The Fusionist Book 5 -- Chapter 57

Chapter 57

What is that?

The Slime he saw had to be at least 100 feet tall and twice that wide as it spread out over the ground, and it was somewhat difficult to differentiate from the material the environment was made of.  The dark exterior of the massive monster seemed to almost blend in with the obsidian beneath it, making it seem like it was even larger than it actually was.

Not that it needed to look larger, because it was already so massive that Larek could only stare in horror.

It moved slowly, but inexorably, toward Larek, though it could also be heading toward the Strike Faction as well based on its angle of approach.  In the end, it didn’t really matter, because it was frankly scarier than anything he’d ever seen – and that included when his father had come to Copperleaf Academy looking for him.

There was a feeling of inevitability to the gigantic Slime that wasn’t present in any other monster he’d ever fought and killed; if felt like if it reached him, he and anyone else around him, was going to die.  He was fairly confident in his Fusions, but he had a feeling that they would be nearly useless against that thing.

Time to go.

Larek started running toward the edge of the hill he was on and leaped off the side, forming his Pattern disc under his feet before he could start freefalling.  When it was in position, he used it to fly as quickly as he could manage toward the Strike Faction, who were simply standing there in shocked silence as their doom rolled in their direction.

Some few noticed him approaching, but their attention was inevitably pulled back to the enormous Slime, as if it was there was nothing that could distract them from its presence.  As he passed over the front lines, a quick perusal of them showed the presence of his Fusions in their hands or on their person, ranging from the staves that shot out projectiles to necklaces and bracers that held Boosts for stats and Skills, as well as quite a few healing Fusions that had undoubtedly saved quite a few lives already.

And none of it would be useful against the monster that was about to roll over them like they were ants.

Landing near Nedira and Verne, who were located near the rear of the formation, he could see that both of them were also entranced by the Slime’s approach.  Reabsorbing his Pattern Cohesion from his disc, he reached out to grab Nedira’s shoulder and gently shook her, as she barely even acknowledged his presence.

“We need to leave.  There’s no stopping that thing,” Larek said, and she finally tore her gaze away.

“What?  No, we can’t leave all these people.  Besides, I’m sure that your new staff can kill it, right?”

He shook his head.  “I don’t think so.  At least, I get the feeling that anything I try against it will only tickle it a little.”  Larek wasn’t sure why or how he felt like that way, but he could sense deep down that it was the truth. 

“It can’t be invulnerable, Larek.  There’s got to be a way to kill it,” Nedira insisted.

Again, he shook his head.  “There’s no time to try.  We need to get out of here before it’s too late.  Once you and Verne are safe, perhaps I can think of a way—”

“Huh?  What?  No—I’m not going anywhere!”  Verne had apparently heard his name and snapped out of his preoccupation with the massive Slime, and immediately protested.  “I’m not leaving everyone here to die, and I’m especially not going anywhere with a stranger!”

“Verne, look, there’s no time to argue if we’re going to get out of here alive.  We need to go now if we’re going to have any chance of escape—”

As if in answer to that, Verne started to assemble a complicated spell pattern in front of himself; at first, Larek thought his old roommate was going to attack him, but once he felt a massive drain of ambient Mana, he realized that wasn’t his friend’s intention.

“No!  Don’t cast—”

But it was already too late as the Ancient Protector’s roots started to form and expand.  Verne hadn’t recast the spell since Larek had arrived, as there had been no need with the sharing of Fusions from his and Nedira’s Void Pocket bags, but apparently his roommate was being stubborn now and cast the spell out of protest.  Of all the stupid…  Now, he couldn’t risk taking Verne away without harming or potentially killing him, at least for the next 20 minutes.  And even if the massive Slime was relatively slow in comparison to many other monsters, it was so large that even its slow movement would allow it to reach the Strike Faction far before that occurred.

“Verne!  Why?!” Nedira asked, shocked, even as Larek’s old roommate staggered slightly from casting his unique spell.  He wasn’t nearly as exhausted as he was before, which the Fusionist thought was explained by the necklace with its Boosts on it; regardless, Verne’s exhaustion was of secondary concern at the moment.

“I told you before, Nedira.  I won’t leave my friends here.”

“But—”

“No.  Even if I die here, then I won’t have to live with the knowledge that I abandoned them in their time of need.”  He waved toward her, as if shooing her away.  “But that doesn’t mean you have to die with us.  You and whoever this is can and should leave; we’ll try and buy you some time with our lives, but you better get out of here as quick as you can.”

