it?"

He remembered his age, his past life, and the reason he had decided to go to this new world in the first place. Everything was in place, his memory had not failed him. Brushing the blood off his face with his hand, he looked up and began to look around.

He was in a small clearing surrounded by a dense forest. The trees rose to the sky like guardians of this mysterious place. Their branches intertwined, creating a green roof that let in only rare rays of sunlight. The air was permeated with the smell of damp earth and wild vegetation.

Alexei turned his attention to the plants that surrounded him. They were completely unlike anything he had seen before. Strange flowers with bright petals grew here, as if they were painted with magical colors. Lianas wove around the trunks of the trees, like living creatures striving for freedom. The leaves had unusual shapes and shades, ranging from bright green to deep purple.

He stood up, hissing in pain, and began to walk cautiously through the clearing, studying each unusual flower and plant. Standing out among the flowers were strange plants that resembled tongues of fire or stars. Some of them emitted a faint light, as if they were some kind of natural lamps. But what attracted the most attention were the distinctly special plants that surrounded the clearing. Their stems and leaves glowed with bright colors: blue, purple, pink, and even gold. They emitted a gentle glow, as if they lit up glowing dots in this mysterious forest.

Alexei tried not to get too close to them, fearing their unusual nature.

He clearly realized that he had entered a world where nature had distinctly different laws, and peculiar wonders. He felt that an uncharted territory, full of dangers and possibilities, spread out before him. His heart raced with anticipation - he was ready to take on the challenges of this new world.

Canterlot, a city of white stone, towered over all of Equestria as its majestic capital. The architecture of the place, remotely reminiscent of Earth's mixture of baroque and classicism, created a special appeal. But the real natural beauty of Canterlot was given by its many waterfalls and rivers flowing through its streets. This harmony between nature and sentient beings brought to mind the forest elves.

Above the entire city stood a grandiose structure, the heart of this city - the Royal Palace. On the top floor of the palace, in a spacious office decorated with gold, there were sounds of quill creaking and parchment rustling.

Who is this unfortunate soul buried in paperwork?

Her name is Celestia, but that's only to her friends. In the eyes of everyone else, she is Princess Celestia, the Ruler of the Sun, the Sovereign of Day and Night, the permanent ruler of Equestria, and one of the most powerful beings in the world.

No, she is not a wood elf, as one might think because of the name and the harmony with nature that reigned in the city. Celestia is a pony, just like most of the inhabitants of Equestria.

Among her subjects, Celestia stood out for her appearance: a tall white pony with a long horn and huge wings. Her mane and tail glistened with the colors of the northern lights, which, as if by magic, fluttered even without a touch of wind. As an alicorn, a special kind of pony, she combined all the advantages of the other three races: strength, stamina, speed, magical power, and longevity.

It was this powerful pony that was currently bogged down in a swamp of bureaucracy. But a sudden knock on the door interrupted her agony. Celestia ordered entry, and a slender unicorn with a thick blue mane and shiny snow-white fur entered the office. His eyes sparkled with wisdom and his horn emitted a powerful magical energy.

"Good afternoon, Arcane," Celestia greeted. "I have been waiting for your report. There is no time for formalities. Tell me what you managed to find out."

Arcane bowed quickly, opened his notebook and began to report: "Your Majesty, as you know, there was a powerful spatial anomaly in the Everfree Forest this morning. The energy fluctuations spread to dozens and even hundreds of kilometers around. Fortunately, the epicenter was deep within Everfree, so only a slight ripple reached us. Several villages near Everfree reported interference with magical equipment, a few ponies went to the hospital complaining of headaches, but that's about it. As far as we know - there are no casualties among the citizens of Equestria."

"That's good news," Celestia smiled.

"Indeed, Your Majesty," Arcane continued. "Previously, we had assumed the emergence of a stream of beasts scared by the energy fluctuations, and sent suppression squads to the settlements adjacent to the forest. However, that did not happen. Pegasus scouts report no unusual activity among the fauna of the Everfree Forest at this time."

"It's Everfree. It's another completely normal day for the local wildlife," Celestia sighed, obvious relief audible in her voice. "Nevertheless, caution is never unnecessary. Move on to the part related to your specialty."

"As you command," Arcane nodded. "We've done some preliminary research and found that there were two sources of the anomaly. Of course, we'll need additional time to analyze the waves in more detail, but..."

"Two?" clarified Celestia, interrupting the unicorn's report.

"That is correct, Your Majesty," Arcane continued calmly. "There were two surges at the same time, but in two different locations. Because of their similar nature, and the Everfree's distortions, we originally thought of only one source. However, they are different. The first, and most powerful, source is almost entirely spatial in nature, with a small amount of mental energy. The second source carried faint spatial fluctuations, but an extremely powerful burst of mental energy."

Celestia listened intently, her gaze frowning slightly.

"My department has already done a partial analysis of this energy, but found no known correspondences. We can only theorize," Arcane said, telekinesis pulling several sheets of diagrams and a bunch of numbers out of his notebook. "Please take a look."

"And which theory do you think is most likely?" asked Celestia, scrutinizing the data.

"We believe the energy belongs to a pony with abilities in the field of Dream Magic. It would have to be either an extremely powerful unicorn or...," Arcane swallowed, but immediately continued. "Or, more likely, an alicorn."

Celestia looked up and gazed intently at the unicorn standing before her.

"Were you able to establish coordinates?" Celestia asked calmly, seeming to completely ignore the alicorn part of the report.

