The Fusionist Book 5 -- Chapter 56

Chapter 56

While he hadn’t gotten as much rest of his focus and concentration as he would’ve liked after racing to their current location, Larek knew there wasn’t any other choice but to get moving.

“I’m going up; stay here with Verne and the rest of the Faction.”

Nedira looked like she was ready to protest, but the words died on her lips as she continued pulling Fusions out of the Void Pocket bags and looked at the people that were fighting for their lives around her.  After a few seconds, she nodded.  “I’ve got this handled.”  She then rushed to his side before he could leave, before wrapping her arms around his neck and stretching up to give him a kiss.  “Don’t get killed out there, Larek.”

“Larek?  Why does that name seem familiar for some reason?” Verne abruptly asked, a look of confusion on his face. 

“Don’t worry about it, Verne.  I’ll explain later,” Nedira quickly replied, breaking away from the Fusionist, knowing that she had to stave off any questions before something caused the young man to start freaking out.  “For now, help me distribute these to your fellow Faction members.”

“Uh, alright.  Hey, is that Jack?  What happened to him?”

Larek didn’t stay to hear Nedira’s explanation of what had occurred with the leader of the Strike Faction, because he needed to get airborne as quickly as possible if he was going to have any chance of staving off the complete annihilation of these people.  With his halberd in his right hand and his new staff in his left, the Martial Fusionist created a disc under his feet made of his Pattern Cohesion; this time, though, he extended the Pattern to encompass his lower legs up to a point just under his knees.  Now that he wasn’t needing to control a Pattern box to hold Nedira, his focus was freed up to customize his own transport.

He needed to move fast, and the best way to do that was to ensure he didn’t accidentally fall off his construct at high speeds.  There was still going to be wind resistance, but he was strong enough to withstand a bit of it as he traveled; he wasn’t going to be moving hundreds of miles an hour, as there wasn’t any need of that at the moment, but quickly arriving at where he needed to be was important.

As his Pattern disc formed under his feet and securely wrapped around his lower legs, he heard a gasp from behind.  Glancing back, he saw the Mage he had healed from the leader’s Pyroblast explosion staring at his feet.  “That’s… that’s Pattern Cohesion, isn’t it?  How did you—?”

“Yes, but there’s no time.  Stay alive and perhaps I’ll show you,” he quickly said, before he braced himself as he shot into the air.  It took a few seconds to adjust to the new feeling of being secured to the disc, but he quickly became accustomed to it and took off to deal with the first of the many problems heading their way.

The first priority was to find a way to deal with the Crystal Slimes, which were no more than 300 feet from the front lines of Faction members by this point.  The Mages and Martials were still battling the hundreds of Steel and Rainbow Slimes that were surrounding them and could do nothing to help, so he supposed that it was up to him.

Once he obtained some height, he aimed the staff in his left hand at the lead glass-looking monster down below him, nearly 200 feet away.  He found that it was much easier to keep just his disc airborne and at a much greater height than the box he was using, and didn’t feel much strain from it. 

When his staff’s aim was in position, a simple mental phrase was all it took to unleash destruction upon the Slimes down below. 

Blast 10.

He nearly upped it to Magnitude 12 right away, but decided against it at the last moment; with the explosion being only a little over 200 feet away from the nearest Faction member, he didn’t want to accidentally cause any collateral damage.  As it was, the Magnitude 10 blast Effect slammed into the Crystal Slime and shattered a chunk out of with the sound of breaking glass; when the debris cleared, he could see that his attack had removed about a fifth of the Slime, but it hardly seemed hindered as it continued to roll along toward the Faction members.

These things are strong. 

Larek quickly shouted back toward the Strike Faction front line, knowing that he better hurry and kill these things before it was too late.  “BRACE YOURSELVES!”

The Fusionist couldn’t afford to chip away at each Crystal Slime with lower Magnitude blasts; he could certainly do it, but it would take entirely too much time and ambient Mana in the area.  A Magnitude 12 blast, he hoped, would be able to kill one of them in a single strike – though it would consume a lot of Mana in the process.  It couldn’t be helped, though, because the other monsters heading toward them from all over the Calamity were getting closer by the second.

