The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 57

Chapter 57

Pulling out one of his Adjustable Illumination +10 stones out of his belt pouch, Larek warned the others to close their eyes as he activated it at Magnitude 5, as even at that brightness it could be uncomfortable to look at for long – especially for those who lived underground like the Drekkin. He had no such problem, as even though it was bright, he didn’t look at it directly but instead tossed it into the yawning portal of darkness that awaited them.

The illuminated glow of the stone arced ahead of him and just barely pushed back the darkness as it landed approximately 15 feet inside the shadow-filled tunnel. Even at such a relatively short distance ahead, the formerly bright light was difficult to see clearly, as it was almost as if the darkness was trying to eat away at it like it had the Luxite in their sanctuary cave. Fortunately for Larek and the others, it seemed as though the Umbral Demons were unable to pull the light away from something made with a Fusion, otherwise all the Illumination Fusions he had created for lighting in the cave would’ve been useless.

But that didn’t mean they didn’t try. A dark, fog-like barrier surrounded the glowing stone like a thick blanket over the next few seconds, only letting a small bit of the light it should be producing out to the people outside of the darkened tunnel. After another 20 seconds, it got to the point where it looked no brighter than a star in the night sky lightly covered up by clouds.

With another warning to the Drekkin, even Larek closed his eyes as he activated another Adjustable Illumination stone at Magnitude 10, and the shock of the bright light in his hand made him look away as it tried to push through his closed eyelids. With only that first flinch at the effectiveness of his Fusion, Larek threw the stone into the tunnel, probably a little farther then he intended, before opening his eyes to the sounds of pained exclamations coming from the Drekkin.

He could readily understand their issues, because when he went to open his eyes, his vision was distorted in strange wavy lines, like something had been burnt and these were heat lines. A quick pulse of his Healing Surge did the trick, and he could tell from the sudden use of ambient Mana by the others that they had done the same thing.

Fortunately, when he looked ahead at where he had thrown the stone, his vision wasn’t affected again. That was because, even though he had thrown the Fusion approximately 40 feet into the tunnel, he could see it clearly – and could also hear what sounded like high-pitched screams of fury in response to its presence.

Larek could only smile as he looked at the Drekkin, who took a step back in either shock or fright. “Looks like we introduced ourselves properly. Let’s go in. If there are any monsters, I’m going to need your help to kill them, while I deal with the Demons.” He turned to the Mages specifically. “Continue throwing some of the stones I gave you throughout the tunnel to light it up; that,” he said, pointing toward where his last stone had landed, “was a Magnitude 10 example, but I have a feeling while we’re in there, a Mag 8 or 9 will work just as well.”

At their nervous nodding, Larek stepped inside the first few feet of the darkened tunnel, which was still covered in shadows as it was out of the light being projected by the other stones. Upon his second step, he felt something intangible slam into his side, staggering him slightly, but he was ready. The half-formed thought of an axe made from his Pattern Cohesion crystallized into completion in no more than a second, and suddenly it floated out in front of him. With another thought as he stood still and felt the insidious presence of an Umbral Demon trying to wrest control of his body away from him, he mentally used the axe to cut completely through his body from his head to his groin. His own intangible implement of death sliced harmlessly through him, but the Umbral Demon that had entered his body was cut entirely in half, its screams of pain dying after a second as it dissipated into nothingness.

It was at that point that the rage that the Demons had exhibited at the presence of the glowing stone disappeared, leaving the slightly illuminated tunnel devoid of any sound at all.

For all of 5 seconds.

That was when the screams returned in greater numbers and intensity, and while he could sense that the Demons wanted to attack him en masse, they were prevented when a bright Fusion fell by his feet. Either Pyluxa or Hakkin had tossed one of them into entrance, creating a “bridge” to the next glowing stone. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a few of the Umbral Demons with the additional before they fled from the illumination; they were there and gone so quickly that those might not expecting it might think it was a trick of the eye, but he had been watching and waiting for them to make an appearance the entire time.

“Thanks,” he said without turning around. Even as he moved forward, he could feel the oppressive shadows around him attempting to smother the light that was just tossed in, but it was bright enough that was able to withstand a good portion of the darkness closing in on it. Before long, he was passing through the first stone he had thrown in and approaching the extended range of his second, and while he still heard the screams of rage, nothing attacked him since he was in the light.