"We're still working on it, but... It's safe to say by now that it's impossible," followed the unicorn's annoyed reply. "Due to Everfree's distortions, all the waves have different wavelengths and frequencies. Even if we collect data from all the instruments around the entire Everfree - we can't determine the coordinates of the source of the radiation. The only option is to scour the Everfree forest and hope for luck."

"I understand," Celestia replied in an even voice. "Thank you for your work, Arcane."

"I was merely performing my duties, Your Majesty," the white unicorn replied with a bow, waiting for further words from his princess. His silver voice sounded soft and admiring, as if worship was his natural state.

There were no words. Celestia rose from her seat and made her way to the window, looking out into the distance. Her face, swathed in an ephemeral mane of colorful curls, expressed nothing.

Alicorns live a long, long time. The princess's eyes reflected infinite wisdom and experience accumulated over millennia. In that time, she had long ago learned to control her emotions. Then lost them. Then regained them again, recreating them on her own as masks for any situation.

After a few moments of thought, the princess turned back to the unicorn patiently awaiting instructions.

"All information relating to the anomaly must be classified. Mental energy samples to be destroyed. All personnel involved must take an extended vow of silence. The official version is that there was an explosion of a crystal mine, which mixed with Everfree's magic to produce this effect," Celestia gave out clear orders. "You may leave."

"As you command, Your Majesty," the unicorn replied, bowed his head in respect, and left the room.

Celestia remained in silent contemplation for a while, immersed in her thoughts.

"The fourth and final star has finally arrived," she finally muttered. "Your foresight is commendable, sister, but it is not yet time for us to meet."

"Now I'll have to visit the cause of my incessant headache," Celestia thought glumly.

Celestia slowly descended the stone steps leading down into the depths of the dungeon. Everything around her was covered in intricate runes radiating magical energy. The light from her horn reflected off the walls, creating a disturbing shadow play.

Finally, she reached the center hall, where there was a statue made up of different animal parts. A pony, a deer, a goat, a lion, an eagle, a bat, a lizard, and a snake. All in all, the list was solid, befitting the authority and stature of the creature this statue was made from.

Celestia did not seem to be a connoisseur of fine art - the entire statue was sheathed in two tarnished chains created from an unknown metal. There were no runes on the chains, there was no need for them, and they looked extremely plain, even a little ragged. The chains reeked of antiquity. Not the kind of antiquity you'd see in any museum, but a different kind of antiquity, an antiquity filled with blood, death, and wild, untamed magic.

Celestia stepped closer and looked at the statue with undisguised irritation.

"What have you done, Discord?" she spat out angrily, addressing the statue.

Usually statues aren't very talkative, but this one was definitely special - the answer followed immediately.

"What are you talking about, Celly? I haven't done anything. I'm as motionless as a statue," came from the statue sarcastically.

The statue's voice sounded chaotic, consisting of different tones and ages.It was gentle and rough at the same time; then fast, then slow; then quiet, then loud, creating a strangely annoying effect. It could really give even an alicorn a headache. The voice belonged to Discord, the draconequus, local spirit of Chaos and Lord of Madness.

Why is he in this fully shielded dungeon, covered in all sorts of protective runes and restrictions? Where else would he be? If some madman left a sealed creature with semi-divine powers in, say, the Royal Garden - Discord would have to bow down and hand over his crown and title to him. Even he wasn't that crazy.

"You know exactly what we're talking about!" Celestia exclaimed.

"Three times these fanatics have found the vessels of energy left behind by my sister and tried to break the seal on Nightmare Moon. And each time, we've found your trace!"

"Today was the fourth. What will we find this time? A mystery indeed," Celestia said wryly.

"Someone found one of my discarded toys, like a book or something, and you're already raising a howl accusing me of all sins," the Chaos spirit snorted.

"You're such an annoying old nag, Tia. If it weren't for your, I must say truly royal, butt and free popcorn - I'd have had enough and left a long time ago."

"Just give up already, Discord. That was the fourth and final vessel and the seal is still intact" Celestia replied, regaining her composure. This was far from her first, nor would it be her last, conversation with this annoying creature.

"You're not going to make it. There will be no chaos, everything will go on as it should. You won't be able to use this opportunity to break out of here. You'll stay here until the end of time."

"I can't break out? I wasn't going to!" laughed Discord wildly.

“Who knows, Celly? I think one day you'll come to me and voluntarily open this cage. We'll have tea together, and talk about the magic of friendship, and hugging and all that."

Somehow Celestia felt that this utterly delusional statement sounded prophetic. A chill ran down her back. Waving away the strange feeling, she exhaled a cloud of vapor, turned around, and headed for the exit of the dungeon. She could clearly sense that she wasn't going to hear anything useful from Discord today.

The insane laughter of the restrained Chaos spirit echoed throughout the dungeon and hit her in the back. Shivering slightly she continued on her way.

"Magic of friendship," Celestia snorted mentally. "What nonsense."

Alexei had been continuing his way through the dense forest for several hours now. Earlier, having climbed a tall tree, he surveyed the surrounding forest. Tall was a rather mild term for this giant. The man, after roughly estimating the height, agreed on a figure of 80-90 meters. And it was far from being the tallest tree in this forest!

There was a carpet of green all around him, but to one side the trees were gradually thinning and some open space was vaguely visible. Despite the fact that he had climbed to a great height and should have been able to see for many dozens of kilometers ahead - the light fog that hovered above the trees limited his vision. He decided to move in that direction, expecting to leave the potentially dangerous forest before dark.