Whether or not the Faction members heard him or simply wondered what the heck the flying man was talking about was no concern to him.  His Magnitude 12 blast wouldn’t be close enough to kill any of the Mages or Martials, though if they didn’t brace for the shockwave they would likely be knocked off their feet and possibly injured in the process.

The rushing air that erupted from the powerful BOOM that erupted below Larek pushed at him, threatening to break his concentration holding the disc beneath him, but he managed to hold on.  Thankfully, the same couldn’t be said for not only the lead Crystal Slime, which had been obliterated, but the closest two also had large chunks taken out of them.  It wasn’t enough to kill them, though it certainly slowed them down.

Glancing back at the Faction, he saw a good dozen of them on the ground, having been flung back from the explosion, though since they were still moving he didn’t think they were too bad off; the only ones he had severely effected had been Mages, as they were physically weaker and couldn’t stand up to the shockwave, but the Martials still appeared shocked and a little unsteady at the sudden detonation that destroyed one of the Crystal Slimes. 

Moving 30 feet to his right, so as to not deplete all the ambient Mana in that particular area, he shouted for the Faction members to brace themselves once again, before unleashing another Mag 12 blast aimed at the obsidian ground in between three Crystal Slimes near each other, including the pair he had damage before.  As the explosion detonated, he braced himself as well, and when he stabilized his own balance above the destruction, he saw that all three of the Slimes he had been hoping to affect had been completely shattered.  Another peripheral glance at the Faction showed that they took his advice this time and hunkered down, bracing against the shockwave even as they continued to fight the smaller Slime horde still near them.

So, he did it again, moving away from his previous position as he destroyed two more of the Crystal Slimes below him.  It was at this point that he had to moved quickly out of the way of a retaliatory strike by the large monsters below, as spears of sharp crystal as large and thick around as one of his legs were suddenly launched in a barrage toward him on his Pattern disc.  He barely escaped being impaled, as he doubted that his Automatic Ice Repulsion Field would’ve prevented all of the momentum from the heavy projectiles.  Unfortunately, one of them did hit his disc, and the sudden impact startled him so much that his focus wavered for a moment, causing it to spin wildly out of control and taking him with it.  After only a few seconds he was able to correct the spin and move out of the way of a second barrage of crystal spears, and he resumed his own strikes down on them shortly thereafter.

They exchanged attacks for nearly a minute before he managed to take the last of them out.  He was fortunate not to be hit again by the projectiles because while they were powerful, the Crystal Slimes weren’t quite adept at predicting where he might fly to, so they were just too inaccurate – especially when Larek was between 200 and 250 feet away.  As the last of them shattered from the destructive explosions, Larek turned his attention to the next threat.

To the south, a large group of flying lizards that looked like small dragons was the closest to arriving, and they were accompanied by even larger lizards that even more closely resembled dragons.  With the smaller ones at around 10 feet in length and the larger evolved ones at least three times that size, they appeared pretty formidable – especially with the lava-like saliva that seemed to drip from their jaws.  He wasn’t sure what they were, but based on their red scales, he could only assume that they were probably resistant or immune to fire-based effects.  While he could cause explosions with his blast Effect from his staff, it was ultimately fire-based and likely wouldn’t be as effective.  When he added in that there were hundreds of the flying lizards and they were spread out in a giant scattered mass instead of conveniently clustered together, then the blasts that had destroyed the Crystal Slimes so handily wouldn’t be nearly as useful against them.

The shatter Effect with large boulders would be much better, but that wasn’t the only thing he was going to try.  As he flew toward them and got within range, he started unleashed the multitude of  Magnitude 4 icy spikes on repeat, and he began moving the tip of the staff around to hit as many of the flying lizards as possible.  Upon the first impact of the ice projectiles against the airborne monsters, he immediately saw them penetrate a few inches into their tough scales, before spreading their freezing aura throughout the area of impact.

The result of that was instantaneous, as almost invariably the cold was enough to freeze the muscles that controlled their wings.  As they struggled to flap that which gave them the ability to fly, the flying lizards plummeted to the ground, which was only around 50 to 100 feet.  Some of them recovered from the cold and frantically saved themselves from hitting the obsidian uncontrollably, but the majority of them hit with enough force to break bones or damage their wings. 

