The Fusionist Book 5 -- Chapter 55

Chapter 55

It was slightly bizarre to pass over the rocky landscape and various Aperture territories without having to worry about being attacked, but Larek didn’t let that bother him.  He concentrated on focusing all his concentration on maintaining the speed of the Pattern box through the air, moving more and more swiftly as the minutes passed by.  The strain of increasing his speed began to get to him, but he largely ignored it because he knew it was important to travel as quickly as possible.  He didn’t know how long the Strike Faction had before they were overwhelmed by monsters, but a nagging intuition told him that it wasn’t long.

As he gradually reached speeds faster than anything he’d flown before, a pressure began to form behind his eyes that he recognized as pain, only for it to nullified by his Pain Immunity Skill.  Out of nowhere, the pressure was largely relieved when he received a surprise notification.

Pattern Manipulation has reached Level 70!

Larek wasn’t expecting it because he hadn’t been doing something new with his Pattern Manipulation Skill, though he supposed that pushing the limits of his speed probably had something to do with it.  Regardless of the reason, it helped him to concentrate and focus on what he was doing, even going so far as to speed up a little bit more.

As the land practically flew by underneath them, he was forced to add a Pattern shield up front as a windbreaker, as the pressure against the two of them from the air as they pass through it was strong enough to nearly knock Nedira out of the box.  As he approached what he thought was nearly 200 miles per hour, he discovered the limit of his new Level in Pattern Manipulation, as the pain in his head came back with a vengeance.  He was forced to slow down slightly until it disappeared, though he remained right on the line so as to maintain as much speed as possible. 

Even with his focus on controlling his Pattern constructs, the Fusionist was able to look around at what they were passing by.  Larger and larger Aperture territories were evident as they got closer to the center, as were the monsters that traveled forth from them.  He saw a few that were familiar, such as thousands of Jumping Squirrels along with their evolved versions which Nedira said were named Ambush Squirrels, which were four times the size and were able to blend into their own environment (needless to say, they stuck out among all the monochrome obsidian that made up most of the Calamity), but the majority of them were new to him. 

He saw lizard-like monsters, strange six-legged bears, some sort of flying fish with metallic scales, moving mounds of dirt and moss, large red rats that were at least 8 feet long, and even more.  Most of them had an evolved version with them, which typically meant that they were much larger and therefore deadlier, but there were others – such as the red rats, which were simply a different color.  Nedira wasn’t sure what that meant or what the evolved version of a Blaze Rat was, but judging by how sleekly it moved in comparison with the others, there was no doubt that it was faster and likely a lot stronger than its predecessors.

 After 45 minutes they had traveled nearly three-quarters of the way toward the center of the Calamity, and the feeling of the massive Aperture was becoming stronger as they approached.  The intense sensation of being inside the Calamity’s territory had faded a bit since they arrived, but now there was no denying the strength of it.  It had been ever-present before, but now it was almost more than he could bear – especially as his concentration was focused on manipulating the Pattern box and windshield. 

Another 10 minutes later and even more of the strong sense of the central Aperture nearby caused Larek to have to slow down, as he was at risk of losing control of all of it.

“Are you alright?” Nedira asked worriedly when she felt them slowing.

Larek nodded.  “I will be, but the Aperture is interfering with my concentration.  I need to go slow for this last portion.”

By going slow, he was still going at least 100 miles per hour, but he chafed at any delay.  Still, it was better than losing control going at twice that speed, which could cause the Pattern box to disappear underneath them – which would be disastrous to say the least.

Thankfully, or not so thankfully depending on how he looked at it, it wasn’t but a few minutes later when he heard the sounds of fighting coming from up ahead.  Slowing down even further and removing the Pattern shield blocking the wind, The Fusionist could clearly see ahead for the first time – and his concentration wavered slightly at what he saw.

Initially, all he could see was the enormous Aperture floating above the ground, as he was positive that it was larger than even the one below the desert of Lowenthal.  It practically throbbed with power, and he could sense the wrongness emanating from it, full of Corrupted Aetheric Force.  Unlike the one that the Umbral Demons had taken over, this particular Aperture looked “healthy” for want of a better word; it wasn’t stuffed full of foreign Apertures, so that was probably what made the difference.