As he moved, the forest did indeed begin to thin, confirming that he had not lost his way. Listening to the surrounding sounds and trying not to make too much noise, Alexei thought over his future plans.

Shelter, food and water. These are the three basic things that any human in the wilderness had to think about. Shelter and food were not so relevant at the moment. The weather was hot, but he was saved from overheating by the green canopy over his head.

One of the streams he came across shared water with him a couple of hours ago. The water was crystal clear, and the crayfish and small fish swimming in it convinced the man that it was safe. Too bad he didn't have any bottle to take some with him.

In fact, there was a fourth problem: wild animals. What kind of monsters could be found in a forest from another universe? So far, the strangest thing he had seen was a two-headed snake and some kind of animal that looked vaguely like a squirrel with huge ears.

But now he decided to take a little breather and take a break from the strenuous journey. In his hand was a fruit plucked from a branch nearby, its pleasant sweet smell filling the air. Outwardly, the fruit strongly resembled persimmons, which the man couldn't stand, but there was some hope for food from another world.

He cut it open and dripped some of the juice onto the skin on the inside of his forearm, waiting for a reaction. This was a way to check for poison and a possible allergic reaction. Once, he had watched some show about a naked bald man surviving in the wilderness. Now that information has been put to good use. Thank you, bald man!

While he waited for the body to respond, he took another look at his gear. He was dressed in dark blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and brown sneakers. A wooden bracelet, received as a gift from one of the drivers, was placed on his left arm. A leather belt adorned his waist, on it hung a folding knife, his most valuable asset in this situation. In his pockets he had his keys, a bank card, a couple bills and a few coins - everything he'd had on him when he'd crossed through the portal.

But there were some new items as well: a crude wooden spear and two hares tied by their legs with vines to a stick. The hares, by the way, were quite ordinary, no different from those on Earth. Everything was more or less clear with the spear - the knife easily solved this trivial problem. Where did the hares come from? Well, it's a funny story.

Initially scrutinizing the clearing where he was thrown out of the portal - he found a lot of bodies scattered on the ground.

Insects. Birds. Rodents. Hares. They weren't dead. Even now he could feel the heartbeat of the hares.

All the creatures were as if they were in a coma or deep sleep from which there was no way to awaken. He tried yelling in the hare's ear, braking it, slapping it, and even making it bleed - there was no response. Now he had two small live hares that he could eat or even, at the very least, drink their blood. There were even more questions.

He wondered about possible reasons for this strange phenomenon. Perhaps the portal he had crossed through had some effect on the local wildlife. Or, more disturbingly, he himself had brought with him some virus from his world that was causing this daze.

"I could cause the extinction of an entire planet," Alexei thought to himself. "That would be a little embarrassing."

Still, he was leaning toward the portal version - only the creatures in a radius of about thirty meters around the clearing had fallen into a coma.

However, he had another thought - what if it was local viruses or diseases that could infect him? He had already thought about that possibility before he had even crossed through the portal. Without any immunity, they would progress extremely quickly. At any moment he could start vomiting blood and his story would be over.

Alexei sighed and pushed those thoughts away. There was no point in thinking about it. He had chosen this path for himself. As long as he did his best for his goal - he would have no regrets, even if he died. That was what he had decided back on Earth, standing in front of that portal.

Five minutes had already passed, but there was no reaction on the skin. The fruit could be eaten. Taking a small bite, the man immediately spit it out. Instead of the expected sweet taste of fruit pulp, he felt the disgusting taste of rotten meat and swamp jelly. An unpleasant taste spread inside his mouth that made him disgusted and nauseous.

"Fuck!" the man swore, spitting furiously, but there was no way he could get rid of that taste in his mouth.

He was somewhat disappointed and outraged at this deception.

Half an hour of persistent walking through the thinning forest brought Alexei to its edge. Ahead, in the azure distance, stretched a vast plain. He stopped to regain his breath and look at his surroundings. Looking around, Alexei didn't see anything dangerous or threatening. He decided to continue on his way and get out of the forest.

But suddenly, in the distance, a startled squeal and maniacal laughter reached his ears. His heart sank and he carefully moved towards the sounds, leaving his prey - the hares - on the ground. Cautiously and silently, he approached the source of the noise, hiding behind tree trunks.

After a minute he came out onto the open plain and saw what was the source of those sounds. A small zebra was rushing across the plain toward the forest, desperately fighting for its life, chased by something that looked like a hyena. The hyena-like creature must have been the source of the laughter.

The man watched silently, not intending to interfere. He was already thinking of quietly leaving when a new sound was heard.

"Msaada! Msaada!" the little zebra yelped.

Alexei froze, abandoning the idea of retreating into the forest. Albeit unknown to him, it was clearly some language of an intelligent creature. He squinted his eyes to examine the creature more closely.

Indeed, what he had mistaken for a zebra was far from the classic appearance of that animal. It bore only a superficial resemblance to a zebra, and the new details only confirmed his doubts. The creature's large eyes glowed with worry and fear. Its skull was flattened, and its muzzle was blunted and less long than a normal zebra's. The mane and tail, bicolored and intertwined, created a strange and unusual look.

Things were taking an interesting turn.

"So, we have a talking zebra here," Alexei thought, and then dubiously shifted his eyes to the hyena chasing it. "Was that a hyena's laughter or was that the laughter of an intelligent creature?"

"What's the difference?" - he shook his head. "Life and death are the law of nature. All living beings are equal, and everyone has the right to survive and be killed."

