The Fusionist Book 5 -- Chapter 5

Chapter 5

“How do we kill them?”

Nedira glanced at Larek after his question, before turning back to the Sand Vultures in the distance. “Explosive spells, fire, and Battle Arts that do wide-area damage,” she replied.

So… nothing that I can do? “Why is that?” he asked.

“To key is to disperse the sand that comprises their bodies, either by removing the air through the use of fire or strong attacks that can eliminate most of its form,” she explained, her eye on the flock of Vultures that were heading their way after seeing them from a distance. Though, “seeing” might not be the right word, as he couldn’t see any eyes on any of the Vultures’ heads, as it was just smooth sand.

“So, perhaps a large number of Gust Spheres?” he considered out loud.

Nedira nodded even as she held out the staff with her right hand and gestured with her left. A large flaming ball, which he judged to be a Magnitude 5 size, flew out the end of the staff toward the now-diving flock, slamming into the wing of one of the six sandy avians as it tried to avoid the projectile. In an instant, the wing seemed to dissolve and it plummeted toward the ground, but something frightening happened after it lost its wing.

Through the use of an ability it possessed, the Sand Vulture seemed to shrink as it became an amorphous mass for less than a second before reforming into a brand-new, fully winged Sand Vulture – at about three-quarters of its original size. The sand in its body had essentially acted like clay, able to mold itself into a new shape that was completely healed from the damage it had taken. With that one look at how they operated, Larek now knew why explosive spells and similar effects would work the best against them, as their sand would be too scattered to reform.

With her other hand, she finished forming a spell pattern that was quickly filled with Mana, and an explosive Pyroblast was set off in the middle of the Vulture’s diving formation, completely destroying one of them and scattering the others from the blast. Nedira wasn’t done yet, however, as she fired one flaming ball after another from the staff, clipping the Vultures as they reorganized and dove toward them once again.

“Should I set down so that we can fight these things on the ground?” Larek asked as he saw the Vultures closing with the Air Skimmer. While his vessel could take some abuse, he wasn’t sure what would happen if they happened to slam into its frame at full speed. At best, it would send the Skimmer rocking a little; at worst, it would tear holes in the vessel that could hit the Fusions, causing them to destabilize and explode.

He would prefer to avoid the last scenario if at all possible.

“No! Keep going! We need to keep moving in order to close the Aperture!” Nedira shouted back, even as she cast another Pyroblast that killed another Vulture. “I’ll take care of these!”

He hesitated for only a second before he kept the Air Skimmer on course, headed toward the middle of the Aperture’s territory. Now that he was inside, pinpointing its location was even easier than before, and he adjusted their heading for a direct interception course. Meanwhile, Nedira continued casting and shooting out flaming balls as if it was nothing but a normal day, only showing the slightest bit of stress when two flaming balls missed their targets one after another. That didn’t prevent her from coming back even stronger and achieving direct hits against the actual bodies of the next few Vultures she targeted, and he could see them being quickly whittled down to only a fraction of their previous sizes.

It was on the fifth Pyroblast that he was momentarily surprised by a notification.

New Spell learned!

Pyroblast

Magnitude: 4-foot diameter

Base Elemental Damage (Explosion): 40

Base Elemental Damage (Burning): 3 per second for 5 seconds

Base Non-Elemental Damage (Knockback): 5

Base Mana Cost: 200

Base Pattern Cohesion: 8

Pattern Recognition has increased to 38!

What? I learned a new spell?

Larek had virtually given up on learning any new spells, as his time at Copperleaf had shown that he couldn’t understand the spell patterns for spells more complicated than what was essentially the most basic variety. Spells like Fireball, Light Orb, and Wind Barrier were some of the simplest that could be cast, both in terms of pattern complexity and in cost, and everything else had essentially been barred to him. However, he suspected that because he had broken through the threshold for Advanced Fusions – and the benefits that came with it – he was able to understand and learn even more Spells than before.

