The Fusionist Book 4 -- Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Larek mentally sighed as he aimed his staff and launched a stone from the Flying Stone Fusion on the end, watching as impassively as he could as it slammed into the back of the fleeing Mage. The force of the impact was enough to pass through the man’s clothing, flesh, and bones to come out the other side, leaving a gaping hole where a good portion of his spine used to be, and the would-be bandit collapsed and rolled a few times as his momentum kept him moving once he lost control of his body. It wasn’t a perfect shot, as he was hoping to make it a clean and quick death, but it was good enough that he doubted the man would live for much longer.

Why? Why did they have to attack me? This felt less like I was defending myself and more like an execution.

Perhaps it was an execution, as it seemed to Larek that this type of thing was common to these individuals. Their behavior, coupled with the unasked-for warning the Innkeeper gave to him the night before, made that obvious enough. The fact that one of them, the one he had just punched a hole through, had managed to figure out how to cast a spell after a little more than a week since becoming a Mage was a surprise – and would’ve made them even more dangerous to the local population if they continued to rob and potentially kill people along the road.

Yet, despite the fact that he would classify these individuals as “bad people”, Larek couldn’t help but be saddened by what he had done. Oh, he knew it was necessary, especially as he was defending himself and warned them to stop what they were doing, but that didn’t mean he liked doing it or wished there was another way it could’ve been resolved. His experience with such things told him that there likely was no other way it could’ve ended unless he was willing to sacrifice himself, which wasn’t going to happen.

It was killing the running Mage that bothered him the most, because it felt wrong to kill someone like that when they were just trying to escape. Unfortunately, similar to the reason he had killed Ricardo and the two Martial trainees, he couldn’t allow any of them to live to attack him again when he least expected it. The last thing he needed was to camp somewhere that night and be ambushed while he was focused on a Fusion. While his Repelling Barrier would stop most things, it was already proven that it didn’t work against balls of flames as they didn’t have the physicality to trigger the defense. He ended up simply letting the Multi-Resistance Fusion on his clothes handle the spell, and while he was burned slightly by both impacts, his body was more than capable of preventing anything more than superficial damage – which was practically gone already as his Body Regeneration kicked in even without using his Healing Surge Fusion.

It was going to take something more powerful than that to hurt him at this stage; his defensive Fusions combined with his Body stat made him difficult to harm with weak attacks like that. A higher quantityof weaker attacks could hurt him, but a few weak fireballs? He’d suffered much worse than that and survived.

Turning toward the victims of his testing, his stomach felt a little ill when he looked at them. In the case of Alwhin, the individual who had accosted him at the Inn and who seemed to be the leader of this little group, he was actually the least nauseating to look at. After being wrapped up in roots via the Binding Thorns +10 Fusion, which it was good to see actually held him after he wasn’t able to rip them all apart with his relatively high Strength stat, his body was absolutely shredded along with his neck. The blood loss was what actually killed him, as evidenced by the spreading pool of red that was soaking into the ground around his corpse. Once he stopped moving, the roots disappeared and the stone holding the Fusion remained in place as the only evidence there of what had killed the man. It was technically still active and waiting to detect any physical movement, but he could deactivate it with a verbal command at any time.

Overall, the Fusion had been a success; a disturbing sight when used on a person, but a success, nonetheless.

The same went with his Frozen Zone +10 Fusion – both the success and the disturbing sight. Instead of being shredded with thorns, the extreme cold of the area created by his Fusion had literally frozen all of the moisture in the man’s body, causing it to crystalize and seemingly to clump together to the point where large hunk of it pushed itself out of his body. Watching impassively as this happened was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do, as it made him extremely uncomfortable seeing what looked like bloody growths pop out all over the would-be bandit’s corpse – because that was essentially what he was by that time, after having been completely frozen at that point. He wondered if it would act the same if he were to place his hand inside the Frozen Zone, or if his high Body stat would negate some of the effect. It worked to stop a lot of the burning caused by fireballs, so it was entirely possible that it would stop the freezing cold as well.

This Fusion, too, had deactivated after there was no perceived movement detected, but the evidence of its use was much more obvious. Any of the moisture that had been in the grass or even the dirt underneath it had caused the vegetation to erupt in ice crystals similar to the blood from the corpse, killing the plant life as it burst apart from the sudden freezing. There would be a dead patch in the spot where the Fusion covered for a little while, but the dead vegetation as well as the moisture from when the ice melted would help to restore it to life in a month or two.

The most disturbing Fusion he had used, however, was Healing Shelter +8. The fact that it worked was good to see, but the result frankly frightened him. He had known that the Healing Surge +5 Fusion was powerful and should only be used in short bursts even with someone with the Body RegenerationSkill, but it appeared as though a +8 version of that Effect was not only a few steps more powerful, but almost exponentially more powerful. The reason for that, he discovered while he watched it work, was because the healing energy that infused the attacking man had reverberated around the contained area of effect, enhancing itself in the process. It was strange to look at, though he had to force himself to look away from it to see what had happened to the man.