His heart hammered harder as he snatched the knife from his belt and wrapped the belt around his forearm, creating a temporary defense. The spear, now held firmly and confidently, ready for battle, was his weapon and support.

He didn't hesitate as he rushed towards this mysterious pair.

Chapter 20 - Royal wedding (2/3)

The skies above Canterlot erupted in bright light, ominous energy bursts lighting up the area as Princess Celestia and Queen Chrysalis clashed in their battle. Celestia's fiery spear and Chrysalis' halberd, shrouded in magical charges, met in a blaze of sparks and flames.

Celestia, holding her flaming spear in telekinesis, aptly hurled it towards Chrysalis. She brilliantly intercepted the blow with her halberd, avoiding the flaming strike. With a powerful thrust, Chrysalis attacked, trying to pierce Celestia's defenses, but she dodged at the last moment, answering with her spear.

While Celestia tried to keep Chrysalis at a distance with her spear, the queen deftly maneuvered, trying to penetrate her defenses with her halberd. They spun in a whirlwind of combat, each trying to overpower the other, sparks flying in all directions from the clash of their weapons.

Feeling her stamina beginning to drain, Celestia decided to use magic spells to retake the initiative. She summoned her star attack, creating a meteor shower that swirled around the queen and created an opportunity for another attack. Huge rocks sparked in the air, exploding around Chrysalis, forcing her to go on the defensive.

In response, Chrysalis fired a green poison beam from her horn in an attempt to weaken the princess. Celestia used her flame shield to repel the attack, but Chrysalis, not giving up, activated her Mist of Confusion spell, which began to envelop Celestia in a dark green cloud, confusing her and slowing her reactions.

As they continued their deadly skirmish in the whirlwind of battle, the magical forces warped the sky over Canterlot. They both maneuvered masterfully, using their weapons and spells in an effort to overpower their opponent. But just when Celestia thought she was beginning to overwhelm Chrysalis, the latter suddenly turned around and focused a powerful spell.

A fog of Confusion thickened around Celestia, slowing her reactions and breaking her concentration. At the same time, Chrysalis released her next strike - a multitude of sharp dark green needles surged out of the mist, piercing the princess's body. She felt a sharp pain as blood began to flow from the wounds. The sharp needles released by Chrysalis pierced not only Celestia's body but also her will, paralyzing the princess and cutting off her ability to move.

With accelerated force accompanied by a deafening crack, Celestia's body crashed into the hard ground of the royal gardens. The ground beneath her bent and cracked from the force of the collision, flowers and plants were crushed and torn, and clouds of dust and smoke billowed around.

Chrysalis concentrated a huge amount of energy at the tip of her horn, squeezing it to its limit. A giant dark green beam of energy erupted from that dot, aimed directly at Celestia. The power of the spell was unimaginable. When the dark green beam hit Celestia's defenseless body, most of her body simply vaporized. Only the alicorn's hind legs remained on the ground.

Meanwhile, the beam of energy continued its destructive motion, penetrating deep into the ground beneath her. Where the beam struck, a huge hole formed, from which puffs of smoke and dust rose.

Chrysalis landed on the ground, trying to regain her breath after two powerful spells that had taken her considerable effort. Fatigue enveloped her, but a smirk flashed across her face as she looked at Celestia's remains. With a few spells, she destroyed Celestia's remains so that no trace of her existence remained.

Suddenly, a powerful wave of energy enveloped Canterlot, making the air shake. It was as if this energy was alive, carrying the cries of many beasts and heralding the approach of something dark and sinister. But amidst all this beastly noise, one thing stood out clearly: the triumphant roar of a dragon.

“Hmm?” thought Chrysalis, shifting her gaze to the hole in the ground. “What kind of beast does Celestia keep under the garden?”

She tried to use a spell to look under ground, but suddenly her body was paralyzed. It wasn't the effects of magic; it was instinctive fear - Chrysalis felt that someone was looking at her, and she would die in the next second. Biting her lip and causing pain, Chrysalis tried to use a teleportation spell and escape, but it wasn't that easy - every cell in her body was frozen with terror. She was still alive, but her body thought it was already dead.

However, in the next moment, the roar fell silent and the pressure disappeared, as if it was all just an illusion.

Stubbornly snorting, Chrysalis channeled magic into the depths of the earth, scanning the space beneath the garden. Deep below, she found a cave, its walls covered in a multitude of runes.

But there was no horrible beast, only shards and a rusty chain.

“Stop,” sounded in the changeling's head, but he continued running toward the palace. “I commanded you to fucking stop!”

A powerful pressure followed, pinning the changeling to the ground. He started to lunge, but froze when two changelings in scaly armor that blended into the chitin landed in front of him. The changeling's green eyes flashed with joy when he saw his kin.

“It's good to have you here,” the changeling exclaimed excitedly. “I need to get to the palace right away, I have an important assignment from Her!”

The changelings in armor glanced around. The entire Canterlot was filled with interference, and communication at long distances was impossible, but up close, telepathy worked perfectly. However, the changeling said it all out loud.

“State your name, rank, and code phrase,” it sounded again in the wingless changeling's head. “Who is your squad leader? What sector do you belong to? What were you doing in that zone?”

“What?” muttered the questioned changeling perplexedly.

The questioning soldier frowned and directly used telepathy to get inside his head and find the information he needed.

What he found was... nothing.

The wingless changeling was like a blank page. He didn't even know how to use telepathy. However, what he did find in his head was a message and a set of encrypted information, presumably from Queen Chrysalis. He was given orders to head to the royal palace and join the group searching Princess Luna's chambers. The information detailed the layout of Princess Luna's chambers, and the encrypted part appeared to contain methods to break the runic defenses and priority items.

