Larek turned away from where he saw the strange magical disturbance disappearing into the distance as he took in the situation around him. They had already taken everything of value from the corpses of the assassins, which basically included a few weapons that could be repurposed for some Volunteers back home, but they didn’t bother cleaning anything up. It was too much of a mess right now, and they had to get moving.

“What was that?” Nedira asked. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”

The Fusionist hadn’t either, but at least he had been using his Magical Detection Skill to watch the Mages around the perimeter as they cast it. As a result, he knew that it was something called Mana Siphon – and it was a relatively powerful spell.

New Spell learned!

Mana Siphon

Magnitude: 40-foot diameter

Duration: 3 minutes

Base Effect (Siphon): Creates a vortex of negative Mana that rapidly absorbs Mana in a designated area

Base Mana Cost: 2,000

Base Pattern Cohesion: 50

The spell he learned reportedly used something called “negative Mana” to create the swirling vortexes he had observed, which pulled in ambient Mana from the environment. But it wasn’t just ambient Mana; Nedira and a few other Volunteers had attempted to cast a spell just after the multitude of Mana Siphons became active, and before they could fill their spell patterns with Mana, it was forcibly yanked away. It also completely shut down the Fusions that had an area of ambience that wasn’t displaced like his newer versions, which included the Volunteers’ staves and anything else that they had that wasn’t relatively new. Thankfully, the Siphons didn’t last long enough to permanently damage those Fusions as they attempted to cannibalize the Mana invested into them from the lack of ambient Mana, but if they had lasted another 15 minutes or so, he was sure that would’ve been a different story.

As for his newer Fusions, such as the Protection of the Void and his newer offensive selections, they received their ambient Mana from much further away and from multiple locations – far outside the range of the Siphons.

“They were Mana Siphons. They sucked in all the Mana around the area,” Larek answered absently, as his mind was already on other things.

Things such as the mind he felt associated with the odd trail of magical energy located in the sky. Or wait… it wasn’t the sky. It was more like it was attached to the sunlight streaming down, somehow. It was a strange occurrence that he just happened to feel it above them, which he attributed to the lack of ambient Mana in the area; if it hadn’t been for that, he didn’t think he’d have noticed it unless he was specifically looking for it. Now that he knew what it felt like, he would be looking for it in the future.

Especially since he was fairly certain that someone was using that connection to spy on him and his friends. He didn’t know exactly who it was, as the faint connection with the other mind only felt slightly feminine and surprised, but he suspected that it was the Unspoken Response watching to make sure he was dead. He was able to trace the connection for about a dozen miles before his Magical Detection Skill wasn’t strong enough to follow any further, but at least he had a general idea of where it had gone. There were enough traces still in the air to follow it to its origin, but as much as he’d like to do that right now, he didn’t have time. As it was, if he got closer to the origin point in the future and found the signature again, he thought he should be able to find where it was coming from – and also find where the assassins had their own headquarters.

The Fusionist could only hope that they would stop sending more after him after around 5 dozen had just been slaughtered; while they hadn’t been able to stand up to him and his friends, nearly every single assassin had been a fairly strong Mage or Martial. He couldn’t envision them having hundreds of others like them just waiting to be sent out. Then again, no one really had any knowledge of exactly how large of an organization the Unspoken Response was, so it was possible that they had thousands that they could throw away in their foolish desire to kill him.

I might get some answers to some of those questions, however.

“Bring him out.”

Two Volunteers pulled something out of the Void Pocket sack he’d created earlier while they set up the ambush, and soon enough a stiff figure plopped out onto the floor of the largely destroyed roof of the SIC building. Larek reached down and touched the assassin on the arm, where a special Fusion had been slapped onto his skin before burying itself inside his flesh. The full paralyzing effect of the Fusion he’d especially made in case he ran into the assassins again had done more than just paralyze him; due to the nature of the Fusion’s proximity, everything in his body had flash-frozen in an instant. Instead of killing him by making all the blood in his body freeze and turn to ice, what it essentially did was suspend his body in a thin void that acted like the equivalent of stopping time around him. Just like items placed in the void didn’t leak or absorb energy, and food was kept as fresh as it was when it was stuck inside his Void Pocket sack, so too was the body of this assassin.

In all honesty, he wasn’t even sure it would work without killing him, as well as sticking him in a larger Void Pocket sack that would allow him to fit through the opening, but as far as he could tell, the would-be killer was still alive.

By touching the Fusion, Larek was able to deactivate the Effect, and the assassin was suddenly moving. Twitching and spasming was probably more accurate, as he flopped around on the ground uncontrollably, with muscles stretched further than looked healthy, before finally settling down after a minute or so. Completely drained of most of his physical energy, the assassin was gasping on the floor like a fish out of water, though unlike that example, he wasn’t going to die from simply being there; his body would regenerate itself because he was a Martial, though at the moment he looked as weak as a newborn.

No, he wasn’t going to die from being trapped in the void; he was going to die by Larek’s hand as soon as he answered some questions.

The anger that always accompanied the thought of what the assassins had done to the town of Dreenwood gave the half-Gergasi enough emotional energy to engage his Dominion magic, and he focused all of it on the assassin at his feet. Larek saw the man painfully stiffen as that magic slammed into him, and a groan was let out as he fought it. The Fusionist felt his control of the assassin establish itself, though his control was tenuous, at best. Just like his experience with the assassin he’d caught back in Thanesh, this one seemed to have some sort of resistance against being controlled like this. It wasn’t complete immunity, but it was fairly potent; he suspected that the only reason he was able to establish even this much control was because of the state of the man’s wracked body.

