The Fusionist Book 3 -- Chapter 42

Chapter 42

“What did you do to my people?!” the Major managed to growl out even while pushing herself toward Larek and his group.

“They’re paralyzed,” Larek said. “Like you should be, too, but I guess you’re too strong from that.”

The woman struggled to pull herself forward after a while, using the deadly-looking spear as a means to hold herself up. “I won’t fall for these tricks, criminal!”

“Criminal? Why do you say that?” he asked, actually curious what her justification was for that label.

“You stole all of these Fusions—”

“We did no such thing. None of these Fusions were stolen or taken or acquired in any way that would result in criminal activity.” As easy as it would be to simply say that he had made them, he wasn’t sure he could trust the Major with that information. The fact that she didn’t react when Bartholomew mentioned being on a mission from a “Great One” made her a little more trustworthy, but her pushing for his group’s capture was something that generated a lot of bias against the local SIC leader. “In fact, what you are doing now would be considered criminal, so I should be the one bringing you back to Thanchet. Setting an ambush on the road like a common bandit trying to pillage a caravan looks a lot more guilty than whatever it is you think you know about us.”

Throwing the criminal accusation back at her had the opposite reaction he was expecting. Instead of growing angrier and raging at him, the Major’s fury seemed to drain out of her, along with the bright glow that surrounded her entire body. He wasn’t sure what kind of Battle Art she was using, but it seemed as though she had stressed it enough that she collapsed to one knee, and Larek could tell that it was only the minimal usage of that Art and the spear in her hand that was keeping her upright by that point.

She had been so close to breaking out of the Paralytic Light +10 Fusion, too. The idea of it had come from the light game he had created for his roommates and the Paralytic Touch Fusion he had added to Penelope’s sword; he thought he might be able to combine the two, and it seemed to have worked. Essentially, stepping on the area around the Fusion caused a light to emerge, and wherever it touched was immediately paralyzed as long as the light was touching it. He was able to exclude paralyzing internal organs and blood flow, thankfully, which was why he needed to have test subjects the night before to ensure it worked, because he didn’t want the SIC members to actually die when their heart or brain stopped working. The effect only lasted for 6 hours before deactivating, as he didn’t want them to be paralyzed on the ground forever.

But it likely wouldn’t stay effective that long, as they had learned the night before, because it seemed as though both Mages and Martials could slowly become accustomed to the paralyzing effect after about 10 minutes and their bodies would start to fight through it. It wasn’t nearly as fast as what the Major had done with her Battle Art, but it would still allow them to drag themselves outside of the range of the Fusion after a while. It also wouldn’t affect anyone that was completely covered from head to toe, as it needed to touch even the barest bit of bare skin to function properly; likewise, with monsters that didn’t have biological bodies, or were furry enough that the light was blocked from actually touching the skin underneath, the paralyzing effect would be much less effective, if not useless.

“Who… are… you?” the Major finally struggled to ask.

Larek shook his head. “I’m no one, and you didn’t see any of us. We have no quarrel with you, and we honestly do have a mission of importance to complete.” While that was bending the truth a little, he was told by the Dean to go to Fort Ironwall. He had a letter of transfer and everything.

“Why?  Where… are you… going?”

“That, I can’t tell you, unfortunately. Suffice it to say that it is a secret, and sharing our destination and mission would compromise that secret.” All of that was true, technically. He glanced at Penelope and the blue-haired Martial took it from there.

“We need you to swear on your authority as an officer in the Scission Interception Corps that you will not follow or harass us after we leave here today, nor will you mention our presence to anyone else. Doing so will net you nothing and could potentially cost you your lives. This is your one and only warning to leave us alone to complete our mission. We don’t want to have to hurt you, which is why all of you will live after this; just as easily, we could’ve killed you all before you even knew what was happening. Please don’t make the mistake of coming after us, or that will be the last one you’ll ever make. Do you so swear?”

There was a slight hesitation before she answered. Looking at the Major in her kneeling position, he could see that her body was starting to resist the paralyzing effect already, but it was still a bit away from giving her the freedom of movement she so desired. Finally, after what felt like hours, she reluctantly spoke. “I swear on my authority in the Scission Interception Corps that I, nor anyone under my command, will pursue or harass anyone in your group after you leave here today. In addition, I, as well as anyone under my command, will not mention seeing you or knowing of your presence to anyone else, short of a direct order from the King.”

“Thank you,” Larek said sincerely. While swearing on her authority didn’t really mean much if she decided to pursue Larek anyway, he still felt better about hearing that. And if it just so happened that she received a direct order from the King to reveal his whereabouts, who was essentially an extension of the Gergasi’s enslavement, then there wasn’t much he could do about that no matter how much the Major wanted to uphold her sworn vow.

