The welcome committee consisted of not only the Faction members stationed in Dreenwood, but also from the next nearest town, Wilfirth. The original reason for their congregation – as they quickly discovered – wasn’t necessarily because of Larek, Nedira, Penelope, or any of the Martials she was in charge of, but it was related.

“Did you feel that presence of power that moved through here a little over an hour ago?” a female Mage in a dark blue robe came up to Penelope as soon as they joined with the group coming out to see them. “It’s got everyone up in arms because no one could tell what it was. Those from Wilfirth came as soon as they felt it to discuss what to do about it, when Cralin saw you coming from the walls.”

The blue-haired Martial shook her head. “No, we didn’t feel anything, Nance. We were too busy running for our lives inside the Calamity.”

“You were inside when the sun went down? Were you right on the edge or something?”

Penelope briefly glanced at Larek for a moment. “Something like that,” she said after a moment. “But why is everyone out here?”

“Jyrdyn is somehow convinced that you – or something related to you – are somehow connected to what we felt,” the Mage, Nance, explained. “You know how he is, always thinking he can see to the truth of the matter despite rarely ever being right. But when the Faction Leader wants to go out, we go out.” The woman shrugged. “Regardless, he wants to see you when you get back.”

The Fusionist listened to all of this as the rest of the Martials who had been marching in formation began to disperse into the group that had come out to see them. He could already see and hear that the details of their little adventure inside the Calamity were being shared, and it was looking more and more like they were going to have a problem. Bold-faced stares mixed with surreptitious glances were sent in their direction, and it wasn’t only Nedira and himself that were getting the treatment, but Penelope and Vivienne, as well.

“Fine, then let’s go.”

Her abrupt decision made everyone start moving back toward the town, and Larek couldn’t help but share a look with his betrothed. He could see it in her expression that she was feeling just as worried over this as he was, but she didn’t say anything. At least, not yet.

Larek almost took Nedira with him in another Pattern box right then and there, launching them into the sky so they could leave all these petty Faction issues behind, but he restrained himself. Now that they had freed his two old bodyguards from the Dominion magic that had affected them, he felt somewhat responsible for their well-being – if only to the point where he would take them away from there if they wanted to leave.

He had no real fear of any of the other Faction members with their suspicious looks, nor did he fear for Nedira’s safety, so he decided to see where this was going before he made any move. That, and the fact that it sounded like the two Gergasi had passed overhead at some point in the last hour or so made him slightly wary of taking off right now, as he didn’t want to run into them. He could only hope that they were looking somewhere else right now, and that they would stay away long enough for the trail in his magical signature in the Pure Aetheric Force his body gave off to dissipate. There was still the possibility that they could detect it while he was in town, but they would likely have to get close in order to do that; while it didn’t exactly blend in with so many other people around, it would at least be muted with the presence of the others.

And what Larek really needed was a place to rest, as he’d strained his focus over the last few hours. That, and he wanted some time to reflect on everything he’d learned since he left Thanesh, and to look into any potential methods for camouflaging his magical signature.

It didn’t take more than 15 minutes to arrive at the gates leading inside the town of Dreenwood, and they were all let in without any trouble. Larek and Nedira followed after Penelope and Vivienne, as they seemed to know where they were going, and they were accompanied by the entire group that had come out to meet them. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were acting more as guards that were ensuring that their prisoners were going where they were supposed to than fellow Faction members simply heading toward the same place.

“Penelope, is everything going to be alright?” he asked in a low voice as he walked up next to her. They were entering a relatively narrow street that ran up to what appeared to be a central open space in the town, but he could see a large building that had a few other Mages and Martials waiting outside its entrance, which he could only assume was the Faction headquarters. He’d rather know a little bit more of what they were getting into before they arrived, if that was possible.

She put on a fairly convincing façade, but he could see by the set of her shoulders that she was worried. “Oh, I’m sure it’s fine. The Faction Leader is a bit strange when it comes to some things, and this is just him being strange again. We’ve got nothing to worry abo—ambush!”

The announcement came just in time as shadowy figures dropped down on Larek from above, so silent that he didn’t even hear them until they were already on him. As he reached out with his senses to discover who they were, he was shocked when he couldn’t feel them; it was as if they didn’t exist. His first split-second thought was that they were an illusion, but that was dispelled as a matte-black sword blade cut toward his neck as its owner fell past him. His ice-based defensive Fusion activated and was able to diffuse a portion of the blow’s momentum, but the strength behind the attack was so great that it shattered the ice and kept going.

Fortunately, despite the surprise attack, he was able to dodge slightly out of the way, and the blade only nicked his jawline, easily cutting through his skin and into the flesh below. Even as the cut was happening, he could feel a magical residue that had covered the blade seep into his body, and he realized that he’d been poisoned. As a numbing sensation spread through his face, he rapidly activated his Healing Surge Fusion, and it thankfully neutralized the poison before it could move anywhere else through his body.

Oh, that’s not good.

