Chapter 26
Like a child receiving presents on a special holiday, Verne looked at the variety of items in his hands. “Ooh, new Fusions! What are these supposed to do?”
Larek looked around at his friends that he’d assembled in one of the fields outside of Thanesh, each one holding similar packages he’d put together for them, and he grinned as he took the first one he wanted to demonstrate out of his Void Pocket sack.
He lifted up the circular, glass medallion that Kevara had managed to place in a neat metal frame, which was then added to a chain that could be placed around the neck. He slipped it over his head, and the others copied his movements, before he started to explain what it did.
“This is my newest defensive Fusion, which is much more powerful than anything I’ve created before. Go ahead and activate it with a simple touch and an intent; if it works the way I designed it, you shouldn’t have to ever deactivate it.” Larek followed his own words with an activation of the Fusion, and he both sensed the formation surge to life and saw a temporary distortion of his vision.
Norde hesitated. “Hold up. Am I to assume that you haven’t tried this yet?”
“Uh, well, no, but everything about the Fusion looks correct and exactly how I designed it.”
Just to make sure, he pulled up the description of his new Protection of the Void Fusion.
Protection of the Void +7
Activation Method(s): Activatable, Reactive
Effect(s): Camouflages Fusion using a void carrier shroud
Effect(s): Using the user’s internal pattern, creates a pair of flexible nets of Pattern Cohesion that closely embed themselves into the top layer of the user’s skin
Effect(s): Creates a pocket of pure void between flexible Pattern Cohesion nets
Effect(s): Bends light around the shape of the Pattern Cohesion net on both sides, displaying a visual representation of the environment outside of the void
Effect(s): Using non-invasive mental manipulation, the Pattern Cohesion net will expand or retract in specific areas when prompted or required by the user
Effect(s): Cools or heats the temperature around a designated space using air infusions
Effect(s): Strengthens glass
Effect(s): Absorbs and converts Pattern Cohesion from the environment to fortify internal pattern
Input(s): Mental communication, temperature measurement, light detection, movement detection
Variable(s): Ambient temperature, light fluctuations, mental evaluation
Magnitude(s): 2,800% increase in glass strength, light fluctuations of up to 7,000 lumens, 2,100 degree difference
Mana Cost: 1,860,000
Pattern Cohesion: 60,000
Fusion Time: 1,417 hours
It looks fine to me.
Norde eventually joined the others, which included all of his friends and former bodyguards, in activating their own Fusions, and he could see them all sway a little and blink as their vision was thrown off a little bit before it stabilized.
“Whoa, what was that?” Nedira asked, even as she looked around herself. Larek did the same, trying to spot any flaws in the transfer of the visual display that the Fusion was showing him. In effect, the Fusion created a pair of nets of Pattern Cohesion fueled by the person’s internal pattern (which was strengthened and replenished by absorbing Pattern Cohesion from the environment), which sat inside the top layer of the skin and every other external portion of the body – including the eyes. There was a very thin layer of void that sat in between these nets, which blocked off all visual sight both outside the body and inside the nets in the skin. As a result, no one would be able to see outside of the void if his Fusion didn’t convert a visual representation of the outer environment into a signal that the eyes could interpret. The same went with the outer layer of the void, as anyone looking at someone wearing a Protection of the Void amulet would essentially see a large blob of darkness, so a moving representation of their appearance was projected along the outside of the outer Pattern Cohesion net.
“Anyone having any issues seeing? No? Good. That was the Fusion converting the visual stimuli outside of the protective layer around your body into something your mind could interpret. Now, someone hit me with an attack—”
Penelope, never one to hesitate when it came to testing Larek’s defenses, brought her large sword off her shoulder where it had been resting, and she crossed the distance in the blink of an eye, slicing down at his head. As soon as her sword came within a few inches of splitting him in half, Larek’s Protection of the Void Fusion reacted to the attack, expanding the void as it stretched the Pattern Cohesion net toward it. The blade cut through the net and entered the void, disappearing completely from view as the blue-haired woman stumbled slightly when there was no resistance to her attack. Instead of being stopped, the blade followed through, vanishing into the void as it seemed to sink to the hilt through Larek.
In reality, the blade simply entered what was essentially a limitless void, which bypassed his form completely because it couldn’t reach the end of the empty space. When Penelope caught her balance and pulled the sword back out of him, she looked in amazement as it and Larek were completely unharmed.
“What? How—? Never mind, I don’t think I will understand it even if you explain.”