Regardless, it seemed as though they had managed to get out of the ambush without anyone dying and securing a promise not to pursue them in the future. His late night of effort placing the powerful Paralytic Light Fusions on nearly 100 stones had paid off, resulting in as good of an outcome as was possible.

Now they just needed to get out of there before nearly 60 angry SIC members shook off the paralyzing effect of those same Fusions and took out their frustration of feeling so helpless on some readily available targets. He didn’t trust all of them to follow the Major’s swearing on her authority right away, mostly because some of them might not have been able to hear the entire conversation.

Thankfully, his group had deliberately left a narrow path through the stones that would allow them to pass through the field of light without being affected themselves. “We’ll be on our way, then. The paralyzing effect will start to fade after short while, so you should be able to remove yourselves from the light field soon enough. Take good care of those Fusions you received; they might just save your life one day.”

The Major just grunted as the last of the glow around her faded and she collapsed to the ground. She was already starting to twitch a little as she struggled to move, a clear sign that her body was adjusting to the Fusion’s effects. The others saw this as well and hurried to move through the strip of clear space between the light fields they had left. At one point, Norde accidentally stepped to close to one and fell halfway into one of the Fusions, but Larek was able to drag his paralyzed body out by his exposed legs and get him moving, though the boy stumbled a little as he got used to moving again after being fully paralyzed.

All of them broke into a jog as soon as they were past the entire field of Paralytic Light Fusions that blanketed the area, leaving the road in order to head in a more northeastern direction. However, they only traveled a few hundred feet through the short grass before something made them freeze in place as if they too had been paralyzed like the SIC force back at the ambush spot.

A Scission.

Larek slowly turned with the rest of his group toward the north, expecting to see what felt like an extremely powerful Scission appear nearby, but they didn’t notice a single thing despite being able to see for at least a mile or two into the distance. Despite the changes in Scissions that had happened over the last year or so, he was fairly certain that the detectable distance from one of the monster-spewing openings was still less than 2 or 3 miles, even if they were a powerfully high Category. Not only that, but the further away you were, the weaker it would feel, so when he felt a Scission stronger than anything he’d felt before, he expected for it to be well within sight.

“What—? What’s going on?” Verne asked, looking around for the Scission but not finding it – just like the others.

“I don’t know, but this feels bad,” Nedira responded, clutching tighter to her staff.

No one moved, as if even shifting their weight would somehow cause the Scission to appear in front of them. Each of them simply stared at where they could feel the emanating power coming from, but was unable to view anything that would indicate what it was they were feeling.

Suddenly, as he looked toward the forest to the north, a very familiar dark haze with streaks of grey seemed to billow out over the trees, hiding them from his field of vision.

“Do you see that?” Larek asked, pointing toward the trees.

“See what? I don’t see anything.” Nedira visibly tried to track where he was pointing, but she just shook her head. The others tried looking toward the trees, as well, but they didn’t see anything, either.

If they can’t see it, then that likely means it’s Corrupted Aetheric Force. By why is it there? Better yet, where did it come from? Do Scissions release it normally into the world?

“There’s what I believe to be a cloud of Corrupted Aetheric Force surrounding the forest in the distance,” he explained.

“Did it come from the Scission?”

Larek began to nod at Penelope’s question, because it seemed like the most obvious answer, but stopped himself. The more he looked at the dark cloud, the more he began to think that it didn’t come from a Scission. In fact, he didn’t think there was a Scission at all, as it felt… different. He wouldn’t be able to explain it to anyone else if they asked about it, but something seemed to have changed inside of Larek when he unlocked the ability to absorb Corrupted Aetheric Force and purify it into something he could use. There was an instinctual connection he had with it that told him that this wasn’t a Scission.

It was something different.

“No. There isn’t a Scission.”

The others tore their gazes away from staring to the north to look at Larek. “I’m pretty sure I know what a Scission feels like, Larek,” Penelope said.  “But you’re usually right about these types of things, I’ve found, so I’ll bite. If it isn’t a Scission, what is it?”

Slowly shaking his head, he said, “I don’t know. But I think we need to find out.”

“What?! Are you crazy?” Nedira shouted at him, before regulating her voice. “That’s the last thing we should do, especially with how powerful it feels. Let’s get as far away from it as possible.”

That was the logical choice, as Larek never really wanted to get close to a Scission and the monsters they spewed out – even with his newfound need to kill them in order to advance his Skills. Especially if that meant going toward something that felt more powerful than any other Scission he’d felt before.

