The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 24

Chapter 24

“Get him!” Seandra screamed, pointing at him even as she knocked the chair she was sitting in over on its back as she abruptly stood up. Panicked screams erupted from the other women around the table as they scrambled to back away from the sudden violence that had erupted.

Shaking his head as he pulled his best friend from the holster on his side, Larek held his axe out in front of him crossways as he was suddenly mobbed by veiled assassins from all sides. The half-dozen that he had seen before were joined by an equal amount that seemed to come from nowhere, though it was quite possible that they were hiding just out of view, which just complicated matters.

Even as four more of the knife-wielding women stabbed at him and were thrown around by his Repelling Barrier, another pair of knives bypassed the protection of the Fusion as it was hit the limit on the number of active gusts and pierced his back. Or at least they tried to pierce his back, but his shirt was strong enough with its Multi-ResistanceFusion prevented them from cutting through the fabric. The impact of both weapons hitting him was still strong enough to knock him slightly forward and temporarily hurt before his Pain Immunity Skill kicked in and he caught his balance.

If the assassin had been surprised at the ineffective attack, she didn’t show it, as she adjusted her next strike to hit the back of his unprotected neck. As she stabbed forward, the Barrier finally reactivated now that it had the opportunity, sending her and her knives slamming into the ground as she was caught by the powerful gust. She hit the stone floor hard enough that he wouldn’t be surprised if she was seriously injured, but he didn’t have a second to evaluate if she was going to be an ongoing threat or not.

Because every other assassin was still attacking him, and it was time to go on the offensive. He had tried to warn them and negotiate his way out of the situation, but once it failed, he knew there was no other choice. It was either kill or be killed, and he didn’t feel like dying anytime soon.

Swinging his axe around in a sideways sweep, he caught another of the assassins behind him as she tried to stab him in the back, and he tried not to dwell on the sight of its blade cutting through the leather of her outfit before slicing entirely through her upper torso and out the other side. Even as her top half fell to the floor on top of her legs, she attempted to attack him on the way down, stabbing at him with her knives – but they triggered the Effect of Repelling Barrier, causing the free-falling half of the woman to abruptly spin vertically in the air, flinging the lifeblood coming out of her severed torso everywhere, including at Larek.

The blood was moving at such speed and had a physicality to it that triggered his Barrier once again, sending it shooting down into the floor to splash disturbingly all over the stone.  The assassins saw that as well and, thinking quickly and evaluating the situation with a speed that was astonishing, suddenly sprinted to the table and begun chucking plates, forks, and cups at him with incredible aim, which triggered the Barrier over and over. As he rushed toward them, they started including sharp throwing knives that they pulled from somewhere along their body – and for the first time Larek was injured.

One throwing knife lodged itself in his lower left arm which wasn’t covered by his shirt, which he immediately pulled out and tossed back at the nearest veiled figure, but the throw was clumsy and was actually caught and returned by her the next second. Another one somehow slipped through a gap between his shirt and his pants that only appeared as he was moving and lifting up his axe to help block the onslaught of items being thrown at him, and he grunted in discomfort as it lodged itself into something in his right side. He was about to pull it out, but a third knife spun as it flew toward his face, and it was only his quick movement throwing himself backwards that saved it from piercing through his eye and into his brain. Unfortunately, the movement still allowed it to slice at the edge of his throat, cutting through his firm flesh to open up his main artery in his neck.

It wasn’t an overly serious wound, but he could immediately feel the blood pumping out of it; if he wasn’t careful, he’d bleed out before he had a chance to heal it, but he knew that he needed to remove the knife in his side before he activated his Healing Surge Fusion. Needing his hands free in order to do that, he cocked his arm back and launched his axe at the nearest assassin, which caused the knife in his side to tear at his inside further with the movement.

The Logging tool flew swiftly through the air and impacted the upper right shoulder of the assassin he was throwing it at, despite her attempting to dodge. The blade cut entirely through the leather, flesh, and bone, literally disarming her even as it ricocheted and deflected upwards on its flight, where it finally lodged itself in the stone wall above the easy reach of the assassins. As he pulled the knife out of his side and tossed it to the floor, Larek initiated his healing Fusion and felt his wounds repair themselves rapidly – but he was far from being out of danger.

Throwing has reached Level 9!

In just the few seconds since the fight started, Seandra had corralled the screaming women that had been around the table and convinced them to join in on killing Larek. They weren’t assassins, of course, but they saw how effective throwing things at him was, so they took over the barrage of table items even as the assassins closed in to attack him.

“ENOUGH!” he shouted, pulling a handful of items from his pockets at the same time. Tossing one of the rocks in his hand at the assembled women across the table that were throwing things at him, he threw the other two toward the assassins, before pulling out a length of wood that he held in his hand and activated. The Stone Shredder Dome flickered into existence, and he swung it around himself, blocking the projectiles sent his way while also keeping the approaching assassins back – and right where he wanted them.

