The Fusionist Book 5 -- Chapter 48

Chapter 48

“I have to say, this plan is genius,” Larek said, watching as the latest Locust swarm entered the range of the Frozen Zone Fusion and froze completely solid, before falling to the ground below. As a tiny amount of Corrupted Aetheric Force flowed into him, ready to be purified for his own use, he continued. “All this AF is really adding up. This was a lot easier than I expected it to be.”

“Don’t let your guard down, Larek. This is only the beginning, remember?”

The Fusionist nodded and Nedira, but he couldn’t help but be excited at the new use for his Pattern constructs and Fusions. “I know, but I’m just glad that it’s working. Well, mostly.”

Larek thought about the path they were on and how Nedira had come up with a solution to their initial problems. Being hunted down by monsters wherever they went within the Calamity was an issue, because it would never stop. But what if there were a way to slow them down, if not stop them completely?

The beautiful and talented Naturalist figured out a way to do just that after asking a few questions about his Fusions – or at least for quite a few of the monsters now following them. The Locusts were still a bit of a problem, as they were able to fly over the obstacles in their way, but that wasn’t that big of a deal.

For the others, however, it seemed to work perfectly.

Larek had thought about using Fusions nearby Apertures before, such as putting one of his offensive Fusions nearby and letting any monsters that came out die as they passed through it. He’d dismissed it a while ago because there was an area around the Aperture that didn’t allow his Fusions to absorb more ambient Mana from the environment, making them effectively useless. Even if he placed them 20 feet or more away, outside of the range of that effect, his offensive Fusions didn’t cover a large area and the monsters coming out would simply avoid them. He would be unable to completely encircle the entire Aperture because the ongoing Mana cost to keep them running would drain the ambient Mana within minutes, at least in the Sealance Empire, or perhaps up to an hour now that he was in the Kingdom.

All of that meant that he hadn’t really thought about trying something like that again – but that was before Nedira got an idea into her head that could work. She proposed that he didn’t need to surround the entire perimeter of the Aperture opening, but only a small section, perhaps a tenth of it. Which section depended on only one thing: where Larek and Nedira were located.

And where were the two of them located? Heading towards the center of the Calamity, that was where.

If they were going to find the Strike Faction anywhere, it was going to be on the way toward the Aperture that started it all. Therefore, logically, all Larek needed to do – depending on the location of the subservient Aperture that was providing constant reinforcements – was line a small section of the area still able to pull ambient Mana in within those territories, and let each new monster spawned die within the Fusions he placed there. It took some backtracking, of course, but over the course of a few hours they had visited the Aperture of the Razor Locusts, the Red Spring Daisies, and even the Striped Cazorts and set up six Frozen Zone and Healing Shelter Fusions, depending on what they were being used against, before leaving.  He found that six of the offensive Fusions, with nothing else absorbing ambient Mana nearby, was the limit before the Mana density started to decrease – but that was enough to block a decent portion of the pathway leading to Larek and Nedira.

They even tested it out by floating nearly 500 feet away in his Pattern box, and the Red Spring Daisy they were observing automatically ran in their direction, not bothering to spring into the air yet, and it froze to death in the Frozen Zone Fusion it passed through. It was as if, by being subservient to the main Aperture in the center of the Calamity caused any thought of the monsters going around the Fusions to be impossible, as all that matter was getting to them as soon as possible.

After they departed each of the Apertures, they just had to ensure that they stayed on a heading that was generally in the direction the Fusions were placed, and they didn’t have to worry about them too much. The most notable exception to this was the Razor Locusts, unfortunately, because they tended to fly up almost immediately after exiting the Aperture, missing the Fusions he placed on the ground. He almost spent some time playing around with building some sort of wooden construct that could elevate the offensive Fusions off the ground, but they’d already spent considerable time just backtracking and setting everything up and didn’t want to waste any more. In the end, it was easy enough to kill the Locusts when they eventually caught up with them, due to the other idea that Nedira had.