It appeared as though all of the life force had been sucked out of him, though in reality it was his own body that essentially consumed itself to fuel the healing that it was attempting to accomplish. Seeing this, more than anything else, hinted at how dangerous his Healing Surge Fusion really was, and if he had actually created something stronger than the +3 version back in the day for all of the Fusions he distributed, it was entirely possible that the temporary comas some Mages fell into would’ve been permanent – or might’ve even killed them outright.

As much as he hated how his learning had come to an end at Crystalview, he could better understand why Dean Wilburt was so adamant to remove Larek from the Academy. That still didn’t make what was done to him right, but comprehension of how lucky it was that no one that had used his Healing Surge +3 Fusion had died was certainly at the forefront of his mind now.

The man that had been caught in the Shelter Fusion was now just a heap of bones with paper-thin skin covering his entire body. In all honesty, he wasn’t even sure if the healing Effect had stopped even after he had technically died, as he looked worse than when he finally stopped moving, but the Fusion had eventually deactivated due to lack of physical movement. Still, it was a heck of a way to go, and if he ever had to defend himself against another person, he would think twice about using it in this way again. Granted, if he were attacked by a Martial member of the SIC or a Gergasi, they would likely have the Body Regeneration Skill and therefore have a bit of resistance to the Effect for a short time, but a Mage or a normal person would suffer just as this individual had.

In a choice between life and death, he knew he would use it if he had to, but only if there were no other options. Against monsters, however, there would be no hesitation; that was, of course, if it even worked against them. His experiment didn’t really prove that it was a viable Fusion to use against his main targets, so it would require further testing.

“Deactivate Binding Thorns!”

“Deactivate Frozen Zone!”

“Deactivate Healing Shelter!”

With his commands spoken out loud, he could visually see the areas of ambience around each of the Fusions disappear, leaving the stones the Fusions were on comparatively inert. They would stay that way until he activated them again, and he started to move toward the closest one in order to pick it back up and store it in his pocket for reuse in the future.

It was at that point that something felt a little off, almost as if something was constricting his breathing – but that wasn’t it, either. Wary of another attack, he looked around to see if he saw something, or even sensed it like he had the original ambush as a disturbance in the Mana floating through the air—

The Mana!

Switching on his Magical Detection Skill, he looked for the strands of light that indicated the Mana in the air, and was astonished when he saw that it was almost completely gone from the area. Looking further afield, he could see more of it gradually drifting in, but the difference between where he was standing and an area a few hundred feet away was dramatic. It was like looking at a pond that was full of nearly clear water with only a few blurry sections where you couldn’t see down to the bottom and a dirty pond that was visibly murky.

Staring down at his clothes, he immediately identified that the strange feeling he was experiencing was due to a lack of ambient Mana in the area. His Boost Fusions were having trouble getting enough ambient Mana to provide the full amount, and a look at his Status saw the percentage increase in his stats fluctuating oddly. A quick jog out of the area led him to where the Mana was flowing in to fill the void that was created, likely by his Fusions as they drew in a lot of ambient Mana to power them, and he almost immediately felt the influx of ambient Mana on his clothing Fusions stabilize.

“Well, this could be a bit of a problem,” he mumbled out loud, thinking about what had happened.

Larek had originally thought that he could make enough of these offensive Fusions to completely surround him when he attacked an Aperture, but that didn’t seem like it would be feasible in the lower-Mana environment of the Sealance Empire. In the Kingdom, he didn’t see any potential problems because the Mana density was so high, but his Fusions were literally stripping almost all of the Mana out of the area when all of them were active at the same time. Based on what he had seen of the ambient Mana situation – or lack of Mana, as it was – he could only assume that the offensive Fusions were already at the point of shutting down from lack of Mana by the time they were done finishing off the three men. An attack by dozens or potentially more than a hundred different monsters would take much longer, and depleting the ambient Mana so that his own defensive Fusions were starved of Mana was a bad idea in the heat of battle.

“I’d certainly say so. Murder isn’t taken lightly here in Lakebellow.”

The voice came out of nowhere and startled Larek as he stared at his clothing Fusions in an effort to see if they had been harmed by the reduction in ambient Mana. Fortunately, from what he could see, they appeared perfectly fine; unfortunately, he had bigger problems than checking his existing Fusions as he looked up to see a large group of what could only be Protectors. At their head, mounted on a horse along with the two-dozen other riders, was a large man that gave off the vibe of a Martial, and one that was a bit stronger than the ones he had just killed. Not quite on par with a third-year Martial trainee yet, he didn’t believe, but lack of training in using Stama and Battle Arts could be shored up with experience and skill. This man appeared to have both of the latter, as his hair was peppered with grey and his stance and very presence screamed confidence and capability; Larek thought that the man’s Leadership Skill must’ve been quite high.