The Fusionist chuckled, before he readied himself to explain to her – and the others – what exactly was going on. He wanted to tell them how the net of Pattern Cohesion, because it was tied to the person’s internal pattern and was being constantly replenished by the Fusion, would automatically repair any damaged portions of the net and restrain the void from escaping, as well as how the Fusion automatically brought in fresh air while it regulated the temperature around their body, as well as how they could mentally order the Pattern Cohesion net to withdraw in places around their bodies, such as their mouths when they wanted to eat as well as their hands as they held their weapons. It wasn’t a perfect solution, as there was a slight danger of being injured in their extremities when holding such things, but if they were attacked while holding a staff or a sword or whatnot, they could simply cover themselves up again, though their weapons would disappear into the void. They were connected enough to them that they wouldn’t necessarily lose them, but it wasn’t the most convenient of the Fusion’s attributes. Energy in its different forms was different, as he had adapted the net of Pattern Cohesion to aid in the transfer of Mana, Stama, and other forms of energy into and out of the body, meaning that they could still cast spells or use Battle Arts, as well as regenerate their internal resources, without any interruptions – thanks to his relatively new knowledge of how convenient it was to transfer energy from one place to another.
Unfortunately, before he could explain all of that, Larek watched a barrage of Stama-infused arrows rain down upon the entire group.
His mind and body reacted immediately, stretching his Magical Detection Skill out to its fullest. Within a half-second, he felt a very subtle illusion spell blocking his sight of multiple people located on either side of them; now that he was actively looking for them, he could detect their presence, but his unconscious mind had somehow ignored them before. Belatedly, he realized he’d been distracted by showing his friends his new Fusions, and the feeling of the people he’d inadvertently dismissed had been without any magical presence at all – which should’ve been enough to alert him anyway, as there were very few people around Thanesh that didn’t have at least a smidge of magical presence around them, if only in the form of a Fusion.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
He berated himself for his inattention even as he began to act, his mind automatically reshaping the net around his hand so that he could reach into his Void Pocket bag, pulling out a few more of the new items that his friends had in their possession. At the same time, he was relieved to see that, despite the ambush, none of the arrows did any harm to his friends, as the projectiles sank into their new void protections and disappeared from sight.
Of course, that was just the prelude to the rest of the ambushing attack, as Larek could feel a huge quantity of Mana being fed into a barrage of powerful spells, and his senses were going crazy with the approach of multiple enemies that were camouflaged from his sight.
All told, he detected around three dozen individuals surrounding them. It seemed as though the assassins weren’t playing around anymore, considering their earlier failures.
Gripping a short, smooth, steel bar in his hand that had been bent at the halfway point at a 45-degree angle, Larek glimpsed the word “Heavy” etched into the metal as he aimed it where he felt the nearest enemy approaching the group. With a mental command, the Fusion activated, and he heard a cut-off scream as a shape suddenly appeared out of seemingly nowhere, 20 feet to his right. It was difficult to tell what exactly he was looking at, because all he could see was a sphere of compressed flesh, bones, blood, cloth, and metal that was only about 2 feet in diameter.
“I wanted to show you all my new offensive Fusions, as well,” Larek announced, even as his friends started to react. “This particular one is similar to the Portable Lifter I created for moving around monsters, but it does the exact opposite. Instead of making things weightless, it creates a sphere that increases the weight of everything inside by so much that it condenses malleable material upon itself, with the result you can see here. It wouldn’t work as well against monsters made of stone or metal, and inorganic targets might or might not be heavily affected.
“It’s called Heavy Load.”
Picking out another one of the new offensive Fusions, which was a glass sphere approximately 3 inches in diameter, he activated it and flung it up in the air. When it reached approximately 20 feet above his head, it suddenly stopped as its buoyancy was equalized with the nearby air, and tiny jets would keep it stabilized until it was deactivated. A half-second later, an extremely powerful light burst out of the glass sphere, which was so bright that most people would instantly be blinded by looking at it; even those with higher Levels and stats would be heavily affected, but the blindness wasn’t necessarily the main purpose behind the Fusion. Instead, the light that was sent out in a 200-foot-wide spherical shape was both a paralytic and acted as a way to distribute a large amount of pure heat. The area immediately became scorching hot, as if the sun had just descended from the sky and was burning everything within range.
Thankfully, Larek and the others were completely safe, as the blinding light was filtered out by the Protection of the Void Fusion and their temperature was regulated within its boundaries. He was also pleased to see that their Pattern Cohesion nets automatically expanded to cover their clothes and even what they were holding in their hands, lest they burst into flames from the heat.
The assassins, on the other hand, were immediately affected. While they also didn’t burst into flames, they all cried out as they were blinded and burnt with varying degrees of intensity, and the illusions that had been shielding them from sight dissipated as whoever was casting the spell was affected by his glowing Fusion.
“As you can observe, Blinding Heat is designed to work with your new defenses, as it will incapacitate your attackers and hopefully set them on fire,” Larek explained waving toward the assassins, who were in various states of distress. “Granted, it won’t be this effective against everyone, but it’s still a good way to cover a wide area so that you can regroup and figure out what to do next.”