Larek’s anger and want for revenge against the Demons for what they had attempted to do to him was burning hot in him, but he managed to restrain from flinging himself into the wall of darkness ahead of him so that he could start killing them. The reason he stopped himself from simply taking the expedient route was simple and terrifying at the same time: he wasn’t sure how many of them there were. Every other time he had come across the Demons, he had felt a general sense of them out there in the darkness, even if he couldn’t pinpoint them exactly and was only able to get a general count of them; here, though, he could sense them out there in the deep shadows, but there were also so many of them that it was impossible to put a number to them. He suddenly wondered if he was a little bit over his head here, but he pushed that thought aside until he was able to better evaluate what he was really up against.

In addition, closing the Aperture was another of his goals, so it was possible that closing it would allow him a better shot of killing every Demon nearby as they would be reeling from the sudden loss of monsters. That was the second reason he didn’t simply jump headlong into the deep darkness ahead of him, because he was worried that there were monsters out of sight just waiting for him to do that. If he were to be attacked by Demons, there was the possibility that he would be incapacitated for a few seconds while he killed them, and that would give them plenty of opportunity to overwhelm his defenses – especially if there were stronger monsters just waiting for them to make a mistake.

Therefore, with that in mind, he took out another Adjustable Illumination Fusion to throw ahead of him, but Pyluxa beat him to it as one flashed by him to brightly illuminate the next 20 feet of tunnel ahead of him. As it passed through the darkness, Larek saw at least 20 dark, shadowy figures almost instantly disappear as they moved to avoid the light, seeming to teleport away with a screech of what sounded like pain. He was fairly sure that they weren’t hurt overly much, especially considering how fast they escaped the range of the light, but what he actually saw was only a small fraction of the Demons he still sensed out there.

“I don’t like this, Larek,” Gharix whispered ahead to him. “This feels like a trap.”

The Combat Fusionist immediately dismissed the thought that this could possibly be a trap, but he stopped himself as he really thought about it. These aren’t mindless monsters, are they? They’ve been down here for centuries, hiding in the shadows, but there is an intelligence to them – I know that for a fact after unfortunately experiencing one of their minds. It might be almost entirely foreign intelligence, but that doesn’t mean they’re not capable of setting a trap. They somehow took control of all the Apertures, after all, and have a plan to kill everything in the world, so why not have defenses in place in case someone came looking for them?

He reluctantly acknowledged to himself that this might indeed be a trap… but what other choice did they have at this point in time? Turn around and go back, abandoning their goals? Retreat and continue to kill the endless monsters that streamed out of the Aperture? Look for a different way to get to their destination? How long would that take, if there even was an alternative route?

No, they had to keep pressing forward, even if this was a trap. The best solution wasn’t always the smartest, after all, and all they could do was try.

Moving through the tunnel slowly, throwing out Adjustable Illumination Fusion like little islands of safety within the oppressive darkness, Larek felt slightly claustrophobic for the first time in his life. The shadows and the sense of the Umbral Demons just lurking out of sight seemed to press down on him light a weight, sapping his energy as it felt like he was suddenly trapped in the same void that had transported him halfway across the world a few months before. Looking back at the Drekkin, who were huddled together in the center of their illuminated pathway, he could tell that it was getting to them as well; frequent, wide-eyed glances out into the darkness and the twitching of their weapons as they listened to the screams of rage coming from the Demons were very obvious signs that they were starting to crack.

It was the combination of all these things that nearly led to their downfall as yet another glowing stone went out, and as Larek glanced back at them as he walked forward, he failed to notice that the light revealed something other than the bare stone floor that they had been passing over. The illumination reflected off of hundreds of pairs of eyes, all waiting for an opportunity to strike.

It was Abarcen’s panicked, high-pitched scream that alerted him to the danger a second before it was too late, and Larek whipped around to see a huge mass of monsters of dozens of different kinds rushing at him from only 15 feet away. He saw many familiar ones of the same weaker variety that they’d killed as they made their way down the outer tunnel, but there were new ones as well. Worse than that, however, was that there were stronger monsters included in the rushing horde, including the same Barbed Gators he had fought up on the surface, Horse Apes, and even something he didn’t know the name of, but had an immediate sense that they were stronger than the average monster that they had been fighting.

