The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 44

Chapter 44

Larek dove away another running charge by the scorpion, managing to avoid being smacked by a claw in the process, but his rolling dive was nearly interrupted when a stinger slammed down near his head during the process. The strength behind the stabbing stinger was such that it actually pierced through and cracked the nearly solid state of sand he was running around on, crumbling it into separate granules for a few seconds before it firmed up again.

After avoiding the last few charges, he was beginning to see that while the monster was fast in its speedy charges, but was much slower in turning, though not by much. It was enough that he was able to rush away to gain some distance, which was what he did now as he brought his staff to bear on the giant scorpion and unleashed a barrage of Magnitude 2 Icy Spikes at its face as it turned toward him. As he expected, they were immediately blocked by a claw, which seemed to bounce off the exoskeleton of the monster, with the area blown up by the Weaken Fusions only allowing a tiny bit of penetration into the flesh beneath the removed chitin.

Before it could move against him, he altered the Magnitude to 8, aiming straight for the opening in the chitin, and he smiled grimly as the large icicle projectile pierced deeply into the claw, lodging at least a foot deep into it. The sand under his feet rumbled slightly as the scorpion seemed to stomp its feet in frustration at the sudden injury to its claw, and Larek’s smile faded as it rushed at him again. This time, however, it moved so quickly that he was unable to dodge completely, and the uninjured claw caught him around the ankle.

Yanked away from his dive, he was pulled into the air as the claw tightened around his lower leg, trying to cut it in half with the pressure alone. While he felt his bones starting to grind together, he was thankful for his Multi-Resistance protected pants, which prevented it from being sliced through, though it didn’t do anything to relieve the squeezing agony that paralyzed him at first before it was blocked by his Pain Immunity Skill.

Still clutching his staff and seeing the other claw coming for him out of the corner of his eye, which he definitely didn’t want getting close to his head, he aimed for the eyes of the scorpion with the end of his staff while he dangled 10 feet off the ground. Changing his attack to his Flaming Ball projectiles at Magnitude 4, he began filling the monster’s face with flames, and for the first time he heard it screech in pain as one of its larger eyes and 4 of its smaller ones – there were 12 of them in total, with a pair of larger ones in the center and 5 on either side of those – were completely melted away by the fiery balls.

Before he could complete the total blindness, he was dropped as both claws came up to protect its face, landing heavily on the sand beneath him. Even as he was let go, he activated the Healing Surge Fusion on his clothing and his crushed leg began to heal; this healing was the only thing that saved him as he was able to push off with his semi-healed leg as he saw the stinger descend directly at his chest, and he was only clipped by the tip, which gouged out a chunk of his back as he rolled away. The missing skin and flesh was annoying, but he was glad that whatever substance was on the tip didn’t penetrate his clothing, as it didn’t actually pierce through; instead, it simply scraped him with such force that it ripped off a portion of his body.

Realizing that he dropped his staff, Larek was forced to leave it where it was because it had rolled nearly underneath the still-burning scorpion. Getting unsteadily to one knee as his leg was still trying to heal completely, he pulled his axe out from the holder around his waist, and fumbled at his belt pouches. After only a second, he managed to grab one of the wood squares with his offensive Fusions on it immediately tossed it toward the monster, where it landed directly under its body.

Unfortunately for Larek, it was his Healing Shelter Fusion that he had thrown, and it immediately went to work healing all the damage he had done to it. There was a small positive point, however, as when its eyes were repaired, the flames that still lingered around the area continued to burn them, eliciting even more pain from the monster as they were continually damaged and healed. That was a small consolation for effectively undoing all the damage he'd managed to do to the scorpion in the time he’d been fighting.

The Healing Shelter Fusion did more than just heal, as Larek could see that within seconds the interior of the scorpion’s body began to shrink as it began to feed on its own flesh for energy, but it was quickly able to break out of the Fusion’s range. Not by charging forward, however, but by somehow jumping up at an angle approximately 200 feet in the air. As he stumbled back as he finally was able to get to his feet after his leg was healed, Larek watched the descending monster that appeared ready to flatten him into a pile of goo and saw something that caught his attention. A slightly lighter color of chitin was stretched across the underside of the scorpion in a wide band, and it somehow looked softer than the rest of the creature’s exoskeleton. Realizing that he could be making a mistake, he nevertheless stretched his arm back before launching his axe at the lighter-colored spot, knowing that it wouldn’t just penetrate but kill the monster if he hit it in the right area.