Using a small platform to hold one of his offensive Fusions and direct it toward incoming monsters, killing entire swathes of them with ease. For instance, he’d just wiped out the latest Locust swarm with his Frozen Zone Fusion, bringing it to them instead of using it as a defensive measure like he’d been doing. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t thought of doing that before Nedira mentioned it, but it opened up a whole new avenue for killing monsters that was much more powerful than anything he’d done before.

The only drawback was that he couldn’t easily control his Pattern constructs more than 50 feet away; he could stretch it to 100 feet or even farther away if he was really focused on it, but it was a bit more inaccurate at that point. In most cases, especially against the Locusts, anything that far out wasn’t really needed.

As they traveled northwest after setting up the last of the Fusions in the Cazort Aperture’s territory, using a map that Nedira was annotating with the correct directions to maintain the defenses set up against respawning monsters, they looked for any sign or trace of the Strike Faction passing through. After traveling for a few hours with no indication of the large group, they set down and took turns sleeping; one person was all that was needed to fend off the Locusts that attacked them, especially when Larek set up three more Frozen Zone Fusions around their campsite. Whatever didn’t pass through the Fusions and froze to death were killed through the application of a Mage’s staff, as a single small swarm of Locusts weren’t very threatening.

It was only when a dozen Steel Slimes and a Rainbow Slime appeared that both of them had to be awake to fend them off. Unfortunately, other than making them slightly slower, the Slimes completely ignored the Frozen Zone Fusions, and none of his other offensive Fusions would work against them; Healing Shelter did nothing because they didn’t have bodies that were affected by the powerful healing effect, and Binding Thorns were ineffective when the Slimes could simply wiggle out of the constrictive effects like it was nothing. Thankfully, magical effects from their staves still worked against the Steel Slimes to take them out quite handily, though the Rainbow Slime took a little extra effort.

Thankfully, Larek had spent some of his time when Nedira was asleep creating additional offensive Fusions in case he needed more in the future, but he also added a VEGS to his halberd, which could now create an elemental gust sphere a few inches off the edge of its blade. When he attacked the larger, colorfully prismatic-looking Rainbow Slime, which moved at least three times faster than the Steel variety, his halberd blade – which was Sharpenedenough that it could even cut through steel – ricocheted off its exterior. Fortunately for Larek, he was able to activate the Variable Elemental Gust Sphere Fusion on it as soon as he made contact, and a bubble of fiery air appeared underneath the surface of the larger slime. It burst like an infected wound, spraying multicolored slime goo everywhere, but that was far from enough to kill it.

Thankfully, even though his automatic defenses needed to be deployed a single time during the fight when an extra-long appendage coming from the Rainbow Slime hit him in the back, he was fast enough to land a few more hits and added a trio of VEGS applications to it. While its exterior ruptured, Nedira also discovered that it was less resistant to the barrage of fireballs she continued to send at it from her staff, and a single Pyroblast spell was all that was needed to finish it off, especially once it was inserted into its reforming side. At that point, it exploded, killing it for good as its internal core was destroyed in the process.

Other than that singular attack from the Slimes, the only thing they had to contend with were the Locusts, which were typically single-minded enough not to move around the Frozen Zone Fusion nearby when rushing in to attack them – which allowed them both to get a decent amount of sleep through the night. In the morning, they got on the move in his Pattern box, again looking for any signs of the Strike Faction, moving genuinely back and forth over a wide area of the landscape; a few times they were attacked by a Red Spring Daisy or a Striped Cazorts, but it was thankfully a rarity. What was more concerning, however, was that the further north they went, even if they got within a half-mile of a subservient Aperture, its monsters began to attack as reinforcements.

At the first instance, which was from some Snowmes – which were these small figures with pointy blue hats and pure white clothing covering their bodies, and they could create snow- and ice-based spells that attacked from range – it was easy enough to kill them all because they weren’t very fast and had a severe weakness to balls made of fire slamming into them in repetition. Their advantage came from when they were inside their own snow-filled territory, which made it hard to see them when they were hiding, but once they were outside in the obsidian landscape of the Calamity, they stuck out like a sore thumb. Once the Snowmes that were following them were killed, Larek went into the subservient Aperture’s territory and set up a section of Healing Shelter Fusions where they would emerge, leaving it as defended as could be.