He barely caught a glimpse of it in the rushing crowd, but it looked like some sort of six-legged Frog, with wet black skin that reflected the light of the glowing Fusion stone. Normally, that wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but this particular frog was also almost as tall as Larek and at least three times as big around. The reason he barely caught a glimpse of it was because it jumped almost straight up and into the darkness out of the range of the Adjustable Illumination stones as soon as he noticed it. While he couldn’t see where it had gone, he had a feeling he knew where it was going to end up.

Therefore, with a cry of warning, he threw himself backwards, rolling in order to get back to his feet as soon as possible. Once he was sure of his footing, he began to unleash his staff’s VREP Fusion upon the monsters ahead of him, joined in a moment later by Pyluxa and Hakkin. The Drekkin Martials quickly spread out in front of the two Mages while staying to the side of the line of fire, and quickly engaged the wave of monsters that literally crashed into them, being pushed from behind as they did so.

I guess this is the trap they were planning.

The fact that he had identified it didn’t make it any better, of course, but this was something they could handle. Or at least, he thought they could.

A moment later, the giant black frog made its reappearance, landing right where Larek had been a moment ago with a *thump* that he could feel through his feet. Even as the Combat Fusionist pulled out a stone with a Frozen Zone Fusion on it and threw it further into the crowd of monsters still heading their way, the frog opened its mouth and a sticky-looking black and mottled grey tongue shot out, aiming for Gharix. The Drekkin flinched backwards from the sight of the tongue even as he sliced up a Fanged Rabbit that leapt at him, but it was blocked by his defenses as a block of ice appeared and pushed it back. The mouthy appendage was apparently either sticky or wet enough that the ice actually froze to it, and it was pulled back into the frog’s mouth, only to be crunched apart by the rows of serrated teeth that the amphibian apparently possessed. After that, it jumped again, but this time backwards – or so he assumed, because he didn’t see it again right away.

As much as they blunted the initial rush of monsters as they cut them down in large swathes of projectiles, melee attacks with VEGS activations, and the use of his Frozen Zone, they were quickly being overwhelmed. Without any other choice other than running and attempting to escape, he pulled out his Binding Thorns and Healing Shelter Fusions and placed them in the never-ending horde of monsters that kept streaming into the light of the glowing stones. While they proved effective, it wasn’t long before Larek pulled out his Stone Shredder Dome Fusion on a stone rod that he held out in front of him as he advanced into the mass of incoming creatures, completely ripping them apart upon contact with the rapidly moving stone chunks.

Meanwhile, even with all of their advantages, Larek and the Drekkin were being surrounded and attacked on all sides as portions of the horde swung around the darkened perimeter of the tunnel and assaulted them from the sides and behind, forcing them to all move together so that not a one of them was cut off from the others.  Thankfully, after about a minute of frantic defense, it seemed to be working, as the tide of monsters seemed to slack off after thousands of the enemy had been slain in the frantic battle, though it was still dangerous enough that they couldn’t take more than a second to breathe before the next wave assaulted them from almost all sides.

At the same time, the worst happened as Larek felt like something was wrong; his suspicion was confirmed when he used his Skill revealed that the ambient Mana density had fallen precipitously. He immediately canceled the three offensive Fusions that had been extremely useful in thinning the horde, and while they would’ve still be effective, they were also huge drains on the ambient Mana. He even put away his Stone Shredder Dome as it was also a detriment to the density of the area, and switched to his axe as his primary means of attack.

“What happened?! We need those up!” Gharix shouted, seeing the offensive Fusions fail and let through a fresh wave of monsters derived from their location.

“We’ve drained too much of the ambient Mana!” Larek shouted, even as he laid about him with his axe, periodically using his staff to fire off a few projectiles when it got crowded around his location. “We either need to move back or move up! Otherwise, we’re not going to be able to maintain—”

It was at that point that Larek felt a temporary stutter in the Fusion that boosted his stats, as the ambient Mana density dropped even further. The reason for that was the sight of Hakkin suddenly being piled on by a surge of Thorny Tumbleweeds that rolled into him from behind, triggering his Automatic Ice Repulsion Field multiple times within a few seconds period.  Fortunately, Abarcen was nearby and was able to save him, slicing through the thorny, spherical bushes with his weapon, but the damage had already been done.