As it spun through the air, he took his eyes off it for a moment as he rushed forward in a dive, snatching up his dropped staff and deactivating his Healing Shelter Fusion at the same time rather than roll right into it. As he looked up at the falling scorpion after snatching up his staff, he witnessed the axe heading straight for where he had thrown it… only for the monster to somehow sense it coming and twist in the air. It didn’t miss completely, fortunately, but it didn’t hit its belly like he had hoped.

Instead, the super-sharp axe head cut cleanly through one of its legs near the body before getting lodged in the thicker exoskeleton nearby.

Another screech of pain hurt his ears as the leg was detached, and the landing that the scorpion was probably hoping to enact was foiled by the loss of one of its limbs. Landing awkwardly on its remaining feet, Larek took advantage of its momentary instability to dive toward it, using his Water Stream projectile at Magnitude 8 to cut into the chitin as he rolled under its tail and toward its belly, where he had seen the lighter-colored area just a moment ago. Even Mag 8 wasn’t enough to cut through more than an inch of chitin unless he held it on an area for long, but by the time he got to the area he was moving toward, he was piercing through the weaker chitin with ease. Black blood spilled out and nearly covered him in the disgustingly disturbing liquid, but he didn’t let up as he changed from Water Stream to Flying Stone at Mag 2, and soon enough chunks of sharpened stone flew up and absolutely wrecked the scorpion’s insides at a rapid pace.

Larek was able to devastate its internals for all of 5 seconds before the scorpion stumbled away, moving faster than the Combat Fusionist could keep up. Before it could move away completely, he shoved the staff inside the wound he had opened, lodging it inside even as he kept the barrage of stones going. As it walked over Larek, nearly impaling him with a heavy chitin-covered leg, he glimpsed his axe sticking out of its side where it had been stuck. Jumping with all the strength he had, he managed to reach the handle of the wood-cutting tool and yanked it out as he fell back to the ground, rolling upon impact with the sand. As he reached his full height, he pulled out another wooden square he’d taken from his belt pouch – this time knowing exactly what he grabbed – and tossed it at the stumbling, remaining trio of the scorpion’s left legs.

Frozen Zone activated as it passed within its range, and Larek watched the already weakened legs – because of his Healing Shelter Fusion – shatter as the blood inside them flash-froze. Collapsing on its side as it now had no left legs, the part of its body that fell into he Frozen Zone Fusion quickly started to freeze, but its claws and other legs pulled it out before too much more damage was done. Turning in a circle because of its lack of legs on one side, the scorpion’s tail presented itself to Larek and he immediately sprinted forward, aiming for the base of it just over his head. With a tremendous jump that brought him at least 12 feet in the air, the Combat Fusionist swung his axe at the extremely thick base of the tail, cutting through half of it in once swing, the edge of the axe cutting through the chitin with some resistance, though his strength proved to be enough to force it through.

Splattered by even more blood, Larek dropped after his attack and rolled, barely missing being swatted out of the air as the monster’s tail attempted to hit him. With it only half attached, the scorpion’s unwise attack tore it even further, until it was hanging on by only a thick chunk of skin.

Breathing heavily at the exertion and near-death experiences, Larek took his time cutting through the rest of the scorpion’s legs as it attempted to ineffectually turn toward him, until it all it could do was weakly turn itself with its claws. Even that ended quickly when his staff finally punched through all of the scorpion’s innards and Flying Stones began to emerge from its face, tearing through its eyes and mouth in an explosion of internal force, which finally made it collapse into death.

Sinking down into the sand as the hardening effect that the monster created faded, Larek knelt down in exhaustion as he looked at his notifications.

Throwing has reached Level 13!

Dodge has reached Level 21!

Dodge has reached Level 22!

Body Regeneration has reached Level 34!

Feeling the rest of his wounds disappearing as his Body Regeneration Skill finishing off what he’d hastily healed earlier, Larek saw and then felt a significant amount of Corrupted Aetheric Force enter his body, even as the giant scorpion’s corpse and detached body parts began to dissolve and disappear into a dark-greenish and black smoke-like substance – just as Serena and the Gators had. He quickly struggled through the sand to gather up the two wooden Fusions he’d thrown earlier before they disappeared, and then grabbed his staff when it appeared after the corpse disappeared.

Nice! I didn’t lose anything this time. I’m practically starving now, of course, but I can eat when I get back to—the Air Skimmer!