Shortly after he started firing the icy projectiles, the flying lizards took notice of him and began to converge on his location, moving together to attack him in concert.  That was exactly what he was waiting for, because as soon as they were clumped up more than before, he sent a Magnitude 10 shatter Effect at their center, which created a large boulder that shattered instantly, sending out hundreds of sharp stone shards outward with penetrating force.  As those closest to the shattered stone were ripped apart from the boulder’s detonation, many more had their wings ripped apart as a multitude of shards easily shredded through them in their outward path.  These individual monsters similarly plummeted to the ground below like the ones he had frozen, but there was no recovering for them. 

Overall, he did quite a bit of damage to them, but there were still hundreds more that he had to contend with – along with the much larger evolved versions.  He could eventually chip away at their numbers using the same strategy on the rest, but a quick glance at the other incoming monsters showed that he didn’t have much time.

It was time to speed up the process.

Instead of staying stationary like he had been, he started to rapidly circle around the large group of flying lizards, launching out another Magnitude 10 shatter or icy spike Effect every second.  The greater number of ice-based projectiles allowed him to target the monsters in a way that hit other behind them, slowing them down or causing them to drop, which he took advantage of by making another boulder explode near where they were clumping up.  His constant movement ensured that he didn’t deplete the ambient Mana around him too quickly, though he could tell that the constant use of his staff was gradually lowering the Mana density nearby.  It wasn’t enough to cause concern, however, as he was only using Magnitude 10 Effects instead of 12, though if he continued too long, it certainly would.

But he wasn’t planning on it taking too long, as within a minute he’d already killed at least three-quarters of the flying lizards.  Only the evolved versions were left, having ranged behind the others like mother ducks pushing its duckling forward into the slaughter, and he quickly learned that they were more dangerous than their smaller brethren.  For one, a Mag 10 shatter right next to them hurt them as they were impaled by stone shards, but their scales were much tougher and their wings more durable.  As for his icy spikes, they barely seemed to affect the winged behemoths, as they simply bounced off and perhaps made them a little chilly.

Moving in closer so that he could start drilling through their scales with his acid stream, which showed him the second reason they were more dangerous; when he was within 100 feet, the closest evolved flying lizard opened its mouth and vaguely spherical ball of lava shot out at him, forcing him to dodge.  Larek responded with acid that he used to sheer its wing off its body, before tearing a line through its scales.  The monster began falling too quickly for him to try and finish it off, but knowing what he was up against, he was able to move onto the next while traveling to a new spot so that he could continue using the ambient Mana around.

After all but about 30 of the smaller flying lizards had been killed or were now landbound, which took a total of about three minutes, he took off and left the scattered remnants of the winged host.  He could spend another minute or so finishing them off one by one, but there were still more monsters to head off before they could overwhelm the Faction members behind him.  Their numbers had been thinned enough that he thought that the could be easily handled by those he was protecting.

That became even more obvious as he sped toward the next monster group, as he began to see his staves and their Fusions being wielded by the Faction; the weaker versions, of course, since there were only two that had the same as the ones Larek and Nedira wielded.  But there were dozens of flaming balls, icy spikes, and flying stones quickly tearing through the Steel Slimes that were still giving them all so many problems.

It didn’t take long before he was up against the next-fastest arrivals, which were ground-based rabbits, practically flying along the ground with outrageous speed.  A few blasts proved to be largely ineffective as they were so fast and low to the ground that the shockwaves against the 3-foot-long grey rabbits didn’t do much against those that weren’t at the point of detonation.  Shattered stones were similar, mainly because of their low profile, though he certainly killed dozens of them.  In the end, what it required was sweeping the leading edge of rabbits back and forth with large barrages of Magnitude 8 icy spikes, sent out once per second, because their defenses couldn’t stop the projectiles from spearing straight through their body.  Since it was coming from above, they also had difficulty seeing the barrages coming and couldn’t avoid them, which made killing them much easier.