As such, he was now excited to learn more spells that he could use the effects from in brand-new Fusions. Of course, he had to survive the current expedition into the middle of a Sand Vulture Aperture, but with how Nedira tore through the monsters as if they were nothing, he didn’t think they’d have too many issues.

Per Nedira’s instructions, Larek kept the Air Skimmer going even as she finished off the last of the Vultures. Peering into the distance, he saw that there were at least two more flocks of monster birds in between them and their destination. “Can you handle the rest of them?” he asked her as she eyed the next flock.

“I think so. Regardless, as soon as the Aperture is closed, we can get out of here.”

As they approached the next flock, Larek could finally see the sphere that indicated where the Aperture was located. It was still a distance away, but he thought they could easily reach and close it before they were overwhelmed by every other flying monster in the territory. Fortunately, Nedira proved more than capable of handling the Vultures on her own as she continued to use his staff to fire out flaming balls, this time at a lower Magnitude to increase the fire rate, and she found what seemed like the perfect equilibrium of size and speed in Magnitude 3. At that point, she was basically cutting a line with flaming balls through the approaching flock, which was a total of 2 larger than the first one she had destroyed, and even after they reformed after being hit, they couldn’t move fast enough to prevent yet another one from hitting them. She only had to use her Pyroblast twice during that fight, and the last Vulture didn’t even get within 20 feet of the Skimmer before it was hit by one last fiery orb that destroyed it completely.

“This thing is completely broken, you know that?” Nedira shouted back at him with amusement in her voice, before flashing a grin back at him. He chuckled but didn’t say anything, as the final defenders between them and the Aperture – a total of a dozen Sand Vultures in a single flock – were already lining up to dive toward them with murderous intensity.

“Are those larger than the others?” he asked, suddenly aware that the sandy birds heading toward them seemed different.

Nedira cursed under her breath as she clutched the staff in her right hand with a tight grip. “They’ve already evolved!” the Mage said in exasperation. “This isn’t the first or even third time this Aperture has expanded,” she continued with somewhat of an explanation. “I think it usually happens upon the fourth or fifth expansion, where a stronger version of the monster inside the territory evolves and starts to appear.”

“Should I stop?”

She actually hesitated for a second before shaking her head. “No, keep going. I should be able to kill them, but stay ready in case I need your help.

It quickly became obvious that she was going to need some help, as the first Pyroblastcast against the dozen evolved Sand Vultures finally put a scale to the monstrosities. Instead of having 12-foot wingspans, their new opponents were at least twice as wide, if not wider; based on the 4-foot diameter of the Pyroblast that simply tore a chunk out of one of the birds without killing it outright, he estimated that its total body size was at least three times as large, with 25-foot wingspans to boot.

When he added in the fact that there were a full dozen of them, he began to become worried once again.

“I might need your help, Larek,” Nedira said calmly while she cast another Pyroblast in addition to bombarding the approaching flock with a stream of flaming balls from the staff.

The Combat Fusionist steadied himself in his place in the center of the Air Skimmer, before pulling out the axe from its holder at his side. He wasn’t sure how effective it would be from his current position, given that he wasn’t near the sides where the Vultures were likely to attack, but he felt better holding it in his left hand – just in case it was needed. With his right, he pulled out a Weaken stone and prepared to chuck it ahead of them, waiting for the diving Vultures to come into range. He needed to be as accurate as possible to hit them while they were both on the move in the middle of the air, but with his Throwing Skill boosted to 28, he felt fairly confident.

When they were approximately 100 feet away, Larek used every little bit of his Skill to whip the stone forward, activating the Weaken Fusion on it in mid-flight. His aim was fortunately true as it impacted one of the front line of Vultures, breaking apart with ease. The explosion it created was large enough that it completely obliterated not just the one he hit, but two others nearby, and the rest were knocked away and damaged as a result. The shockwave of the explosion was so great that Larek and Nedira had to hold on to the Air Skimmer as it wildly rocked back and forth for a few seconds.

