Olekir slowly but relentlessly expanded his ice army. With the help of Elikoria, he separated fragments of his soul, imbuing each with a part of his power and will. This was an extremely delicate process that required absolute concentration and control from him. The slightest deviation could lead to irreparable damage. And though it was a risk, it was fully justified by the future obstacles that lay in his path.
However, after just ten created cores, Olekir felt the consequences of his haste for the first time. A weakness hard to put into words: as if his body responded to his call with a delay, and the sharpness of his mind gradually dulled. Unexpected data streams from dolls encountering problems increasingly penetrated his consciousness; normally, solving them wouldn't have taken him even a moment. And he even boasted about it, emphasizing the restoration of his sharp mind. But once during training with Mirolana, his consciousness was flooded with a vision of several dolls performing nominal patrols, noticing Myroslava playing with a few snow rabbits. That moment of confusion brought the girl a crushing victory and him a bitter defeat.
Of course, Olekir wasn't going to simply accept this problem. He decided to separate a part of his consciousness for monitoring, filtering, and reacting to this flow. But it was extremely difficult. So much so that he had to sit for days in deep concentration, almost feeling his mind begin to disintegrate under the pressure of multitasking. Every attempt to distract or relax instantly caused an avalanche of different sights, sounds, and thoughts flooding his consciousness. Especially annoying were Myroslava's rabbits, which, running around, deliberately provoked chaos in his practice, forcing him to return to concentration again and again in an endless cycle of battling his own mind.
"This is all for you, my dear!"
Myroslava responded with such a bright smile that he couldn't fight it. Her eyes shone with carefree joy, which simultaneously warmed and tore his heart. The rabbits running around initially seemed just cute creatures. Tiring of her cute acquaintances, Myroslava began changing them, giving them new forms and behaviors that further confused and distracted Olekir. This change happened just when Olekir finally managed to separate the information flow, but a new, more aggressive and unpredictable one broke through his dam, making him tremble with powerlessness. A sense of helplessness enveloped him like a cold wind penetrating the strongest walls, and he realized that the battle with his own mind was only beginning.
Mirolana, of course, wasn't going to leave him alone and give him peace. She joyfully continued training with his dolls, driving them into increasingly unusual and complex situations. Her movements were graceful, like a cat silently circling prey, and her reactions became faster and more unpredictable. She skillfully used every moment to test the limits of the dolls' capabilities. Mirolana's reactions had long surpassed even Olekir's. She turned it into a true art that combined intuition, observation, and precision.
At this time, Olekir completely separated from creating the dolls' bodies and asked Yaroslav to take care of it. To which she gladly agreed. Cutting fragments one by one and assembling them into a single piece sounds much easier than it is in practice. Charms filled the space around her with such density that it was hard to breathe nearby, let alone even be there. She worked with incredible concentration, her hands moving quickly and confidently, as if dancing to a rhythm known only to her. Each fragment she cut glowed with a faint light. The process of assembling these fragments into a single whole required full concentration and a certain level of mastery.
Several months passed in constant training, and finally Olekir was able to make his mind work in parallel, overcoming internal barriers. This significantly eased his daily life, allowing him to focus again on creating dolls, though it was no longer such a critical matter. Yaroslav lost track of time, so deeply engrossed in her work. She created over a hundred dolls, each requiring a core. This process demanded from her not only skill but also considerable endurance.
This was a significant step forward in their joint endeavor. Even a hundred was already a substantial force, in the girls' opinion, but not for Olekir. His visions gave him a clear understanding of the forces he intended to fight. And he felt that this wasn't nearly enough. His inner voice persistently pushed him toward more, toward creating something that could change the course of events. He spurred Yaroslav's desire to create, inspiring her to do more.
Olekir himself had almost restored the balance of soul and body thanks to the Northern Void. The power filling the air over time restored his soul as well, like a river washing away fatigue and tension. Each breath filled him with new energy, allowing him to feel a deep connection with himself and the world around him. This restoration wasn't instant but gradual, like the slow melting of ice under the sun's rays.
Thanks to this power, Olekir, together with Elikoria, was able to return to separating fragments of his soul. Although the process remained extremely difficult and exhausting, it no longer seemed as dangerous. Movements became more confident, and thoughts clearer. They worked almost automatically, as if subconsciously, feeling the rhythm and pulse of the power permeating the space around them.