There weren’t any evolved rabbits from what he could see, but the problem was that there were so many of them – as in thousands.  A few hundred inevitably made it through his attacks before he was force to move onto the next group, which was the first time that he had to use his halberd since he started the defense of the Strike Faction.  Hundreds of Rock Gremlins, each approximately 6 feet tall if they stood upright, scampered over the obsidian ground, and he quickly discovered that there was some sort of magical barrier that surrounded them, preventing his blasts from reaching them.  Shatter did nothing since the Gremlins were made of rock, other than chipping off a little of their bodies with the physical impact of stone against stone, and they moved too quickly to easily hit with acid; even large Magnitudes of icy spikes were useless because they were blocked by the magical barrier, shattering upon impact.

Therefore, he landed in front of them and waited for them to come to him.  Thankfully, as soon as they saw him, they all immediately targeted him instead of streaming past, and he pumped Stama into Fleetfoot to increase his speed while constantly utilizing Empowered Strike to rain blows down upon the monsters.  With at Fusion affecting the sharpness of his halberd blade, he was able to cut through the rocky exterior of the Gremlins to discover that they were flesh and blood beneath it – which stood no chance against his weapon as he sliced through them.  He held it one-handed while periodically sending out spurts of acid with the staff in his other hand, and even though they attempted to overwhelm him with numbers, he kept moving through their approach with the combat skills he learned from Torge back at Fort Hilltower.

He still wasn’t perfect, as his automatic defenses were triggered multiple times from strong blows that managed to get through, and he even suffered a few rocky punches against his limbs when his AIRF was temporarily exhausted.  Fortunately, other than a few bruises that quickly healed because of his Body Regeneration, he wasn’t seriously hurt.

When there were only a dozen or so of the Rock Gremlins left, he judged that he had spent a bit too much time on them already and he reformed his Pattern disc and took off into the air.  One of the Gremlins attempted to jump on him as he rose, but he cut it in half with his halberd and filled its face full of acid, killing it by the time it hit the ground. 

Larek moved from that fight to another, and then that one to yet another, all the while constantly maintaining his watch for the next group to arrive.  At one point he had to make a choice to let an entire group of monsters through because he couldn’t be in two places at once, but it seemed as though the Faction finally got their feet under them by that point.  When the enormous spiders, which were each the size of a horse, that he was forced to leave to the Faction arrived, they were set upon by the entire might of the Faction wielding the Fusions that Larek—by way of Nedira—had provided.  He even saw a few explosions that he was fairly certain came from the Naturalist’s own staff, and he knew they were going to be alright.

After three full hours of constant fighting, however, Larek’s energy began to flag.  Constantly using his Pattern Manipulation Skill to move around the battlefield was convenient, but it was wearing down his focus bit by bit, especially since it hadn’t fully recovered from his flight there.  He took to setting down on the few obsidian hills scattered around just so he could dismiss the Pattern disc under his feet from time to time, and attacking from afar but from ground level instead of airborne. 

At around 5 hours, it seemed as though the fastest of the monsters that were nearby had already arrived and there was as slight lull in the incoming groups.  Larek could see more coming in the distance, but he judged that they had at least a half hour before the next arrived. 

He landed on a nearby hill, wanting to rest as much as he could before he was forced to get back up, because he knew that the attacks would likely keep coming for at least a week; not all of the monsters were fast enough to get to the center of the Calamity in a hurry, but they would come all the same.  Some would just take longer than the others.  He was thinking about heading toward the Faction to see if everyone was holding up alright, possibly to see if he could get Verne out of there now as the massive tree was no longer present, but as he began to stand up, he felt a faint rumbling underneath him.

Worried that some sort of monsters was digging through the obsidian – as unlikely as that was – he stood up completely and got ready to jump away, but he realized that the rumbling wasn’t just coming from underneath him.  Shouts of dismay came from the distant forms of the Strike Faction, and when he looked at them, thinking they were under attack by some unknown force of monsters, he instead saw the majority of them looking off to the north. 

He, of course, did the same…

…and immediately wished he hadn’t, as the largest Slime he’d ever seen before slowly rolled toward him.