That was just the first, though, and within a couple of hours two more monster reinforcements started to attack them, one of them being Jumping Spiders, which he remembered attacked Thanchet – where Copperleaf Academy was located – at one point along with a bunch of other bugs from a Scission.  The other was a Shining Elk, a glowing elk-like animal that had antlers that shone brightly enough that they were nearly blinding; that was only to its advantage because those antlers were sharp and durable enough to pierce through steel, and by blinding its victims ahead of time, they wouldn’t even see the attack coming. Thankfully, both were relatively contained by additional Fusions in their territories, as the Jumping Spiders didn’t seem to jump unless they saw that their victim was nearby.

But the proximity of the Aperture territories they encountered only became denser as they traveled north in a crisscross pattern. At one point, they flew into what they quickly determined was a conjunction of fairly large territories, causing three sets of monsters to attack them simultaneously. It was during that fight against King Penguins, Sucker Flies, and Decayed Stallions that Larek set down and prepared for the onslaught, arranging more offensive Fusions around the two of them as they waited for the monsters to arrive.

This time, Nedira was fighting from the start instead of being protected and hidden, and they were able to absolutely crush the incoming opponents. It helped that they arrived in separate groups because of their different traveling speed, with the Stallions – which were undead horses – arriving first, where half of them were subsequently torn apart by a pair of Binding Thorn Fusions with the rest killed by Larek’d halberd or Nedira’s staff which tossed out enough fire to burn the animated corpses enough that they wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon. The Sucker Flies, which swarmed like the Locusts and had a long proboscis like a mosquito, fell in the same way as those annoying insects: by flying through a pair of Frozen Zones.  The King Penguins, which were approximately Larek’s current height, were slightly harder to kill because their exterior was immune to cold and they had slick enough bodies to prevent any Thorns from pinning them down. A single Healing Shelter was all that he could afford to place to stop a few of them, but the majority of the Penguins were killed by the deadly duo.

And, of course, since he was attacked by them, he had to set up additional Fusions inside their territories to stop them from sending out their new spawning monsters, though only perhaps 1 in 3 swarms of Sucker Flies were stopped in that way. This delayed their search for a few hours, but it was worth it to prevent even more monsters from constantly attacking them.

It continued like that for the next two days, as they searched and fought additional reinforcements, before setting up additional Fusions designed to kill them when they emerged from their Apertures. Not everything was fully prevented from venturing out to attack them, similar to the Locusts and the Flies, but at least 90% of them were stopped completely. Larek actually appreciated that they weren’t all stopped, because it didn’t take him long to learn that as soon as he was out of their secured territory, he didn’t receive any Aetheric Force from their deaths; only when they were directly attacked did he accumulate more, and it was making a huge difference.

In fact, over the three days they spent searching for the Strike Faction, moving from east to west as they moved north, Larek managed to increase quite a few Skill Levels – including some of his Mage Skills due to having to create multiple Fusions to replenish what he was leaving in each of the Aperture territories they passed. With the Aetheric Force he also acquired, he was in no danger of hitting a maximum anytime soon.

Mage Skills:

Spellcasting Focus Level 43[50]/55 (550 AF)

Magical Detection Level 46[55]/55 (550 AF)

Pattern Recognition Level 47[55]/55 (550 AF)

Focused Division Level 60/70 (700 AF)

Multi-effect Fusion Focus Level 62/70 (700 AF)

Mana Control Level 65[75]/75 (750 AF)

Fusion Level 65[75]/75 (750 AF)

Pattern Formation Level 65[75]/75 (750 AF)

Pattern Manipulation Level 69/80 (800 AF)

Martial Skills:

Unarmed Fighting Level 10[20]/35 (350 AF)

Ranged Weapon Expertise Level 10/35 (350 AF)

Blunt Weapon Expertise Level 15/35 (350 AF)