However, Yaroslav's creation pace was frantic—while they managed to create only one fragment, she had already finished ten dolls. Her skill and speed became increasingly impressive, and this pushed them not to stop, to seek new ways to increase productivity.
Mirolana, however, grew so bored that she began training with the dolls in group battles. She somehow persuaded Myroslava, and they split into two teams, each with one girl and four dolls. Over time, these trainings became increasingly harsh, often breaking the dolls, which helped slightly curb their creation pace. They honed tactics, studied each other's weaknesses, and each battle became a lesson that tempered their mastery.
But this led Olekir to a decision he hadn't even considered before. The military tradition, dating back to the times when humans still fought for their place in the world, preserved the formation of elevens to counter powerful monsters. Today, it's almost an archaism replaced by more practical fives. However, Olekir saw in this ancient formation a way out of the situation.
Olekir gathered several dolls and implanted an empty core in them, using runes to connect them to one. It was undoubtedly an interesting but incredibly exhausting experience. Of course, he didn't teach the dolls movements from scratch—they used knowledge of it from the main doll. They could even fight more or less independently. But the main problem became their positioning. Initially, it was so clumsy that it caused Mirolana to burst into wild laughter: the dolls clumsily bumped into each other, fell, and pierced each other's bodies with spears. This chaotic scene resembled more a disorderly crowd than an organized army.
This forced Olekir to start clearly prescribing each doll's position in the main one, carefully developing tactical schemes and layouts. He wanted them to stop looking like disjointed units and become a coordinated military formation where every movement and strike were synchronized. Each doll received its place and role in the formation, gradually turning them from a chaotic mass into a true combat-ready unit. This process required Olekir considerable patience and attention to detail, as even the smallest mistake could lead to disaster.
This occupied his mind for several more months, amid Mirolana's constant laughter, Myroslava's caring words, and Yaroslav's silent dedication, which he had to forcefully stop when the number of dolls she created exceeded a thousand. And all this was so that his army would perfectly reproduce the combat doctrines of eleven against one or multiple enemies. He thought he had become more or less proficient, until he gathered all the created squads and began the march.
However, what was supposed to be ideal quickly turned into chaos. Instead of coordinated movement, the dolls began to confuse each other, fall out of formation, and accidentally harm their comrades. This disorder gave Olekir a severe headache—even his brain, which had survived the rabbit terror, returned to that time, drowning in streams of information, despair, and powerlessness.
Mirolana's laughter echoing nearby only intensified his irritation and sense of hopelessness. She laughed at the failures, but in that laughter there was something more—a challenge that pushed Olekir not to give up and to seek new ways to perfect his army.
"You can do it. I believe in you."
These were simple words he heard almost every day, but their power was deeper than it seemed at first glance. They sounded like a promise, like an invisible amulet keeping him afloat in the darkest moments. Words he felt not only through the voice but through every gesture, every glance, even through that irritating laughter echoing nearby like a challenge. Even Elikoria's silent presence permeated him, filling him with confidence and calm necessary to overcome internal storms.
Olekir began. It was simple but extremely intense training that he carefully adjusted for days and nights. Every step, every strike, every decision he calculated with incredible attention to detail, striving for perfection. Yaroslav was his indispensable assistant—together they identified weaknesses in the formation and sought ways to eliminate them, leaving no flaw unnoticed. Myroslava and Mirolana acted as merciless testers and opponents for his army, their harsh and unpredictable actions forcing Olekir to constantly improve tactics and strategy. The result of these deliberations turned out to be simply stunning, opening new horizons for the development of his army.
"Oops, sorry! I accidentally!"
Mirolana once shouted carefree, waving a severed doll's arm at Olekir. He looked at this ruin and found it hard to believe that it had literally been a doll just a moment ago.
"Maybe we should make it regenerate? Otherwise…"
Yaroslav suddenly fell silent, looking at the small mountain of broken bodies. Her eyes filled with pity and sorrow. She had tried so hard, cutting each body with desperate precision, putting all her skill and soul into it. Of course, this would complicate the process—because every tiny detail would need to be preserved in the core as a reference. And though this would make doll regeneration less efficient, without the ability to immediately return them to battle, it would free them from the need to drag endless carts of spare parts and ready bodies.