But he was leaning toward a very illogical and dangerous choice, as something instinctual was pulling him to investigate what was happening.

“No, we need to go see what this is. I can’t explain why, but…”  He didn’t have the words to try to convince them, so he just shrugged.

He almost changed his mind when there was a sudden spike in the power levels coming from the disturbance in the distance, and the other looked at him with incredulous expressions on their faces. After almost a minute of silence where he could feel each of his companions wanting to argue against such an action, but held their tongue for some reason, Nedira sighed heavily and said, “This is stupid, you know that, right?”

“I feel like you think a lot of things that I’ve been doing lately is stupid,” he gently accused her, to which she flinched back a little.

“I—” She stopped and started again. “I just don’t want you to get hurt, Larek.”

“I know that, but I’m also following some new instincts of mine that I can’t explain; simultaneously, it feels like the first time where I get the sense that I know that what I’m doing is actually correct.” It was strange to say something like that, but as soon as it crossed his lips, he realized that it was true. He really did feel like this was the right thing to do, as much as he wasn’t sure what it was he was doing.

“That doesn’t make any sense, but… I trust you,” Nedira said after a few seconds of thought. “I think I’ve always trusted you, which makes me feel weird, especially when I can’t determine if it’s your Dominion Magic working on me or not.” She took a deep breath. “But I can’t honestly say that you’re wrong to investigate whatever this is, especially when you say it’s not a Scission.”

Larek knew that there were some issues between them that they still needed to address, but that wasn’t something he could worry about at the moment. Instead, he took her acceptance of his explanation as confirmation that she would follow him toward the forest covered in the dark fog. And where she went with him, the others would follow.

After glancing at each of his companions, receiving resigned nods in return, he started walking toward the source of whatever it was they were feeling. After a few steps, Vivienne took the lead again, scouting for them as usual. They didn’t hurry, as none of them actually wanted to see what was happening in the forest, and running into danger was probably not the best of plans.

They were probably a mile away from their destination when there was another spike of power coming from ahead, before it seemed to diminish at a steady pace afterwards. Looking ahead, Larek saw the Corrupted Aetheric Force – which, as he got closer to it, he could confirm that it was exactly what he thought it was – start to recede, as if it was being sucked into the middle of the forest.

For the first time, the others could finally see something happening, as the trees that had been covered by the black fog (at least to Larek’s perspective) began to change at a rapid pace. Along one strip of the tree line, all of the leaves on the trees seemed to rapidly become covered in frost, turning them white within seconds. The whiteness of the leaves spread to the branches and finally to the trunks of the trees, culminating in a very thin layer of what appeared to be fresh snow upon the ground. The entire section gave the impression of coldness that was completely at odds with the already-warm early fall day.

That wasn’t even the strangeness of the changes, as next to the section of ice and snow-laden trees was a clear delineation of the forest. Instead of being covered in white, the trees had seemingly petrified, turning to stone and creating a hazard of sharp leaves that decorated the trees as well as blanketed the ground with those that had fallen. It was even more impossible-looking than the section that was apparently frozen in the middle of winter next to it, but somehow the next area of the forest was even worse.

It was on fire.

Flames flickered from the now-burnt trees, which were free of any sign of leaves, and only the blackened trunk and branches were left. The flames seemed to be restricted to the branches, however, as the trunks and ground were free of the fire that burned like a torch – but there was no smoke. At all. Neither did the flames seemed to be consuming more of the trees, contrary to what Larek would’ve expected to happen. Instead, the fire raged without any source of fuel, burning without smoke or even the crackling noise that should be accompanying such a blaze, and he suspected that it might even be an illusion of some sort. It looked real enough from far away, however, so he wasn’t planning on testing that theory by touching it anytime soon.

“What is happening to the trees?” Verne asked, his voice shaking; it was difficult to tell if it was from fear or fury. The tree-like boy, having grown up in what was essentially a forest (as Larek had learned at one point), was a pragmatist and understood that felling trees was just something that was done in the Kingdom, so that didn’t bother him. What did obviously bother him was the complete transformation of what appeared to be a good chunk of the forest they were looking at, at least little by little. The dark fog was still visibly being sucked into a deeper portion of the forest, leaving behind the dramatic transformation in its wake.

“I—”

Larek was cut off in his response when he heard someone else speak from just behind his group.

“Is this your doing?”

Whipping his head around, he saw that Major Kuama was standing there with her spear planted butt-first in the short grass… along with 50+ angry-looking SIC members spread out on either side of her.

Uh, oh. Looks like they managed to break free faster than I thought.