Larek could immediately tell that there was no convincing Verne to leave now, even if he hadn’t cast his Ancient Protector spell.  He even understood where he was coming from, because if this Strike Faction was composed of friends, then he wouldn’t want to abandon them, either.  Feeling conflicted, he looked at Nedira to see that same sort of internal debate going on inside her head; he could practically hear her thoughts, or at least inferred what they were because they were the same ones that were running through his own mind. 

Should we leave him here?

Should we take a risk and force him to come with us?

Should we stay and try our best to kill that thing?

What she ultimately asked, though, hinted at the decision that she was leaning toward – and he couldn’t help but lean toward that, as well.  It wasn’t something he wanted to do and it hurt his heart to even contemplate it, but he also wasn’t ready to die here if there was another way around it.  His family was counting on him to survive, whether they knew it or not.

“Do you know where my brother is?” Nedira asked softly, which was just barely audible over the increasingly loud rumble that came from the approaching Slime as it traveled over the ground. 

“Norde?  Of course.  How do you not know?”

She hesitated for a moment.  “I’ve… had some memory problems lately, and I’ve forgotten more than I like to admit.  Where is he?”

“Memory problems?  What happened to you?”

“It’s not important right now.  If you’re too stubborn to leave with us, then I need to know where I can find my brother before we flee.”  There was a second’s pause before she continued in an even softer voice.  “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Nedira.  We wouldn’t have lasted even this long if it wasn’t for your help and the help of these crazy helpful Fusions.  Where did you say you got them again?”

“Again, that’s not important, Verne.  Where…  Is…  Norde?” she said more seriously, as their time was running out quickly if they were going to leave.

Larek’s former roommate stared at the Naturalist for a few seconds before sighing.  “Now it’s my turn to be sorry.  It just felt so good seeing you that I didn’t want that feeling to go away!  In fact, just fighting next to you brought back the joy I used to feel every day—alright, alright, I’m wasting time again,” he said, seeing the angry look on Nedira’s face.  “Your brother is at the—”

Before he could finish, a horrific screeching and tearing noise assaulted their ears, which caused everyone to try and locate its source.  It was fairly easy for almost everyone there, however, because they were already staring at the massive Slime; for Larek and his friends, they turned to it just in time to see the last of a massive chunk of the obsidian underneath it finish being ripped out of the ground.  The obsidian was roughly ovoid in shape, and it was sized at approximately a third of the size of the Slime itself, which meant it quite large.  Once free from the ground, it floated in front of the monster as it continued rolling along, before another horrible cracking and tearing noise battered at their eardrums, and a quarter of the chunk suddenly sheared off of the whole…

…before being launched nearly half a mile with extreme speed and force at the people staring in disbelief at what was happening.

“Watch out!” Larek shouted, but it was already too late for a small section of the Faction’s line, as the approach of the obsidian piece, which reminded him of the size of one of the caravans he’d traveled with years ago, slammed through a dozen of them as it swept them away.  As the chunk of stone kept going, it left behind dismembered legs and feet as well as scattered blood splatter as their owners were smeared across the length of the massive boulder, only to get smeared against the ground a few seconds later as the obsidian finally hit the ground, rolling for another half-mile before coming to a rest.

But Larek didn’t have a chance to do anything to try and save them, if he even could, because another screeching tear of the massive chunk occurred, and a second caravan-sized boulder came flying at them.  Or, more accurately, at the Ancient Protector that just finished completely forming from Verne’s spell.

Unfortunately for Larek, Nedira, and his old roommate, they were standing right behind it.  Using his incredible speed, he grabbed his friends and took them down to the ground, before creating a dome of Pattern Cohesion around them thick enough to protect them. 

“No!  My—” but Verne wasn’t able to finish his protest as the enormous stone projectile slammed into his Ancient Protector, and Larek could hear cracks and creaks running through the mobile tree, even if he couldn’t see it from his position.  That occurred just a split-second before the obsidian boulder impacted his Pattern dome and shattered it, losing him the 6,000 Pattern Cohesion he had pumped into the construct.  Thankfully, the dome was strong enough to deflect the projectile, and it was sent careening through the air to land harmlessly away from everyone.

When Larek looked around, he was horrified to see that the Ancient Protector had a large chunk of its trunk completely ripped away and it had fallen over, unable to move or get up.  It wasn’t completely destroyed, but it was so injured that it couldn’t function anymore. 