Unfortunately, the delay while they recovered also helped their enemies, as the evolved Sand Vultures were able to continue their flight within seconds after reforming in the middle of the air from the various bits of damage that was done to them. Larek counted a total of six left after Nedira’s and his own efforts, and they quickly got close enough extend their claws out in front of them as they dove for Nedira in the front of the vessel, each grasping limb large enough to snap around her and lift her out of the Skimmer without any issues.

A last-second barrage of flaming balls and a Pyroblast took out one last monster before they were too close, and unfortunately Larek wasn’t able to toss out any more Weaken stones in fear that they would cause some serious injuries to Nedira and himself from their proximity.

But that didn’t mean Larek was defenseless. Concentrating on his Pattern Cohesion, he quickly pulled ten percent of it out and formed it into a sturdy shield that blocked a significant portion of the  the front portion of the vessel. He absently noticed that it was slightly larger than he remembered it being, which he put down to his larger pool of Pattern Cohesion thanks to his higher Body stat.

Regardless, it was more than large enough to entirely block the first couple of Sand Vultures that attempted to smash right into Nedira, and Larek saw sand go flying in all directions upon impact. Unfortunately, the last three flying monsters managed to bank their dive, avoid the Pattern shield in the process, and then swept off to the left, right, and above the Air Skimmer. As they turned in a tight circle to return toward Larek and Nedira, another one was blasted out of the sky by a Pyroblast followed up by a barrage of smaller, Magnitude 2 flaming balls that ripped them apart to the point where it couldn’t recover.

The last two streaked toward the vessel and Larek canceled his Pattern shield, as he couldn’t protect Nedira from two different directions; it was at that point that the Combat Fusionist took a risk and decided to completely cut the gusts from below holding them up in the air. As the Skimmer plummeted to the rock ground, he activated the Mag 2 gusts to prevent them from slamming into the rocky environment, and while they still impacted the stone below them, it was more of a bounce than a harmful impact.

As for the two Sand Vultures, he couldn’t see what happened because of the roof above his head, but the rain of sand that fell around them as he began to raise the Skimmer back into the air indicated that his impromptu plan had worked. The two monsters couldn’t stop their momentum and crashed into each other, obliterating their entire forms, and finishing off their flock for them.

“That was close,” Nedira said, appearing exhausted. It was only then that he realized she didn’t have any of the boosts to her stats that he was used to her having, and he resolved to get her set up with them as soon as possible. “Good thinking; I wasn’t sure if we were going to get out of that fight unscathed.”

“Thanks,” he replied with a grin that she didn’t even see since she was looking ahead for any other threats. He had a feeling that she was nearly out of Mana at that point, so she’d only be able to use the staff to attack, but hopefully that wouldn’t matter. The way ahead to the Aperture was completely clear, though he could see some other flocks heading their way in the distance. Thankfully, they wouldn’t get there in time to stop the Aperture from closing, and then they could be on their way as quickly as possible.

When they were approximately 100 feet away from the 15-foot-wide Aperture, Nedira aimed the staff at it, just waiting for them to get a little closer so that she could damage it from a distance. As they closed in on 50 feet away, Larek slowed down, knowing that the immediate area around Apertures tended to freeze the nearby ambient Mana to the point where it was difficult for it to be absorbed by Fusions and even hindered Mana regeneration in people. It wasn’t that big of a deal normally, as he rarely stayed close to an Aperture long enough for it to make a difference, especially with most Fusions that would be relatively fine for a minute or so of no ambient Mana absorption, but his Air Skimmer was a different matter. It used a lot of Mana to keep it airborne, and it would be difficult to move away if it suddenly lost all external power.

A large flying stone shot out from the end of the staff toward the Aperture, which Larek judged to be a Magnitude 8 version, but right before impact a powerful *thump* erupted from the portal connecting to the Corrupted world, so deep and impactful that he felt it in his chest.