The soldier shifted his gaze to the massive burn with dried blood on the leg of the held changeling. Sure enough, he easily recognized his queen's magical energy. He also saw a bit of purple coating on the changeling's body, which he recognized as the poison the queen had used in the square. Slamming his telekinesis on the changeling's back, he shook off the coating and used many scanning spells.

The scans went through with some interference - the changeling's lungs were literally soaked in purple smoke. Normally, with so much poison in its lungs, this changeling should have stopped breathing by now - the soldier had heard about the high efficiency of this poison. But in the changeling's body, he could feel two weak sources of magical energy belonging to Queen Chrysalis near his ribs. He couldn't determine more precisely because of the interference from the poison, but one thing was clear: the queen could easily save this changeling from the poison.

“Queen Chrysalis is fighting in the sky,” the soldier finally transmitted through telepathy. “There's no way you could have met her. You're lying. You are detained until all the circumstances are clarified. Do not resist.”

As he relayed the message, he carefully watched the reactions and emotions of the held changeling. Sure enough, the soldier saw that earlier Chrysalis had missed a hit and collapsed to the ground. And the changeling had come from exactly where the queen had fallen. The queen could very well have found out some secrets during the battle with Celestia and sent this changeling with the information she had gotten. It was all entirely possible. As was the memory loss. He just wanted to see the changeling's reaction. It would be especially suspicious if he suddenly remembered something and tried to explain himself.

Hearing the queen's name made the changeling flash with pride and adoration, but the part about being detained made him furious.

“Then you'd better kill me,” hissed the changeling, trying to get up off the ground. “Because I will resist until I do Her will.”

The two soldiers watched the changeling try to resist their spell pinning him to the ground. He was unable to use magic due to the poison in his body and resisted with physical strength alone. The effort was clearly futile - the changeling was only hurting himself. The chitin cracked in several places and blood began to drip onto the ground, but the changeling paid no attention to it - clenching his teeth, he tried to get up. Suddenly, the pressure from his back began to disappear, allowing him to slowly stand up, and he squinted at the soldiers.

“Calm down, brother,” smiling, the soldier transmitted through telepathy. 'We'll get you to the palace, but first you'll have to meet the captain.

“Where is this captain?” the changeling asked doubtfully, eyeing the soldiers. “Is he in the palace?”

“Yes,” replied one of the soldiers, taking the bag from him. “And this will stay with us for now.”

Looking into the bag, the soldier saw many vials and ingredients, a cauldron, a knife, a plaid, several cups, and other things one would see in a traveler's bag. His partner had already shared this changeling's memory with him and according to his memories, he had taken the bag from the corpse of a griffin lying in the ruins. The bag was more fitting for some zebra trader who had come to Canterlot to sell his potions. So the soldier assumed the gryphon had taken it off someone's corpse as well.

“Then I agree,” nodded the changeling, not particularly worried about losing the bag.

With a hum, one of the soldiers wrapped his legs around the changeling and flew off, while the other created a shield around all three of them and they all flew towards the palace together. In this part of Canterlot, the changelings had won an absolute victory, but there was still fighting going on all around, so the shield was necessary.

The changelings also realized that although they were able to disperse the main forces of Canterlot, it couldn't last forever. Soon they would regroup and overwhelm the changelings. But they still had about an hour and they were fine with that. The main objectives had already been accomplished and now they were getting combat experience, using the royal guards as training dummies. Danger sharpened senses and only between life and death a creature could unleash its full potential. Queen Chrysalis often repeated this phrase.

The palace was spacious enough inside, so after flying into one of the broken windows, the changelings continued their flight through the corridors. There were no problems with the guards - telepathy allowed the changelings to quickly confirm their identities. Soon they flew into a room where a middle-aged changeling was leaning over a map of Canterlot, with many colored lights hovering over it, reflecting the position of the troops. Several guards stood at his sides, scrutinizing the arrivals.

“Captain, we...” began one of the soldiers, but was interrupted by a raised hoof.

The captain stood for a few seconds, continuing to look at the map, and then nodded to himself. His horn blazed and a multitude of blue dragonflies sprang up around him and immediately burst from the room, carrying the necessary instructions to the squads under his command.

“I'm listening,” the captain transmitted through telepathy, casting a brief glance at the entrants. “What do you have? Quickly.”

“Captain, there is new information on the security measures in Luna's chambers,” the soldier reported, pointing to the wingless changeling. “He has a detailed description of...”

“Then send him to Jade,” the captain interrupted him irritably. “She's in charge of the capture and break-in on that floor.”

“Ahem, the situation is a bit complicated,” the soldier said cautiously, beginning to quickly relay all the available information to the captain.

A flicker of irritation flashed across his face as the flood of information rushed through his already busy mind, but soon the irritation was replaced by a frown.

Looking up, he scrutinized the delivered changeling. It was the changeling's dark green eyes that seemed to catch his attention the most. The captain's horn lit up as he applied several scanning spells. The wingless changeling blinked and winced at the pain in its eyes - one of the spells had been aimed directly at its eyes. Finishing his inspection, the captain confirmed that the changeling in front of him was indeed a changeling.

Changing appearance or size was easy enough, but pretending to be someone of another race was a bit of a problem. Usually, at least among unicorns, illusions were used in such cases, which could be easily detected by scanning.