That was the least of his problems, it turned out, as it wasn’t just that attacker that suddenly surrounded him. Two others dressed in greyish-black clothing that broke up their outline in the relative darkness that suffused the town, and he felt yet another blade break through his ice-based defenses and slice into his left thigh, while a third attempted to stab him in the stomach, but he brought his arm up in time to deflect it off to the side, though it took a wound in the process.

Both of these new wounds were poisoned, as well. A quick activation of his healing Fusion once again neutralized the substance, but he quickly deduced that the numbing sensation it caused was actually some sort of paralyzing agent; if he hadn’t been able to get rid of it, he would’ve been paralyzed and at the mercy of these attackers.

Or assassins, as he rapidly began to suspect they were.

Those three assassins were even now following up their initial strikes with additional ones. Whether they believed their paralyzing poison was working or not, they didn’t hesitate to go for the kill, angling their blades upwards toward his neck or toward his heart, both from in front and from behind. Larek immediately formed a strong dome of Pattern Cohesion around his body, and the Battle Art-enhanced blows slammed into the barrier, damaging it more than he expected, and it nearly shattered.

While he reinforced it, giving him some room to think, the Fusionist barely glimpsed four other figures standing on top of a nearby roof, which he immediately assumed were with the three assassins currently attacking him. This was proven as they began to cast spells, their execution so fast that it was almost a blur, and from that moment on, chaos began to erupt all throughout the street.

That was because the spells these assassins cast weren’t designed to only target Larek; instead, they were extremely powerful and damaging wide-range effects designed to cause as much damage as possible in the shortest amount of time. A roiling blanket of flames materialized near the roofline and rapidly dropped upon the nearly 150 people inside the narrow street, which was accompanied by a rain of boulders that shattered explosively when they came into contact with any surface, a cyclone of hardened air blades that started from one end of the street and moved toward the other, and a wave of water that began on the opposite end and crashed into the cyclone, sweeping away everything in its path. It was as if a magical apocalypse had suddenly manifested in the street with the intention of killing everything in its way.

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Only a few of the Martials present were fast enough to even begin to respond, but that response was only to start moving and get in the way of the others, all of whom were surprised enough at the sudden ambush that they panicked and were clearly unsure of what to do. Unfortunately, the chaos was only made worse when the spells started falling upon them, as they had no time to prepare or defend themselves against the assault.

As for Larek, he had about two seconds to act, but at that point he couldn’t see any way to stop what was already happening with the spells. Instead, he absorbed his dome barrier, sent out three Pattern constructs shaped like sharp saw blades similar to the one he’d made while saving Penelope’s Faction members in the Calamity against the Felis Stalkers, and sent them flying toward the three melee assassins around him. One of them managed to avoid his counterattack and flipped backwards, but the other two took the spinning saw blade constructs through their chests, and they cut through their dark clothing, skin, flesh, internal organs, and spines before exiting out of their backs.

The last assassin was too close to effectively use his stored halberd, so he instead grabbed his Logger’s axe from his belt and held it out in front of him, just before he reabsorbed his saw blade constructs and created a larger barrier which he placed over himself, Nedira, Penelope, Vivienne, and even Penelope’s friend, Nance, who was standing nearby. They were all beginning to react to the attack when his dome-like shield appeared around them, and it appeared just in time.

Because the combined magical attacks were devastating. If he’d had warning, he might have been able to find a way to shield more people, or even given them some additional Fusions that might have been able to save their lives; but as it was, they didn’t stand a chance. Burned alive and impaled by shattering stone shards, those who weren’t killed immediately were torn apart by the cyclone of hardened air, or their bodies were shattered by the force of the water wave that slammed into them that acted more like liquid stone than water when it hit them.

Larek’s Pattern-based barrier nearly shattered when a rain of boulders impacted it, but he found that he was able to reinforce it with another injection of Pattern Cohesion, which he had to do twice more when the cyclone and wave of water slammed into it. Thankfully, being burned with the blanket of fire didn’t actually harm it that much, as it was less of a physical impact than it was an effect of a higher temperature.

In less than five seconds since Penelope had screamed, “Ambush!”, everyone from the Factions other than those inside of his Pattern barrier were dead. Their mangled and charred bodies were scattered all around the narrow street, piled up in places like fallen leaves in Autumn, and Larek could only stare in shock for a second as he tried to come to terms with what had just happened.

However, his attention was pulled away as something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention; a disturbance in something on the ground pulled his focus to it, mainly because it was coming from a Fusion. One of his Fusions, to be exact, and he immediately saw what was wrong.

Despite the material of the staves he’d passed out to the members of Penelope’s group being exceptionally strong, they weren’t invulnerable. The spells that the Mage assassins had cast had done enough damage to at least one of the staves to cause it to break, and so too did the Fusion that had been placed upon it. He attempted to reach out and try and fix it, but the damage to the wood was so great that there was no fixing it; a quick attempt to try and somehow absorb the formation that was rapidly becoming unstable showed that it was impossible to do in time to make a difference.

Oh, crap.