Taking his next new Fusion in his hand while the assassins were suffering from blindness and the blazing heat, he showed it to the others, but he didn’t activate it. “This one, which you can see is colored a dark blue instead of the clear glass of the one up in the air, is almost identical to Blinding Heat, but does the opposite in terms of temperature. Blinding Freeze will drop the temperature down to levels similar to my Frozen Zone, freezing everything inside to the point where even their blood will turn to ice in their veins.”
He put it back in his sack since he wasn’t going to use it right now, before turning to his last offensive weapon. “And finally,” he announced, holding the simple-looking copper rod in his hand, which had the word “Danger!” etched along its length, “we have something that I nearly didn’t create, as I contemplated whether it was too dangerous to exist, but I decided that we needed every advantage we could get when it came to killing powerful individuals such as these assassins,” he said, waving toward the dead and dying members of the Unspoken Response group that ambushed them, “or even the Gergasi.”
Before he could demonstrate the Fusion, it seemed as though one of the assassin Mages had managed to finish his spellcasting before succumbing to the Blinding Heat effects, and a massive ball of flaming stone suddenly appeared above Larek and the others, slamming down in the midst of their group with incredible speed and force. As the meteor-like spell crashed into them, as it was at least 20-feet wide and was able to encompass most of them, he watched it explode into thousands of fiery pieces as burning shrapnel bombarded them from almost every angle, and the sheer weight of the magical projectile was so tremendous that the ground shook greatly from the impact, making more than a few of them stumble and fall in the process.
Other than that minor effect, being slammed by a giant meteor did absolutely nothing to any of them, as everything else was absorbed by the Protection of the Void Fusion.
The spell also had the side-effect of knocking the Blinding Heat Fusion out of the way temporarily, allowing a slight reprieve to the dying assassins, but it wasn’t nearly enough for them to recover after Larek got his bearings again.
The Fusionist dusted himself off, even though there was no dust on him. “Anyway,” he said to his friends who were picking themselves up and looking at the destruction around them, “as I was saying, this is an extremely dangerous Fusion because it deals with Aetheric Force, or more specifically, the core of Aetheric Force inside of a person. It won’t work against monsters, as they don’t necessarily have a core to mess with; but theoretically it should work against any other person – even the Gergasi, but I’d have to test it.”
Pointing the copper rod at one of the nearby Martial assassins that seemed like he was on the verge of recovering, Larek mentally activated it and winced when he saw what happened next.
A swirling mass of energy suddenly emerged from the assassin’s body before lifting into the air and breaking apart, dissipating into the environment. At the same time, the assassin froze and twitched like he had just been hit by lightning, and his skin turned grey and lifeless, before he collapsed dead on the smoldering ground.
“What did you do?”
Larek shook himself as he just comprehended what he’d done. Sure, he’d ended up killing the assassin, but somehow, this seemed worse. After a few seconds, he finally answered Nedira, who was looking at the collapsed man in horror. “Just like I had figured out how to give potential to anyone, I figured out how to take it away. Transfer Potential does just that; it yanks the internal core out of someone and lets it dissipate into the environment.”
The silence stretched between them all as his friends started using Heavy Load to finish off the assassins who were still alive. Finally, Verne spoke, looking down at the “Danger!”-etched copper rod in his hand. “Larek, I don’t know about this. It seems… wrong, somehow. I know it’s killing them all the same, but this is… different.” He suddenly held it out toward the Fusionist. “I don’t feel comfortable using this.”
The others seemed to agree with him, as they passed back their Transfer Potential Fusions to Larek over the next few seconds.
He couldn’t really blame them. Just using it once made him feel dirty, almost like when he intentionally used his Dominion magic. “I somewhat agree. I’ll keep them with me, then, as these are the only copies I’ve created. When it comes to the Gergasi, however, I won’t hesitate to use them.” They all nodded, as if that was obvious.
Nedira looked around as she walked up next to him, grabbing his hand in hers. He was pleased to see that his Protection of the Void effect seemed to retreat at her touch, so that there wasn’t anything in between them. “How many more assassins are there, do you think?”
Larek shook his head. “I have no idea. But there can’t be that many more of them, I would hazard to guess. Still, it’s good that these things work,” he said, tapping his new Fusion around his neck, “because otherwise we might have been in trouble there.”
“Very true. Can you make enough of these for everyone?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Not for everyone. At least, not yet. But I can probably make a few thousand before I teach my next class, as well as a few offensive Fusion copies. Plus, after all of this,” he said, waving around at the destruction and bodies around him, “I have some other ideas for offensive Fusions that might work just as well as these ones did. They may have to wait until later, though, because I’m heading north to deal with the SIC after my class is over tomorrow.”
As they all gathered near Larek, who formed a Pattern box construct to take them back to the city, they left the devastated battlefield behind them.
His attention was on what he was doing next, and not on the bodies of the assassins that had been killed, which was why he missed seeing the abrupt, twitchy movement of the one who’d lost his internal core to Larek’s Transfer Potential Fusion.