The Protectors with him weren’t quite as intimidating as the leader, but he could also sense that around half of them were also Martials and Mages, at least according to how the Mana in the air interacted with them. It was very similar to the Protector breakdown of those that had been changed in Enderflow, which he briefly considered interesting to note – before his mind caught up with the words the man said and his mention of murder.

Larek quickly shook his head. “Not murder, Protector. Self-defense,” he responded.

“Ah. So, you were just defending yourself when you shot Delwin in the back with what I can only assume is a spell of some kind?” the lead Protector asked, sounding genuinely curious, but Larek could tell that he was anything but curious. He was looking for a reason to charge the Combat Fusionist with murder.

But Larek was confident in his own actions. “Oh? You’re on a first-name basis with the bandits around here? I wasn’t aware that the Protectors in Lakebellow were so familiar with those that preyed on the weak and defenseless.”

That brought a thundercloud of anger across the leader’s face, while simultaneously causing the other Protectors to shift in their saddles. “Of course not; the Gharen family aren’t bandits, just a bunch of troublemakers.”

“Are you sure of that? It seems to me that waiting in ambush for someone to pass by on the road and immediately attacking them without any type of dialogue constitutes banditry to me. When I assisted the Protectors in Enderflow with taking down a group of bandits that had been attacking caravans, they didn’t hesitate to end every bandit there.” Larek was twisting the truth there a bit, since it had been him that didn’t hesitate to kill every bandit as he lost control of his actions for a while, but he was confident that none of them would’ve lived much past giving up their slavery contacts even if he hadn’t done anything.

“You—”  The now-flustered Protector stumbled over his words a little. “You worked with the Protectors in Enderflow? Who did you work with?”

It was a probing question, as Larek could tell that he wasn’t exactly believed, and he answered it as honestly as he could. “I worked directly with Protector Ashlynn. She also became a Martial when the change happened, along with about half of the other Protectors, and I participated in temporarily closing quite a few Apertures before I departed.” That was all true this time.

“I… see. Still, that doesn’t excuse what you did to the Gharen brothers, and especially Delwin who was running away—”

Larek was tired of all the accusations of wrongdoing, whether because of his actions or because of his appearance back in the Kingdom. Cutting the man off, he asked, “Was I supposed to let them kill me? Was I not supposed to use all of the weapons in my arsenal to defend myself? Would it have been better to simply use my axe to kill them in clear self-defense? Should I have let a bandit roam free and possibly gather reinforcements to attack me again?”

“Like I said, the Gharen brothers aren’t—weren’t bandits. They were simply no-good troublemakers—”

“Who likely turned to banditry and murder once they got a taste of the power that the change brought with it. Even I, who was just passing through Lakebellow, heard rumors of people going missing outside of town; blame was put on the Apertures and the monsters around the area, but it’s obvious now that this wasn’t entirely the case. I can only assume that you and the other Protectors have been too busy handling the local Apertures to investigate these disappearances in detail, but fortunately for you and the rest of the people of Lakebellow, the source of these disappearances encountered someone that could take care of the problem for you. If anything, you should be thanking me for making your part of the Empire just a little safer during these dangerous times.” That last part was probably a bit too much, but he was fed up with these people and anger tinted his words a little. The notification that he had increased his Speaking Skill was a surprise, though.

Speaking has reached Level 17!

“Thank you? No, I don’t think so. They might have been participating in illicit activities, but that doesn’t give you the right to murder them out of hand. There will be an investigation into this, and if your claim of self-defense holds up, then you’ll be free to—”

“Uh, no, that doesn’t work for me. I need to get back home as quickly as I can, and any major delay like that is completely unacceptable. I’ll be leaving now while you figure out how to deal with this on your own.”

“HALT!” the Protector leader shouted. “If you take a single step away from here, you’ll have as good as admitted to guilt in this matter. I’ll personally chase you down and hold you accountable for whatever crimes you’ve committed in Empire—"

Rather than argue anymore, Larek turned on his speed by utilizing every bit of his high Agility stat, as he ran toward his Fusions still on the ground near the corpses. The Combat Fusionist heard shouted commands and the sound of hooves striking the dirt of the road, but he ignored it as he quickly scooped up the stones and ran down the road at full speed. He could maintain a pace that was faster than a horse for a few hours if necessary, though he would be quite famished by the time he stopped to take a break, which was exactly what he did.

The sounds of pursuit rapidly faded behind him until, only an hour later, he looked behind him briefly to see no sign of the Protectors. He had lost them, at least temporarily, so it was safe for a moment to eat something while he slowed to a walk. During the walk, he felt an Aperture slightly to the northeast, but he ignored it in favor of putting some distance between himself and the Protectors of Lakebellow. He wasn’t sure if the leader was bluffing about chasing him down, as he couldn’t imagine a Protector abandoning their responsibility of protecting their town or city just to follow a potential criminal – but he wasn’t going to take any chances.

As soon as he was done eating and took a long swig of refreshing liquid from his water bottle, Larek took off running yet again.