As the rocks he threw rolled to a stop, he prepared for them to fully activate in a few seconds, which would either begin to freeze, constrict, or overload them with healing, ending the fight. He hadn’t seen which ones he threw where, but as Seandra and the other women around the table began to scream as roots suddenly burst out of the stone floor and wrap themselves around their limbs, he quickly found out.

Unbeknownst to him, activating and throwing that one first was a mistake, as the assassins were apparently incredibly quick-witted as well as being swift. One of them, seeing that what he threw out earlier was killing the others, turned her attention to the stone that landed near her feet. Reversing her grip on her knife, which had a sturdy metal spike on the pommel, she knelt down and smashed at the stone. Larek caught the action as she slammed it down the first time, and watched as it withstood the blow – but just barely. The problem was that he hadn’t strengthened the stone when he had made the Fusion originally, as it was only an Intermediate and therefore was unable to add that Effect, but it was a fairly strong stone, and he hadn’t had any problems with it needing reinforcement – until now.

Oh, no.

Even as he watched the actual Fusion activate, which proved to be his Healing Shelter, the threat of imminent death and the rising anger at these people who were going to die for absolutely no reason triggered something inside of him in his panic. Faster than a blink of his eye, his Stama rushed through his entire body, activating which he quickly discovered was his Consuming Speed Battle Art.

The world seemed to slow to a crawl around him, as he focused on the assassin getting ready to strike his Healing Shelter Fusion again. Even as he saw the spike on the pommel of the knife descending onto the stone, he saw some fluctuations in the Fusion formation and realized that the first blow – while it hadn’t shattered the stone – had damaged it enough that it was already falling apart. The second blow would just speed up the process that was already happening.

From what he could tell, there was no stopping what was about to happen… so he didn’t try. Instead, he used his incredible speed granted him by his Battle Art to run; he nearly ran toward his room because his stuff was there, but he quickly decided that it was folly. Based on the amount of destruction he predicted was about to happen, he didn’t think that he’d survive.

But there was one thing he wasn’t going to leave behind.

Dropping the Stone Shredder Dome so that he’d have both hands free, Larek sped past the slow-moving Assassins and dodged around the thrown objects still in the air, before leaping toward the wall where his axe was lodged. He landed on the vertical surface feet-first even as he gripped the handle of his best friend. Launching himself off the wall as he yanked the tool out of the stone, his substantial Martial stats aided him in launching himself across the room.

Right toward the exit.

The door was closed and locked, but Larek’s momentum meant that he smashed into the wood-and-iron door with enough force to cave in a portion of it while cracking the hinges. Injured by the impact as he felt more than a few bones in his upper body snap, he rebounded from the door but landed on his feet. With a powerful kick at the barrier preventing him from leaving, he felt a large portion of the already damaged door splinter, which caused it to slam open and let him out.

Running to step out of the underground sanctuary for the Underworld Society, he felt the moment when the Healing Shelter Fusion was shattered, releasing all of the stored Mana inside of it in an instant. The explosive shockwave as the Mana decompressed from its formation flung him out of the common room and down the tunnel he’d traveled down the day before.

He was still airborne when another shockwave went off as another of his Fusions broke, pushing him even faster down the tunnel. Emerging from the tunnel, he was flung at incredible speed at the stone steps in front of him, which he could barely make out in the dim light of the common room behind him. Larek managed to somehow turn his body while mid-air so that he didn’t land on the steps head-first, but hitting it side-first was still incredibly painful – especially as a third shockwave blasted him forward even faster.

Dazed by the impact, which had him rebounding back and upwards, the fourth and final shockwave as the last Fusion in the common room detonated, which sent him flying up the stairs at speed. The angle of his ascent was fortunate because he avoided hitting either the ceiling or the steps again, which was incredibly lucky since he couldn’t see a single thing in the darkness.

He actually ended up hitting the upper wall near the entrance to the passageway found in the storage building up above, of which the impact certainly didn’t help his broken body, but at least he landed in a place where he wasn’t going to suddenly fall back down the stairs.

Thatwould’ve hurt a whole lot more.

As it was, he activated his Healing Surge Fusion as quickly as he came to a stop, even as his ears were inundated by incredibly loud crashing noises that he felt indicated that the entire underground complex was collapsing from the damage that had been caused by the exploding Fusions. Laying on his back as his body put itself together, he felt the Consuming Speed Battle Art draining from his body, taking most of his strength with it. As the bones inside of his body shifted back into place and the worst of his internal injuries were repaired, Larek deactivated the healing Fusion a second before he slipped into unconsciousness.