Larek also had the strange feeling that it was angry, which he didn’t think was possible; assigning an emotion to an object like the Aperture seemed contradictory, but something told him that this was absolutely the case.  Does growing to this size give them a form of sentience?  He honestly didn’t know, nor particularly care at the moment, because his attention was quickly drawn to the conflict slightly away from the Aperture and on the ground below it.

A large group of people, Martials and Mages from the appearance of their weapons and clothing/armor, were currently being surrounded by hordes of Slimes, both the common Steel variety and the less common and evolved Rainbow Slimes.  Spells were being slung at the monsters along with Martial projectiles which were enhanced by Battle Arts, and explosions detonated betwixt nearby shards of ice, whirlwinds of sharpened stone, and burning fireballs slammed into the amorphous Slimes in rapid staccato as the Mages unleashed everything they had.

Despite that, Larek could immediately see that it wasn’t going to be enough.  Already, a few unmoving bodies were laid out on the obsidian ground, evidence that at least some of them hadn’t been able to keep up a stable defense, and the barrage to keep the Slimes back was already starting to slow.  Even worse, it wasn’t just the Steel and Rainbow Slimes that they were having to deal with, as Nedira pointed out a moment after they arrived.

“Those are the Crystal Slimes mentioned in the notes!” she said, gesturing to a group of over 20 of the shack-sized Slimes that looked like liquid glass, though he was sure they were much more durable than that type of material.  “There’s no way the people down there are going to survive if we don’t stop them!”

He agreed, but that wasn’t really the problem.  From nearly every direction he could see from his position, Larek saw groups – varying in size and number – of monsters racing toward the confrontation near the massive Aperture.  It was a miracle that Larek and Nedira managed to arrive before any of the subservient Apertures’ monsters attacked, or so it appeared, but they had perhaps five minutes before they were going to be overrun.

“Look,” he pointed out to the Naturalist by his side, indicating the various monster groups that were inbound.  “Even if we kill those Crystal Slimes, there’s more of everything right behind them.  Let’s just get Verne and go,” he suggested, looking closer at the tiring Mages and Martials down below. 

Larek didn’t see his old roommate right away, but a second after he started looking, he saw something that shocked him.  The ambient Mana in the area was suddenly sucked toward a point near a man covered in a hooded cloak, and he saw what appeared to be roots crawling along the ground as they expanded outward in a wide circle.  Even as he saw this, the hooded man collapsed wearily to the ground, causing the hood to fall back off his head.  It only took a split-second to recognize the tree-like skin and green hair of his roommate, though Verne certainly appeared more mature and slightly taller than he remembered.  Then again, his roommate had still essentially been a boy when he last saw him; now, he was obviously a young man.

“But we don’t even know if—” Nedira began to say in response to his suggestion, but Larek cut her off.

“There he is!  Let’s go pick him up and get out of here.”

His companion was visibly conflicted, and if Larek was being honest with himself, so was he.  If they simply picked up their friend and left, they would be leaving the rest of the Strike Faction to die.  Although, when he thought about it, they were all going to die when all the other monsters showed up, especially the 20-plus Crystal Slimes, of which there was no way they could kill them all before they were overwhelmed.

Larek and Nedira most likely could do it, but by the time they finished them off, the other monsters would arrive.  Getting down to the Strike Faction and taking Verne away at that point would be much harder, if not impossible, because there would be so many monsters that any extraction would be fraught with extreme danger.  Why?  Well, because from what he saw of the approaching monsters, at least two of them were airborne.  Attempting any type of rescue while hundreds or thousands of flying monsters attacked simultaneously?  That sounded like a nightmare to him.

Could I make a Pattern box or platform to transport them all, leaving none behind?  He thought that it might be possible, but his focus was already slightly strained from reaching where they were, and he doubted he would be able to keep it afloat for more than a few minutes, especially at the size that was needed for every member of the Strike Faction.  If he was forced to stop and rest at that point, it would just be like delaying the inevitable since it wouldn’t be long until the monsters caught up to them; he didn’t think he’d be able to move that fast while carrying everyone, even with his recently improved Level in Pattern Manipulation.