Even though it ended up hurting them, Larek manipulated the barrier around those he had saved from the devastating spells, which picked everyone up in a large bubble and shot up into the air at an angle away from the street. Another powerful spell that involved a shattering boulder nearly popped his bubble as he fled, but he managed to get far enough away before the Fusion ruptured.

The assassins, as well as the majority of the town, weren’t so lucky. It wasn’t that the single VREP Fusion on the broken staff was particularly powerful; it was that there were approximately 30 other staves in close proximity to it when the formation ruptured completely. The initial explosion ripped through more than half of the street they had just left, obliterating the buildings on either side, but that was just the beginning. A chain reaction began in less than a second from the original explosion, which produced a blindingly bright flash of light that tore through the rest of the town, leveling the buildings and collapsing half the wall surrounding its perimeter in the process, killing everyone inside.

The shockwave from the chain reaction explosion was so great, despite being about 500 feet into the air by that point, that it ripped through his Pattern bubble, shredding it completely, but fortunately the majority of the force had been mitigated by his construct. As a result, while they were now falling through the air, they hadn’t been completely ripped apart – though it did appear as though they had been knocked unconscious, despite their relatively hardy bodies. Only Nance appeared to have suffered a bit more damage than the others, as one of her legs had been forcibly bent out of shape, but he could tell that she was still alive.

A bit disoriented from the explosion, it took Larek until he and his friends – as well as Nance – had nearly hit the land outside of the town before he could reform two smaller Pattern bubbles to contain their falling bodies. A few seconds later, he landed both constructs and absorbed them, catching Nedira in his arms as he did. He quickly healed her with his Fusion, and she opened her eyes, blinking up at him in confusion.

“What—,” she began before clearing her throat. “What happened? Everything happened so fast that I could barely comprehend what was going on. Where are we?”

“I’ll answer that as soon as I can, but I have to make sure the others are alright,” he told her. She looked around for the first time and saw that they were outside of the town and that Penelope, Vivienne, and Nance were lying on the ground, unconscious. Scrambling down from his arms, she went to help the Mage, who appeared the worst off of them all, while Larek once again woke up the two team leaders – who now had no team to lead.

“Wha—ambush! Where are they? Who are they?” Penelope shot awake once the Fusionist healed her enough, only to look around. “Wait… where are we?”

Sitting down on the ground, the exhaustion from the day finally getting to him, Larek recounted what had happened, from the spells cast upon all the Faction members to the explosion as a result of his Fusions. He debater whether or not to tell her about the Unspoken Response assassins, but figured it wouldn’t really matter at this point if she knew or not. While it wasn’t exactly his fault that they had killed everyone, he was almost positive that they were only there because he was there. There was just one thing that didn’t make sense.

How did they know I would be here? I didn’t even know until a few hours ago.

But there were even more questions he had, such as how they had managed to hide from his senses. He had thought that it was impossible for something like that to occur, because he could sense pretty much everything. It was only toward the very end, when the initial explosion ripped through the street and the nearby buildings, that he finally felt the assassins that were still alive, but it had only been for a brief split-second. He could only assume that it was some sort of spell that hid their presence from him, and it had been canceled when one of them had died.

“Have you heard of these assassins that the SIC supposedly control? The Unspoken Response?” Penelope asked her companion, Vivienne, once he was done with his recounting.

She nodded, before going on to explain what she knew about the assassin group, which was even less detailed than when Bartholomew recounted his own knowledge. In other words, it wasn’t much.

“Whatever they were, they’re likely dead if the town exploded like that. We need to go search for survivors, however, because there might still be some townspeople or some from the Faction left alive in there.”

With a sigh at his exhaustion, he nodded even as he got up, joining the shocked and disbelieving companions as they ran back toward the destroyed town of Dreenwood. While Penelope had thankfully taken charge once she recovered, the others were still reeling from what had happened – not that he could blame them.

When they arrived at the town, it was worse than Larek expected. Half the town walls had been blown down, and they were the most intact portion of the town that still existed. As they stood on the outside and looked in at the devastation, he could see the tears running down the faces of Penelope, Vivienne, and Nance, and even Nedira looked to be on the verge of breaking down at the sheer devastation and senseless loss of life.

The Fusionist led the way inside, picking through the rubble and extending his senses to see if he could detect any sort of life still existing underneath it all. The others followed behind him a moment later, but he could tell that they didn’t hold out much hope of success.

Larek just felt numb. He’d seen so much meaningless death lately that he was having a hard time processing it all. The only thing he knew for certain was that it was the SIC and the Gergasi that were responsible, and that both groups needed to be stopped. Fortunately, there was already a plan for the former, and once that was done, they would take care of the latter.

As they ventured further inside, the numbness that had infused him was burned away by a rising anger that he didn’t bother tamping down. It was the anger of righteousness, and he let it simmer as he began to plot and plan how he was going to take down the SIC once and for all. He’d originally been thinking about using the leadership to help steer the SIC toward a better path than the one they were on now, but after this…

…after this, he wasn’t going to let a single one of them live.