“Verne?  Verne?  Verne?!” Nedira shouted, and the Fusionist turned back to his roommate to see that he was lying where he had thrown them all down to protect them, twitching slightly while he appeared to be unconscious.  Using his Magical Detection Skill, he could see that the connection between his friend and the Ancient Protector was spasming, as if it too had been injured.  Neither of the two had perished, but they were now both essentially incapacitated.

“Larek, we can’t leave,” Nedira abruptly said, grabbing onto his arm when she couldn’t get Verne to wake up.  “I need to find out where my brother is, and he could be the only one who knows.”

Argh!  It’s just one thing after another!

While he internally complained, he knew it wasn’t anyone’s fault for the current situation.  He couldn’t find fault in Verne’s insistence to stay, after all, and he knew that Nedira’s priority was finding out her brother’s whereabouts; if she was ever to find him, then she needed the information that his old roommate seemed to possess.  And that meant that they had to save him in order to get that information; he had a feeling if they were to try and flee right now with Verne, the tenuous connection between the young man and his spell might snap and do the harm that was warned about before.

“Fine.  Stay here with him and I’ll go see what I can do,” he replied, unable to see any other way out that didn’t end with Verne’s death.  At that point, another cracking noise was heard and a third boulder was shot at the line of Strike Faction members, but they were finally prepared… somewhat.  Having seen what the first one had done, the people spread out as they tried to avoid the projectile, which somewhat worked.  Only a single Mage was caught by the obsidian chunk as it flew through the line, while two others managed to throw themselves on the ground to let it fly over them.  Larek doubted it would be that easy to avoid being hit in the future, but for now it seemed like a viable strategy; otherwise, it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to waste everyone there.

The fourth and final boulder of the original obsidian chunk was on its way toward the Strike Faction before Larek was already on his Pattern disc again, flying toward the enormous Slime.  Behind him, Nedira had placed a Secure Hideaway to protect herself and the unconscious Verne; he had doubts that the air barrier would be enough to protect them from a full-on strike by a large boulder projectile, but it also hid them well enough that it might give them the advantage of being out of sight and out of mind.

Though whether the enormous Slime even had a real, thinking mind was debatable, because most monsters simply seemed like creatures that were simply focused on killing things.

He was halfway to the monster when another screeching and tearing assaulted his ears, as a second massive chunk of obsidian was ripped from the ground along its path, having passed over the previous hole it made as if it wasn’t even there.  As he got closer, the same process as before repeated itself with a quarter of the chunk being sheared off, ready to throw…

…but apparently he was wrong about the Slime being unthinking, because it thought that his approach from above was enough of a threat that instead of being chucked at the Strike Faction, the newest boulder went straight toward him. 

It was so abrupt and fast that there was no way he could avoid it, so the only thing he had time for was a thought – which was fortunately all that was needed to create another Pattern construct in front of him.  The Pattern shield he created was slightly larger than normal, but it did its job; the boulder slammed into the construct and its momentum halted immediately, before dropping down to crack in a few places on the hard ground below.

Being thicker than the dome he had created to shield himself, Nedira, and Verne, his shield didn’t shatter immediately, but it was cracked enough that he felt its durability—aka the Pattern Cohesion invested into it—had dropped by more than half.  It was such a powerful attack that he’d never seen anything like it before, which also didn’t bode well for his own reprisal.

Flying quickly over the top and slightly behind the massive Slime, so as to be out of the direct line of sight of the boulders, he aimed his staff and unleashed a Magnitude 12 blast at its exterior.  The shockwave reached him at about 225 feet away, but he was used to it by now and it didn’t faze him in the least; the same could be said for the enormous monster, as when he could see the results of the explosion near the Slime, he thought there might have been a slight dent in its exterior – but it could also be a trick of the eye.  It was such a dark black that any type of damage was hard to see at a distance… though he didn’t think it would be much worse if he was to get up close.

Seeing the Slime shift its bulk in order to line up a shot, he was already moving when the next boulder was launched, and the powerful wind of its passage overhead was enough to trigger a slight reaction of his Automatic Ice Repulsion Field.  He knew from the strength of the wind along that if he was actually hit by one of the large obsidian projectiles that his defenses and even his high Body stat wouldn’t be enough to save him.

Next up was an attempt at using the shatter Effect, which—if it was possible—was even less effective than blast.  The stone shards of the Magnitude 12 boulder he created simply bounced off the side of the Slime, as if it was made of some sort of rubbery substance.  It was almost more dangerous to Larek as a few bounced sharply back up toward his location in the air, and he had to duck to avoid being decapitated, not trusting his AIRF to prevent all the damage.