No, their best bet was to swoop in on his Pattern box, gather Verne up, and then escape while the rest of the monsters were distracted with the members of the Faction.  It was an absolutely horrid idea, leaving them all behind to die, but he didn’t think there was any other choice.  Even with their new staves, he doubted that there would be enough ambient Mana to maintain the attacks necessary to save them all. 

Or… do we? 

Now that he was closer to the enormous Aperture, he could tell that the density of Mana around it was thicker than normal; given that the energy they used for Mana and Stama leaked from the world of the Corrupted through the opening, he supposed that made sense.  But would it be enough?

He wasn’t willing to bet on it at the moment, especially since if they committed to trying to fight, then it would likely be impossible to extract themselves later.  As much as it hurt him to acknowledge it, the smartest plan was to get in and get out before it was too late.

Nedira evidently thought the same, as she stood in the box silently without protest as Larek quickly brought the construct over to the beleaguered Faction members and set it down within a dozen feet of the exhausted-looking form of his old roommate.  Verne wasn’t even watching as they landed, his eyes closed as he visibly attempted to recover from what he had just done.  At this distance, Larek could finally see what it was that young man had done, and he was shocked and amazed at what he was witnessing – along with the Naturalist by his side.

The roots had expanded along the ground like he’d already seen, but now there was a rapid growth occurring in its center, and the amount of Mana that he felt inside the quickly forming tree was much more than he expected.  It only took him a second of using his Magical Detection Skill to see what was going on; Apparently, Verne had cast a spell that took most of his Mana, but what it also did was somehow absorb Mana from the environment to further strengthen it.

Larek didn’t think that was possible.  Everything he had been taught about spells and the Mana they required said that all Mana needed to come from the caster; Fusions were different because they were designed to have an initial Mana Cost, with additional ambient Mana needed later to maintain it.  But what he saw happening was essentially the equivalent of a spell utilizing ambient Mana to finalize its effect; he also wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up requiring an upkeep of ambient Mana to maintain its spellform.

But he couldn’t let that distract him, because while their arrival hadn’t been noticed by Verne, it was certainly noticed by some of the other Faction members.  One in particular looked familiar, and he quickly realized why.

“I remember you!  Give us that thing so that we can escape!”

Ah, the guy from before who threatened to kill me and take my Pattern box outside of the city.  Great.

Larek ignored the man as he picked up the Void Pocket sack from the bottom of the box, slung it over his shoulder, and rushed to Verne’s side after reabsorbing the Pattern Cohesion from his construct.  Abruptly remembering what happened when he was reintroduced to Kimble, he stopped himself from saying or touching his old roommate, letting Nedira take the lead ahead of him.

She quickly knelt by his side and spoke to him, but other than a brief flash of surprise and recognition—for Nedira, at least—on his exhausted face, he couldn’t hear what she said.  That was because Mr. “let’s-kill-them-and-take-their-floating-box” was coming up behind them at a run, and he wasn’t alone.  Two others were with them, one a young female Mage, while the other was a relatively large Martial, wielding a thick sword that reminded him of what Penelope used to wield.  The sight of it caused him to briefly wonder if she still had the one he had added Fusions to, or if she had it confiscated at some point.

“Hey!  Where did it go?  Who are you?  Did you come to get us out of here?” the man, who seemed as if he was in charge, demanded, his questions rattling off one after another.  When they ran up to him and stopped no more than 10 feet away, with Larek doing nothing but standing there in between them and Nedira who was talking to Verne, the man again demanded, “Answer me!  Or we’ll kill you and take whatever it is that it creating that ugly flying box!”

Ugly?  That’s just rude.

“I don’t have to answer you.  You can go about your business, and we’ll go about ours,” he said after a tense few seconds of silence.  Well, not exactly silence, because there was still a battle for survival going on around them, but there was at least silence between Larek and those that had confronted him. 

“That’s not how this is going to work.  I—We—need to get out of here, and you have the means to let us do just that,” the man said in response, anger now clear in his voice.  “So, either give it to us, or we’ll take it off your corpse – your choice.”