In horror, he looked toward his vessel, only to find that it had sunk halfway down into the sand and appeared to be sinking even further as he watched. “No! No! Stop it! Give it back!” he shouted to no one in particular, but hoping that the desert or something would listen. It was in vain as he rushed toward the sinking Air Skimmer, reaching it within seconds, before trying with all his strength to stop its descent. When physical might didn’t work, he attempted to use the Fusions on it to move it, but stopped after a few seconds as he found that he was doing nothing but ripping the entire thing apart. The gusts of air weren’t meant to extricate the vessel if it was stuck upside down, after all.

Running out of time, he dove inside what opening there still was inside in order to grab a bag or two of food. Digging one of them out from under the sand that had started to cover them, he figured the others were lost and turned to leave, only to stumble as the Air Skimmer dropped a few feet all of a sudden, sinking even further down into the sand.

By the time he caught his balance and looked to escape, the sand was already covering all the openings and seemed to be moving faster to fill in any space there was inside the vessel. He attempted to dig himself out, but it was futile as whatever he moved was quickly replaced with twice as much and soon enough he was up to nearly his chest in sand. Looking upwards, the normally bottom portion of the vessel was the only thing that wasn’t filled with sand, so he dragged himself upwards so that his chest and head were at least free, allowing him to breathe, but for how long that would last, he didn’t know.

Eventually, the interior of the vessel stopped filling with sand, though after reaching down and grabbing one of his Illumination stones from one of his belt pouches, he could see that the sand was rushing by outside of the walls of the Skimmer, revealing that he was still descending at a rapid pace. As he stood there on the sand filling his upside-down vessel, unable to really move anywhere and the air slowly disappearing as he used it up, the only thing he could think of at that point was: Wow. Now I know why anything that fell into the sand was lost to my detection so quickly. It was a ridiculous thought, because he was probably going to die soon, but it was the only thing that came to mind since he had no idea how to get out of the current situation.

Larek wasn’t sure how long he descended, but eventually he began to become lightheaded as the amount of air he could breathe disappeared. Right before he passed out completely, likely to never wake up again, there was a sudden lurch that made his mind focus a little bit more than it had been. Before he knew it, his body felt like it was in freefall for all of a second before it stopped abruptly, a few audible cracks in the wood framing of the vessel protesting at the sudden halt of their descent.

The next moment, the Air Skimmer tilted to the side and Larek went with it, the sand inside shifting as the bottom half of the vessel fell completely to the side and he held onto the side as the iron plates tilted at an angle and began to slide down what appeared to be a hill of sand. Within a few seconds, the vessel eventually stopped, allowing Larek to take a deep breath as blessedly cool, fresh air filled his lungs. When he stopped hyperventilating at the influx of glorious, clean air, he looked around for the first time since they came to a halt, and he was both confused and shocked at where he had ended up.

He had been expecting complete darkness being so far underneath the desert, but instead he found himself in a large, circular, black stone tunnel with a flat bottom, and the very walls were filled with veins of a luminescent crystal that seemed to glow from some sort of internal source. It wasn’t nearly as bright as a full daylight inside the tunnel, but instead he would equate it to being as bright as dusk, just as the sun passed over the horizon. Still light enough to see most things, but not bright enough to hurt the eyes. The glowing crystal veins were strange, not because of their luminescence, but because they seemed to pulse gently in intensity, though it was hard to tell at first because the changes in illumination were very faint.

Looking up at the 100-foot-tall ceilings, he discovered that the apex of the tunnel was actually a strip of sand, hardened and solidified as well as what the Gators and the scorpion had done to the surface up above; right where he and his Air Skimmer had fallen through was a trickle of sand coming through a hole that seemed to be closing up, like a wound that had been healed by one of his Fusions.  The vessel had apparently landed on a large hill of sand that had come through shortly beforehand, and after it landed on its top it tilted over and slid down the side of the sand hill, bringing him to where he was now.

Looking to either side of his location, the tunnel seemed to gradually turn after a few hundred feet in either direction, giving him no clear sense of where they led. Logically, he assumed that he had somehow fallen through the sand and all the way down into tunnel system that the Drekken who lived below the desert lived, but exactly how that happened along with why it happened in the first place was something he wanted to find out. First, he wanted to know how to get out of there, as going back up seemed unlikely; second, he wanted to know why he was down in the tunnels in the first place, since it seemed like he had been deliberately dragged there.

Though, when he thought about it for a few seconds and really evaluated his surroundings, he thought the latter question about why he was there could be related to what he could suddenly sense at a distance.

For the first time since he’d entered the desert land of Lowenthal, he could feel an Aperture.