As for transformation spells and potions - they had a certain disadvantage, which Alexei had already experienced several times. Physiology changed, but magical energy did not. No matter how many times he transformed into ponies, unicorns, or griffins - he did not gain any abilities or magical energy. If an earth pony transformed into a griffin, the situation would be the same. It would be a griffin with the magical energy of a pony, an innate talent for earth magic, and no ability to fly. Of course, the magical energy could be disguised as the energy of another race, but it was quite difficult to do and easy to detect.

But there were exceptions - changelings who could freely convert their energy when transforming. They didn't have an innate talent for a particular element when they transformed, but their disguise was perfect. And talent was just a matter of practice.

Of course, there were also high-level transformation spells that could completely copy all the physical features of the target. But the captain hadn't even considered such a possibility. If the changeling in front of him was a spy capable of such spells, why would he need a disguise at all? His power should be at the level of Queen Chrysalis. While Celestia and Chrysalis are busy fighting, he could do whatever he wants in the palace.

“The situation is really sensitive,” the captain thought, taking another look at the changeling's eyes.

The soldiers paid no attention to it, but he knew some secrets - Queen Chrysalis had children. The society of changelings was fundamentally different from that of ponies, though they spoke the same language. No one got anything by birthright. A changeling had to achieve everything through his own efforts.

Even Queen Chrysalis started at the bottom of the ladder. Right after she was born, her mother disguised her and secretly gave her to an orphanage. No one but her mother knew of Chrysalis' origins. Chrysalis had nothing and yet she climbed to the top. Only after Chrysalis reached the limit, broke it and evolved into a Royal changeling - did her mother meet with her and reveal her origins.
Chrysalis' entire journey was described in her biography and the book was a bestseller among changelings. Most changelings genuinely respected Chrysalis. Not for being a queen, but for being able to become a queen.

Chrysalis did the same with her children. The captain didn't know their identities, but he was sure that some of them were fighting outside the palace right now. And right now, Chrysalis' son was most likely standing in front of him.

The captain might have had some doubts about the body because of the anti-magic poison, but the eye color was real. He was absolutely certain of that. And who else could have dark green eyes? Changelings usually had blue, yellow, orange, and rarely purple eyes. The dark green color belonged to the current royal family.

If Alexei had heard the captain's thoughts - he would have laughed and slightly embarrassed. He had miscalculated a bit and ran into the smoke before the time, because of which the transformation was not fully completed and he was left with his natural eye color.

The captain, meanwhile, was thinking about how to handle the situation. Naturally, he was not going to help Chrysalis' supposed son. If the queen found out about it, and she would, the captain would be punished. The children were to achieve everything by their own efforts.

But if he harmed her child or treated him unfairly, he could lose his head - in case of any problem, the queen would personally deal with the case. There was another side of the coin - if he succeeded, he might get a promotion. The situation was clearly out of instructions and the captain had to make the most correct and reasonable decision possible.

“There are a few odd points, but everything can be explained,” the captain thought, shifting his gaze once again to the trio in front of him. “I've seen stranger situations. I think I'll send these two with him as support. Two is enough, right? It's not much, but it's not insignificant either. The queen should be pleased with my decision.”

“Escort him to Luna's chambers and provide support until he reaches the portal,” the captain relayed to the two soldiers. “And return his bag.”

Aside from the items requested by Chrysalis, all other items belonged to those who had obtained them. Even Chrysalis couldn't claim this changeling for his loot. For each task completed, including the items obtained, changelings received merit points. After completing an operation, this changeling would have to give this bag to the common loot, but he could take it back after spending his merit points. Plus, he'll have priority on a few items he personally looted. This whole system was done so that all changelings could get something after this raid. Some were now filling bags with jewels and carrying them into portals, while others were fighting ponies. But in the end, everyone would be able to get the things they needed according to their contribution to the operation, be it money, ingredients, artifacts, or weapons.

Nodding, the two changelings picked up the third and left the room. Flying up once more, they headed towards Princess Luna's chambers. Compared to the rest of the palace, there was almost no one in this wing. The thestrals, at the moment, were assaulting the interference crystals in Canterlot, hoping to contact their Princess, and the changelings weren't particularly interested in this part of the palace.

Luna's return had alarmed Chrysalis somewhat - she knew little about her, and even less about the limits of her abilities. And given that her abilities were related to dreams and mind - Chrysalis had ordered all changelings to stay away from her, not wanting to risk the entire operation for the sake of a few advantages. So the changelings didn't disguise themselves as thestrals close to the princess, and didn't even know what her chambers looked like from the inside. Everything more or less valuable that was in plain sight had already been taken away, and there was no point in even messing with the hiding places created by the alicorn.

Without any information, they might take a month to crack it and get nowhere. And even if they did break into such a cache, it could be candy, a bottle of wine, or some other small thing that had been given divine-level protection by an alicorn's will. Not to mention that the alicorns clearly had spatial artifacts and carried everything of value with them. They couldn't even get into Celestia's chambers, and Luna's modestly furnished chambers weren't anything interesting. Most had chosen other more profitable places to loot, and Luna's chambers only had two changelings studying the runes on the wall, who were here only because of a command.

The creak of the door drew them away from the wall and they turned, looking at the trio that had entered.

“Reinforcements have arrived, boys,” smirked a soldier, greeting them through telepathy. “We have someone who can help you. He doesn't remember how to use telepathy, though.”

The changelings only looked at the soldiers perplexed. A help? From someone who forgot basic things even children know? Is this some kind of stupid soldier's joke?