The female Mage at his side was looking at Larek with a strange expression on her face.  Just as the man finished his ultimatum, she turned to him and said, “Jack, I don’t think you should—”

“Not now, Marteena!  This is our way out of here, and this fool’s selfishness is just wasting time.”  The man, Jack, turned slightly toward the Martial with the big sword at his side.  “It doesn’t seem like you’re going to cooperate.  Henrick, kill this man and we’ll figure it out after he’s dead.”

“What about the other one?” the deep voice of the Martial asked, even as he prepared to rush Larek, his sword raised in a position that Larek recognized from his training.  It appeared as though the Martial was planning on taking his head off with a sweep of his weapon… unless it was a feint?  He had trained against one of the best Instructors the Kingdom had to offer, so he was prepared to defend against it either way, but surely the man, Henrik, wasn’t that arrogant to believe Larek would fall for such an obvious attack.

“We’ll kill her if she refuses to explain how our way out of here works.”

Henrik nodded almost imperceptibly and attacked.

Leveraging his Agility stat to the utmost, the Fusionist prepared for an intense fight against the Martial, but he was shocked when the man seemed to move in slow motion.  It was at that point that Larek realized that not every Martial was like Torge, with stats and experience great enough to challenge him at every opportunity; even when Larek was able to become faster than his Instructor once he learned how to leverage his Agility properly, the slight edge in speed wasn’t always enough to win in their spars due to years and years of combat experience on the part of the Drekkin. 

This Martial, Henrik, had only a fraction of Larek’s Agility stat; if he were to guess, he would put it at around 50 to 60 based on the man’s current speed.  That was still quite respectable for most Martials, of course, but compared to Larek’s 370 in Agility, it was almost laughable.

Rather than waste time on waiting for Henrik to reach him to attack, the Fusionist dropped his Void Pocket sack and rushed forward in a blur of speed to meet the man before he had taken a few steps.  He had no intention of killing the Martial unless he had to, because he was only following orders, but he couldn’t allow the man to hurt either Nedira or Verne if he were caught in the crossfire.

Moving to the side of Henrik, he reached out with his hands and grabbed the man’s right wrist; with the application of his Strength stat, he twisted the wrist until it popped, which took quite a bit more force than he was expecting.  He could only assume that the Martial’s Body stat was fairly high, but it also couldn’t compete with a 370 in Strength.  As he felt it break in his hand, he quickly moved up and grabbed the other wrist; it was at that point that Henrik abruptly sped up, a red aura surrounding his feet and arms.  As the Martial’s Battle Art was used, one that obviously increased his Agility, he attempted to swing his still unhurt wrist with the sword toward Larek with the intention of cutting him in half, but the Fusionist simply ducked the obvious attack.  After the blade passed over his head, he reached out and grabbed the left wrist, broke it, and then snatched the falling sword out of the air.

With a flick of his own wrist, he quickly tossed the surprisingly heavy sword straight up so that it couldn’t be recovered immediately, and it flipped over and over through the air, traveling hundreds of feet in the span of a second.  Knowing that broken wrists wouldn’t stop a determined Martial, who was already shrugging off the pain, Larek kicked the legs out from underneath Henrik.  As the man toppled forward, a powerful blow to the back of his head slammed his face into the hard ground. 

The Fusionist mentally winced when he worried that he’d hit the man too hard, but when the man immediately started to scramble to his feet, Larek hit him again, and then again until he groaned and moved just enough to prove that he was still alive.  Henrik had a bloody, messed-up face and likely a severe concussion, but he would eventually recover through the use of his Body Regeneration Skill.

Unarmed Fighting has reached Level 11!

It was at that point that he felt a buildup of Mana from nearby, and he sighed in exasperation as he saw Jack, the man that had ordered Larek’s death, beginning to cast a spell.  He appeared shocked at how Henrik had been so easily subdued, but apparently he didn’t know when he was beaten; Larek didn’t really care if the Faction leader used a spell against himself, because he was fast enough to dodge or resist it, but the foolish man was aiming toward Nedira.