Throwing Level 25[35]/40 (400 AF)

Stama Subjugation Level 27/40 (400 AF)

Dodge Level 34[44]/45 (450 AF)

Bladed Weapon Expertise Level 35[45]/45 (450 AF)

Pain Immunity Level 20/20 (N/A)

Body Regeneration Level 48[58]/650 (650 AF)

The biggest changes were in his Bladed Weapon Expertise and Pattern Manipulation Skills, which were at Level 35 and Level 69, respectively. Unfortunately, it seemed that Pattern Manipulation was at another threshold because it didn’t seem to increase any further than Level 69 for more than a day, so he expected that he needed to find something new to do with it that he hadn’t tried before. However, he didn’t have any need to experiment quite yet because it was already doing magnificently with what he needed it to do, and it became easier and easier to control two different constructs simultaneously. He found that he could maintain three constructs as long as two of them were static, but it was still difficult even with those restrictions.

In addition to the Skill Levels simply increasing, they also allowed him to gain enough Advancement Points to reach a personal Level of 41, giving him an additional 28 AP to add to the 2 he had left over from his previous Level-up. Of course, now that he had a fairly good handle on his physical stats and changes didn’t affect him nearly as much, he pumped another 10 AP into Strength, Body, and Agility, which brought them all to a base of 178.

Level 41

Advancement Points (AP): 15/28

Available AP to Distribute: 0

Available Aetheric Force (AF): 314

Stama: 3560/3560

Mana: 4100/4100

Strength: 178 [356] (+)

Body: 178 [356] (+)

Agility: 178 [356] (+)

Intellect: 205 [410] (+)

Acuity: 140 [280] (+)

Pneuma: 3,204 [6,408]

Pattern Cohesion: 64,080/64,080

Everything was improving while looking for the Strike Faction, just like he had hoped, but the further they went into the Calamity and the more monsters that attacked them, he couldn’t help but feel like they were getting in over their heads. While they had quite a few of them under “control”, the it was quickly becoming clear that leaving once they located Verne and the members of the Faction they were looking for would be an issue.

With no way to backtrack at this point and explore different routes other than the ones that they were already searching, as that would cause many of the 30+ Apertures they had set up Fusions to help control reinforcements to set their monsters on them, it was looking more and more like they only had two options of what to do.

First, they could continue moving all the way north until the passed through the northernmost border of the Calamity, protecting themselves as best as they could along the way from the subservient Apertures. Once they crossed over the border, all of the reinforcements would stop following them, and they could try again to find the Strike Faction from a different direction.

For that option, Nedira estimated that it would take about a week even if they rushed through as fast as they could without searching to the east or west, because of all the preparation and defense against spawning reinforcements.

Or, they could try and close the entire Calamity by attacking the central Aperture. At this point, that would certainly be much faster than the first option, but that would be even more suicidal than their current plan. While many of the southern subservient Apertures they’d been passing by had already been essentially neutralized, there were still over 200 Apertures within the Calamity that would send their monsters toward the central Aperture as soon as it was attacked.

He felt confident that they might be able to take out a few dozen sets of monsters that attacked, especially if they weren’t able to reach them up above in his Pattern box, but it was more than likely that they would be assaulted by multiple hordes of monsters that could inflict some serious damage upon them, even 100 feet or higher up into the air. Perhaps if they were able to find the Strike Faction and joined with them, they might have a very small chance of success, but he wasn’t going to count on it.

“To the north it is,” he confirmed after some deliberation, and he could see that Nedira was relieved with that decision. “When we get out, we’ll rush around to the east and attempt to find them from a different direction.”

With that firmly in their minds, they pushed ahead and abandoned their search for the Strike Faction, instead heading slightly northeast. If the route that Nedira plotted was accurate, they would bypass the central portion of the Calamity and come out in a position that would allow them to reach another portion of the border in good time.

At least, he hoped it was in good time, because they still had no idea where the Strike Faction was located. He could only hold on to the belief that they weren’t dead, and that they would find them before it was too late.