“Stop using any Fusions! We’re just about to run out of ambient—” Larek shouted, but was cut off as he was hit from behind by something, causing him to stumble to a knee. Looking back, he saw a Slowgre, which looked like a 5-foot-tall bipedal pig with black and dark green skin covering its body, as well as a crude leather loincloth. It was a slow monster, unable to move quickly, but it also packed a punch if anything was foolish enough to stand still for it to hit. Unfortunately, that fool just happened to be Larek, as he was unable to move from his current position due to the press of monsters against him and had been a prime target.

At first, he thought that his perception must have missed the Slowgre attacking him, but he realized a moment later when a Vampiric Bat swooped down and scraped at his upper arm that it hadn’t missed it; instead, it simply hadn’t activated because it didn’t have enough Mana.

Uh, oh.

Looking around for a solution that didn’t end up with them all dying, he saw that without the offensive Fusions that Larek had deactivated, the influx of monsters had increased yet again. More than once, he watched the other Martial members of the Drekkin group suffer injuries as their defensive Fusions failed them, and they were getting just as overwhelmed as he was. Desperate, he began tossing out the last few Weaken stones he had in his belt pouches, but the resulting explosions only seemed to help minimally, reducing the incoming monsters while doing nothing about the ones already around them and in their faces.

Dropping his staff so that he could concentrate on destroying everything that came within reach of his axe, he tore through them using every bit of speed he could pull from his Agility stat, making large sweeping attacks against the monsters around him. He abruptly staggered when a stone came out of the darkness, likely thrown at him by a Stone Chucker, and hit him in the back of the head, but he pushed through the abrupt disorientation to continue the fight for his life. He wasn’t able to heal the small knot on the back of his skull because he didn’t have enough ambient Mana around him, so he ignored it in favor of taking out as many of the monsters as he could.

A sudden cry of pain from one of the Drekkin distracted him as he looked up to see Pyluxa suddenly go down under a pile of monsters, with no one near to help her. Slightly saddened that she had fallen, he had already thought her dead when out of the corner of his eye he saw her unconscious and bleeding form being dragged from the light of the glowing stones to the darkness beyond by a group of monsters.

At first, he wasn’t sure if he saw it correctly, but when Medrizz and then Hakkin fell a few seconds later, only to be dragged out of the light as well, he suddenly knew what was happening.

They weren’t killing them; they were bringing them back to be possessed by the Umbral Demons.

As this realization hit him, he fought even harder, cutting his way toward the other Drekkin, who he noticed had all been separated at some point, but it was already too late. One by one over the next few seconds, with their defenses completely negated by the lack of ambient Mana, and even their stat boosts failing them (which was the same for Larek), the Drekkin fell under the onslaught, only to be dragged away into the darkness. Gharix was the last to fall, his knives a whirlwind of destruction, but it wasn’t enough.

Alone now, Larek felt some of the ambient Mana begin to come back as there wasn’t as much of a draw upon it, and his stat boosts came back – for as little good as that did. Without another half-dozen targets to attack, the horde of monsters – which, to be fair, was already less dense than it had been before – didn’t hesitate to throw themselves at Larek, and it was all he could do to keep moving, sweat pouring down his face from the exertion.

His Repulsion Field even came back temporarily before it was used so many times that it was on cooldown, which was precisely when the black frog that had been out of sight until then made itself known. From the darkness came a long, sticky tongue that suddenly wrapped around his waist from behind, and he could practically feel the acidic saliva through his clothing. Before he could react to its presence, he was suddenly pulled off his feet and sent flying through the air, yanked with such force that he was practically doubled over and touching his feet.

A brief memory of rows of serrated teeth at the other end of the tongue flashed through his head prompting him to sweep the axe, which he somehow managed to maintain a grip on, behind him, severing the tongue pulling on him. He heard a pained croak a second later, but that wasn’t important at that time, since he was still flying through the air backwards…

…and right into the darkness that pressed on the small bastion of light provided by the Adjustable Illumination Fusion he left behind.