The Slime was so large and so much different from many other monsters he’d fought that the icy projectiles with their cold aura did absolutely nothing, even when he slightly strained the Fusion on his staff by launching out Magnitude 12 after Magnitude 12 while he strafed around, always moving to an area of greater Mana density.  Thankfully, he was able to retreat for a moment and use his Pattern Manipulation Skill to repair the stress marks in the Fusion’s formation, otherwise he would’ve worried about it breaking at an inopportune time.

As for the acid stream… it had no noticeable effect on the Slime that he could tell.  It simply pooled on top of the monster, its potency completely unapparent as seemed unable to dig into its exterior shell, unmixing like oil and water.  All it took was a few shifts of the Slime before the pooled acid dripped down its side, falling onto the obsidian below – and hissing as it began to eat into the stone.

As a last resort, he opened up one of the pouches on his belt and pulled out a steel plate, before throwing the Shattering Acidic Occlusion Dome in front of the massive Slime and then activated it.  The Fusion, which had been so powerful against the Apertures they passed on their way north, killing anything that emerged as reinforcements, immediately formed its air barrier dome as soon as the front portion of the monster passed into range, and for the first time he saw some sort of effect – though it wasn’t exactly what he was hoping for.  The barrier was strong enough that it actually did something to the Slime, but that “something” was to push it away abruptly, making an immovable barrier that the monster was excluded from.  As soon as it was pushed out, the Fusion shut off since there was no longer something within its range, only to reactivate a split-second later as the Slime flopped back into its triggering range.

This rapid activation and deactivation continued for the next 30 seconds, even as Larek dodged or had to block another set of obsidian boulders.  He could see that the Mana density in the area around the Fusion was starting to deplete, though slowly; while the Fusion typically used a lot of ambient Mana, it was only a fraction of it when just the air barrier was triggered. 

Eventually, the Slime continued on its way, its bulk wrapping around and then flowing over the air barrier dome as if it was a harmless obstacle in its way.  When it was fully enveloped by the Slime, Larek couldn’t see the Fusion anymore, but he could still sense it even from a distance – and what he felt was something he had worried about when he had first created it.  The rapid activation and deactivation of such a powerful formation, which had many complex parts, was breaking down.  Like most Fusions, it wasn’t meant to be turned on and off so rapidly, but it was doubly worse for the amount of Mana running through it; it was the same reason he had put Intervals on his original staves, so as to prevent the Fusion from breaking down over time through overuse at a rapid pace. 

But this was happening much faster than he could’ve ever expected.  He hadn’t thought of this situation when he had created the Fusion, so he couldn’t plan for something like it.

Uh, oh.

He took off, moving away as quickly as he could, which just happened to be away from the Aperture and the Strike Faction.  He happened to be on the opposite side of them and would’ve had to flown over the Slime and its boulders if he went the other way, so he could only hope that they were far enough away when the Fusion finally failed.

Larek was only a mile away when the formation finally broke.  He could feel it in his chest like a great whoomp, and he looked back to see a flash of light where the Slime had been.  It took him a second for his Body Regeneration to kick in and blink away the blinding spots in his vision, but just as he did, he felt a shockwave many times stronger than the ones caused by his Mag 12 blasts slam into him, sending him spinning out of control. 

After a few seconds, he managed to recover, somehow maintaining the disc construct the entire time.  Looking into the distance, he couldn’t tell how well the Strike Faction had withstood the blast of the Fusion detonating and releasing all of the infused Mana, but he knew that at least Verne and Nedira should be alright behind the protection of their Secure Hideaway. 

As for the Slime, he sighed in relief as he looked at where it had been, seeing only a large hole at least 100 feet in diameter carved into the obsidian, a sign of the strength of the Fusion’s detonation.  There was no sign of the Slime anywhere—

--at least until he spotted something out of his peripheral vision, as a large, black, ovoid shape fell from the sky like a meteor, before slamming into the hole in the ground with great enough force to cause an earthquake.  Larek stared in shock as he saw the enormous Slime slowly rolling itself out of the side of the hole, showing absolutely no signs that it had just been blasted thousands of feet into the air from the explosive detonation of a powerful Fusion.

What?  How?  That’s not possible… is it?

He had no idea how it had not only survived the blast, but seemed completely unharmed from it.  At the sight of it continuing on its path toward the Strike Faction and his friends, his posture slumped in defeat atop his Pattern disc, unable to figure out a way to stop it.