“NO!”

Even as she screamed, she released another flying stone after the first hit the Aperture and seemed to bounce off it, showing no damage as it began to grow slightly in size.

“What happened—” Larek began to ask, but was abruptly cut off.

“We were too late!”

As she answered him, another Sand Vulture appeared from inside the Aperture, followed by another and another. They were the non-evolved variety, which meant that when Nedira turned her attention to them with the staff, they were quickly destroyed by the flaming balls she launched – but Larek could see why they were too late.

They just kept coming.

He was reminded of when he witnessed the Greater Trizards emerging from the Aperture during the first emergence of the phenomena, and how they continued to pour from the Aperture despite everything they sent at it. It was only when Larek nearly killed himself by detonating a failed spell near it that finally closed the portal, but he wasn’t going to even attempt that here.

But he did have something similar at hand.

Backing up another 50 feet as Nedira continued to kill those that emerged, he pulled out a handful of Weaken stones and chucked them at the Aperture, willing them to activate their Fusions while in the air. As the half-dozen stones came into contact with the edge of the Aperture, they detonated with escalating force, causing such an explosion that the Skimmer was sent flying backwards, nearly on its side. Larek caught Nedira as she flew into him from her spot at the front, and he protected her as they slammed into a nearby stone hill, the wooden supports cracking and shearing off the entire roof as they hit the ground with bone-crunching force.

Thankfully, he had enough presence of mind to deactivate the gusts from below so that they didn’t hit even harder. As it was, he rolled out of the grounded Skimmer with Nedira held tightly to his chest, taking the brunt of the damage as he hit the rocky landscape. Finally rolling to a stop with the woman in his arms on top, he looked down to see that she seemed to be relatively fine, and she scrambled to her feet even as Larek groaned from the injuries he’d sustained. A quick activation of his Healing Surge popped his shoulder back into place while sealing up a number of cuts and scrapes all over his body, including one on his forehead that had bled into his eyes.

If my Body stat wasn’t so high, that probably would’ve killed me. Even with his high Body stat, he wasn’t invulnerable and something like a crashed Air Skimmer could do him a significant amount of damage if he wasn’t careful.

Stupid. Just plain stupid, he chastised himself, knowing that it was his fault that he had nearly killed the both of them.

“Here they come!” Nedira shouted, pulling his attention away from his self-pity. Looking up, he saw the Aperture in the distance and realized they had been launched back at least 500 hundred feet from their original location. At the same time, he noticed that while the Aperture had shrunk dramatically in size, it wasn’t closed, proven by the fact that it was already growing larger as he watched.

The damage to it did manage to temporarily stop the flow of new Vultures, but those that had already emerged and hadn’t been killed by Nedira were heading their way. He did a quick count and saw that there were only 7 of them that were still somehow intact from the explosion, but they weren’t the real problem.

It was the dozens of other Vultures that raced toward them from all over the territory after the Aperture was attacked. He couldn’t count them all as he saw them diving from every direction, and he reached down to pull out his axe—

—only to realize he had dropped it when grabbing Nedira on the Skimmer after the explosion, and it was nowhere near him now. As for the intact remains of the Skimmer, it was lying on its side approximately 150 feet away toward the Aperture. He didn’t see the axe inside of it from where he was, so he assumed it could be anywhere.

Looking at Nedira to save them with his staff, his heart dropped into his stomach when he didn’t see her clutching it, ready to defend them both.

She had dropped it at some point, as well.

Now, without any weapons and only the few dregs of Mana that his companion had managed to regenerate over the last minute or so, they were about to face dozens of Vultures that knew exactly where they were located and were out for blood after attacking their Aperture.

He thought it couldn’t get much worse than that.

Of course, that was when the damaged Fusions on his Air Skimmer decided that they’d had enough abuse and exploded.