They were peacefully engaged in deciphering the runes, which was the job of their research department. Why did those armored idiots come here? Did they have nothing better to do?

But they didn't have time to express their doubts - a powerful pressure hit the room and all the changelings fell to the floor, shaking with instinctive terror as the beastly roar filled their ears.

All this went on for a few seconds, after which the pressure disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared. But the changelings were unlikely to ever forget these moments.

“What... was that?” hissed the wingless changeling, trying to get up.

“It wasn't in the plan,” replied the soldier dryly, heading for the balcony.

Once outside, he was faced with the expected sight of many changelings and royal guard ponies trying to get up. The battle had been temporarily interrupted.

The changeling frowned as he saw that Chrysalis and Celestia had disappeared somewhere. Canterlot was in total chaos, with the interference distorting everything, and the air still humming with the pressure of that terrifying energy. Reconnaissance spells were out of the question.

According to Queen Chrysalis' plan, in addition to the main part with the alicorn, they were to grab what they could and leave through the portal after the queen's signal when she was done fighting Celestia. Chrysalis, on the other hand, would leave Canterlot on her own.

None of their portals would be able to withstand Chrysalis's magical power and collapse immediately. Besides, there's a pissed off Celestia on her tail. The changelings certainly believed in their queen, but was killing the Princess of the Sun really that easy? Chrysalis shared these thoughts and planned to leave by her own methods. There was no signal yet, but it was clearly worth hurrying.

''We must hurry,'' the soldier said briefly as he returned to the chambers. “After this, we will leave at once.”

“Do we have escape routes?” the wingless changeling asked the question that had suddenly arisen in his mind. “I can't even fly. How am I going to make it out?”

“We have several dozen portals beyond Equestria,” the soldier replied, sitting down in the center of the room. “Come on, do your part.”

The wingless changeling nodded and, to everyone's surprise, ignored the runes on the wall and headed for a massive bookshelf. Standing in front of it, he began to probe the air near one of the shelves.

“Behind the runes on the wall are only memorabilia and the lock is too complicated,” he answered the silent question as he continued to probe the air. “The most valuable things should be here.”

“And where did you get this information from?” one of the researchers asked.

“From Queen Chrysalis,” replied the changeling proudly, poking a hoof at a specific spot in the air.

A ripple spread in front of the shelf and a multitude of silvery runes appeared, forming patterns like frost on glass.

Looking around, the changeling grabbed a silver feather knife and began diligently carving runes into the wall of the bookshelf.

“Can't we just look at the image in his mind?” the researcher perplexedly asked the soldiers.

“Well, try,” snorted a soldier, scrutinizing a picture of a black tree with no leaves, with the moon shining behind it. The multitude of thin bare branches against the pale celestial body brought associations with the veins piercing the moon.

The researcher actually tried it. The changeling easily allowed him to invade his mind, but as soon as the intruder got to the important information - he wrinkled his nose and turned off telepathy. Everything swam in front of his eyes, and the images of the runes that allowed him to open the cache intertwined in his mind, forming chaotic shapes.

“You could have just said there was a defense on the message,” the still-blinking scholar said grudgingly.

“Would you have believed it until you saw for yourself?” chuckled the second soldier standing by the door.

The researcher only shook his head - this was exactly why they pissed him off.
The wingless changeling, meanwhile, finished carving the runes and called the two scholars over to him. There were four extremely complex runes carved on the rack, with many intricate patterns. And from the looks of it, these four were parts of a single rune. None of the changelings knew these runes in detail, but they were able to determine that they belonged to the dream runes. Which was logical, considering the personality of the chambers' owner.

“Well, that's a bit of a problem,” one of the researchers muttered thoughtfully. “They have to be activated one at a time and then merged together, right?”

Receiving an affirmative nod from the changeling, the researchers frowned.

Activate four runes and then merge them altogether? That meant they needed to think of four things at once. They were capable of two at most, but not in this case - each of the four runes was extremely complex. And the changeling that brought the information was poisoned and unable to use magic at all.

“We need your help,” the scholar sighed, calling out to the soldiers. “Otherwise we'll be here till nightfall.”

Ignoring the soldiers' condescending smiles, the researchers began to explain the activation procedure to them, transmitting images of the runes via telepathy. After doing a few test activations, they made sure there would be no problems.

“Ready?” asked the scholar in charge of the first rune.

After receiving an affirmative nod from the others, he lit the horn and soon a silvery rune emitting mist hovered in the air in front of him. Following him, two soldiers activated the second and third runes. Finally, another scholar activated the fourth rune.

Coordinating through telepathy, the four began to merge the runes into one. After a few minutes, they succeeded and a giant rune, shaped like a butterfly, hovered in front of the shelf. Without relaxing, all four of them directed this rune towards the defense mechanism. The rune flashed and retracted inside, but nothing happened - the defense was still in place.

The changelings looked around perplexed, trying to figure out where they had gone wrong, when suddenly four runes flew out of the shelf and hit them in the heads. Immediately their eyes rolled back and they collapsed to the ground. Judging from the sniffling, they were in a deep sleep.

The remaining changeling looked at the situation in shock. Had they made a mistake? What should he do now?

Something caught the changeling's attention, and it began to back away in fear - the changelings' bodies were rapidly aging, and their energy was being greedily absorbed by the shelf. Luna was clearly not the type to let others pry into her secrets.

Suddenly, the changeling felt dizzy and spread his legs wide, trying to keep his balance. The whole room blurred before his eyes, and the sharp ringing in his ears, accompanied by a severe headache, made him scream and the next second he collapsed to the floor unconscious.