“Stop!  I’ll kill her if you don’t—”

Rage flooded Larek and he felt the Stama inside his body trying to break free, but thankfully it was restrained by his internal Fusion; otherwise, he might have lost control as it took over.  Instead, he crossed the space in between himself and Jack, felt a Pyroblast explosion erupt in front of him as he blocked the man’s line of sight of Nedira.  Most of it was nullified as ice blocks appeared in front of Larek, though he felt the heat and force of the explosion push him back a step as his eyebrows were singed. 

Unfortunately for Jack, Larek had been no more than a foot away from the Faction leader at the time.  The Pyroblast explosion essentially erupted in the man’s face, a mistake on his part, especially as even more of the shockwave was reflected back at him by the automatic Fusion on Larek’s clothes. 

The unfortunate man was launched backwards, his entire face blown apart and his upper body mangled by the explosive force.  Larek wasn’t sure if he survived or not, though even if he had, he wouldn’t be for long; he debated on whether he should even heal him. 

That choice was taken away from him as he realized that the female Mage next to him had also been hit by the Pyroblast explosion, though less severely because she was standing about 10 feet away from the unfortunate leader.  She was launched backwards and rolled a few times before coming to a stop, and Larek rushed to her side; while he wasn’t there to make friends or even save them all, she had at least tried to stop Jack from ordering an attack on him.

When he knelt by her battered form, he immediately saw that she had burns all over her face and exposed arms, and it was likely that the force of the explosion had broken a rib or two.  It only took a few seconds to heal her with his Healing Surge Fusion located on his clothes, and then he ran to Nedira’s side even as the woman began struggling to sit up with a groan.

During the confrontation with the leader, Verne’s spell had apparently finished, and Larek was thoroughly impressed.  A massive tree was currently moving toward the incoming Slimes, swinging its powerful branches and flattening the Steel variety with ease, relieving some of the pressure on the Faction’s defensive line.  Ah, I was right; it’s absorbing a slight amount of Mana from the environment.  How did he do something like this?

His amazement was cut short when he overheard Verne talking, his voice strained.  “…no, I told you I can’t.  I have a connection to my Ancient Protector, and if I move too far away from it, that connection will snap and harm me.”

“Harm you how?” Nedira asked.

His old roommate shook his head.  “I don’t know, but it could damage my Pattern Cohesion irreversibly, sort of like if a Fusion is interrupted in mid-creation.”

“Well then, get rid of it and we can go.”

“I can’t,” Verne said emphatically.  “It… has a life of its own until the spell naturally expires.  I can give it basic orders, but it’s basically on its own.”

“When does it expire,” Larek asked abruptly, surprising the young man, who looked at the Fusionist suspiciously.  There was no recognition in his eyes, however, and now wasn’t the time to tell his friend who he was. 

“A little under 20 minutes.”

Damn.  That’s entirely too long.

“What if we just kill it?”

Verne appeared taken aback by that, as if he didn’t think anyone there was capable of doing such a thing, but he shook his head after a few seconds.  “I’ve never had one get killed before, but something tells me it will have a similar effect as moving too far away from it.”

Double damn. 

“That’s a risky spell, Verne.”

“I know, but it’s powerful—wait, how do you know my name?  Did Nedira tell you?”

Larek hesitated for only a half-second before he answered with, “Yes, sure.  Let’s go with that.”  Meanwhile he was trying to think of a way to escape with his roommate before it got too late, but he couldn’t find any way to do that without harming Verne.  Especially when his Magical Detection Skill revealed a thin, rope-like connection between the young man still resting on the ground and the massive tree beating up Slimes in the distance.

Magical Detection has reached Level 48!

Shaking his head, he realized there were only three choices they could make now.  Larek and Nedira could depart right now, leaving everyone—including Verne—behind, but that didn’t set well with him.  They could risk harming his roommate by taking him away from his connection with his Ancient Protector, but if it was anything like breaking the concentration of a Fusionist during the creation of a Fusion, then there was the possibility that he could be harmed worse than just a reduction of his Pattern Cohesion.

He could die.

Or, what he knew he was going to choose as soon as he considered it, they could stay and fight – and hope that they were strong enough to hold off almost the entirety of the Calamity.

With a sigh and a shake of his head, he told Nedira, “Break out everything from our supplies and share them around.  We’re staying.”

The Naturalist didn’t argue as she began doing just that.