A moment later, thick black smoke billowed from his body, taking the shape of a human.

It was unlikely that Chrysalis had expected that her attack that tore apart Celestia's body would cause far more serious consequences.

The huge beam that struck Celestia went deep into the ground, and reached the cave with a certain prisoner. Weakened, during the time of sinking into the ground, the beam could not destroy the rune fortified cave, but still left a crack in it. And that crack, along with the chaos going on in Canterlot, was enough.

Within moments, the statue of Discord began to crack and collapse, revealing the creature inside. A magical pressure came over the entire Canterlot, sounding like the screams of all sorts wild beasts with a distinctly dragon roar. Discord didn't do this on purpose, he preferred to stay in the shadows and act stealthily. It was just that he couldn't control his energy right now and that was its natural state.

The last pieces fell off his head and Discord blinked, took a deep breath and looked around - a few kilometers of ground wasn't a problem for him.

“What the fuck?” he thought grimly, looking at the changeling queen and the remains of Celestia. “It's too early.”

He had planned his breakout long ago and now his plan was crumbling before his eyes. He was to remain imprisoned until a certain event occurred. It would be bad if he showed up right now.

Discord squinted his eyes and his dragon pupils sank into Chrysalis, the cause of his bad mood.

“I hope you last at least a minute,” Discord muttered and the air around him vibrated. “Otherwise I won't be satisfied.”

But suddenly, several beams flew out of the dust and shards of the statue, piercing Discord. Immediately, golden symbols and words in an ancient language began to appear on his body, forming into bizarre patterns. With each new symbol, he could feel the pressure building on him. Discord frowned and tried to remove the symbols, but they only grew larger.

“Fuck, when did she pull that off?” mentally scolded Discord, teleporting out of the cave. “Even managed to interfere with the Elements seal, too.”

Appearing in a deep part of the Everfree Forest, Discord began to quickly burrow underground. After going a dozen kilometers deep, he flicked his claws and the tunnel closed.

"Please don't disappoint me, Sombra," thought Discord, curling up into a ball and falling asleep. The golden symbols faded a bit and their spreading speed decreased.

Meanwhile, Chrysalis was resting in the Royal Garden, not even realizing that Celestia had just saved her life. She didn't leave the garden for one reason: the battle wasn't over yet. Didn't alicorns have defensive methods? Creatures of that level could be defeated or made to flee, but killing them was a different story. Even Chrysalis had a way to resurrect herself, albeit with harsh conditions to use, let alone Celestia.

After a while, Chrysalis felt a pulse from the sun and looked over at the remains of the princess as flames slowly flared up. Flying into the air, Chrysalis watched what was happening, analyzing Celestia's method. It was pointless to try to intervene and interrupt the resurrection, as Celestia had obviously foreseen it, so she could only watch.

More and more flames broke out and soon a giant fire was raging in the middle of the royal gardens. The flames began to swirl and formed a fiery tornado. After a moment, all the flames were drawn into the center and Princess Celestia appeared completely unharmed in the air.

“She's stronger now,” Chrysalis remarked in surprise, feeling Celestia's energy. “Did she have injuries after the battle with Nightmare Moon? Then why didn't she reborn sooner?”

There was only one possible answer - the method had some recharging time and Celestia preferred to recover slowly, not risking losing her trump card. Comparing her observations with the pulse from the sun, Chrysalis concluded that the condition for revival was a full sun rotation around Equus, which meant the recharge was one year.

Meanwhile, Celestia stared blankly at the hole in the ground, or rather at the cave beneath it. After a moment, an image of the sun appeared behind her and she shifted her gaze to the changeling queen.

The temperature began to rise rapidly.

Chapter ??? - The end

...and they all lived happily ever after!

The end.

Author's Note

I wanted the story to have an ending, even if just a single line, you know? How strange... I’m indoors, but it seems like it’s starting to rain.

So, I’m stopping writing this story and leaving Fimfiction.

A lot has happened this year. I started this story thinking, “Damn, are there any decent stories with an antihero in this fandom? Whatever, I’ll make my own!” And then I just enjoyed writing.

And I still do. And I will keep writing, just not here.

The reason? The usual for authors: at first, I was annoyed by the low activity in the comments and weak feedback, and then the failure with Boosty finally broke me. I don’t feel like I’m creating something that interests many people. I put a lot of effort into it, but all I get in return is just another thumbs-up or a comment saying, 'Waiting for the next chapter!'

I’m tired of it. Over this time, I’ve grown a lot as a writer, and now I feel like I’m just standing still, doing something unclear, rather than moving toward my dream.

So yes, this is the end of this story.

I won’t single anyone out individually, so I’ll just say: thank you all!

Farewell.

P.S. It was very sad for me when I wrote the text above (I’m not ashamed to admit that I teared up when writing about the fact that I’m ending the story), and it might have seemed dry or even accusatory to you. So let me add a few more words to fully convey my thoughts.

I’m not blaming you for anything. You guys are awesome.

I fully understand that, given the size of the site's audience (and the nature of the story), my story was VERY well received. I understand all of that perfectly. But…

I want to build a career as a writer.

It will take me the whole next year to finish this story (and that’s if I write two or three times faster than I did this year). And considering the constant decline in interest in the fandom… I don’t want to spend that much time. So yes, you can think of me as a rat running from a sinking ship.

Also, lately, I’ve started feeling like the boundaries of this world are really limiting my ideas. And I’ve been thinking more and more about creating a completely original story.