Stolen novel; please report.

Even after a few seconds, he could feel his control starting to slip, so he needed to act fast and ask as many questions as possible.

“How many more assassins can I expect to attack me?”

There was a grunt of defiance before the man answered with a short scream of frustration at the beginning. “Aaaa…. As far as I know, there are 24 Responders left. Plus the Council, of course.” He was shaking his head, trying to fight answering Larek, but the Fusionist still had control.

It was a relief to hear that there weren’t very many more of the Responders that could attack him, but the last thing that the assassin mentioned caught his attention. “Council? Who are they?”

Another grunt. “The Council leads the Unspoken Response. We may have failed, but you cannot survive against them.”

He would have to ask more about them later if he had the chance. “How are you able to find and get to me so quickly?” he asked instead, as that was more of a pressing issue.

“Light sees and Earth moves,” the man spat out through clenched teeth. He didn’t expand upon this explanation, and while Larek wanted to ask for more details, he could sense that he was nearly out of time.

“Who ordered my death?” Confirmation that one of the SIC leadership had engaged the assassins against him wouldn’t really change what happened to them, but it would be nice to know who absolutely had to die.

“I… don’t know… Responders don’t handle… contract… negotia—aaargh!” the assassin shouted, surging upward toward Larek as the Fusionist’s control was broken completely, but he didn’t make it more than a foot upwards before a large sword swung in and decapitated him.

Penelope stood over the spasming corpse as the body violently reacted to its sudden death, before she spit on it. “Filth. This was just a contract to them? They killed our friends in Dreenwood for what? Business? I hope you rot here in the sun while birds pick your eyes out of your head.” She then turned and walked away, wiping the blood off her sword onto the armor of another corpse nearby.

The vehement words and action she performed were a little shocking, though he supposed that they shouldn’t have been, considering that he knew that Penelope and Vivienne were still emotionally wrecked after what happened to the friends they had made at Dreenwood. Still, he was going to kill the man anyway after he got what information he could from him, which was unfortunately not as helpful as he’d hoped, making him wish that they’d captured more than one of them. Regardless, the deed was done, and no one was too put out that the assassin was dead.

He and the others had been trying to kill Larek and everyone else, after all.

It was shortly after his interrogation ended that Mygor and Paluna cautiously walked up the stairs, pushing through the rubble that had clogged some of the stairwell. It was a messy side-effect of the Vacuum Blast Fusion he’d created the day before as another type of offensive Effect, which he thought worked fairly well. Soon after the assassins had rushed down from the roof, he had activated the Fusion, which rapidly sucked in all the air in an area 150 feet in diameter. Larek, his friends, and the Volunteers weren’t affected because of their Protection of the Void, but all of the murderous intruders were pulled together into a large group from the suction, before it was all violently allowed to re-expand outward.

The shockwave from the expanded air was strong enough to demolish and blow the roof and side walls off, and it also ripped off assassin limbs and did internal damage to many of them in the process. Vacuum Blast killed about a third of them and injured the others, which made killing them fairly easy. It would’ve been even easier if Larek and his friends had simply used their new Heavy Load Fusions from the start and squished them into a sphere of mush, or even Transfer Potential to remove their potential, but he had decided to let his friends and the Volunteers have a little bit of practice against them. With their protections, they couldn’t be hurt very easily, so it was a win-win situation – especially since it had helped to raise a few of his own Skills, as well.

Mana Control has reached Level 113!

Stama Subjugation has reached Level 96!

Dodge has reached Level 69!

Bladed Weapon Expertise has reached Level 72!

…..

Bladed Weapon Expertise has reached Level 75!

The increase in Mana Control had come from the Fusions he had used to project illusions up onto the roof, as the images that had been created wanted to destabilize when the Mana Siphons appeared, and he’d had to use his Skill to keep them intact. In addition, the three clones he’d created of himself to aid in the ambush against the assassins had been pulled apart by the spells, despite his attempts at keeping the Mana inside of them. The Siphon spell had a volatile and powerful effect he’d never experienced before, and he was even now thinking of ways to utilize it in future Fusions.

The rest of the Skill increases had come from the fight with the assassins. It felt good increasing those Skills, since it had been a while since he’d had a really good melee fight against opponents; most of the time, he simply used his Pattern constructs or Fusions to kill his enemies, but his Martial Skills were greatly lagging behind now. Being “forced” to fight like this was good for him and his development, especially when he wasn’t in any serious danger.

Mentally reaching out to The Hopper, which he’d sent high into the air moments before he activated Vacuum Blast, he pulled it back down to the top of the building, making it hover about 6 feet from the floor. Gesturing for his Volunteers to go ahead and load up, he beckoned to the two SIC Lieutenants from where they stood, staring at the destruction.

“You’re coming with us for now. We’re going to need your help locating the rest of the SIC leadership.”

Waving his hands in denial, Mygor protested. “Oh, no, I’m not going anywhere near the Calamity! I don’t know what happened to the rest, but there’s no way—”

“Don’t bother to argue, Mygor,” Bartholomew shouted back at him, where he was just about to board The Hopper. “You’ll find it much easier that way. Besides, I vouched for you, so don’t let me down.” Just before he jumped into their wooden transport, he added, “Oh, and if that isn’t enough to convince you, then think about unlocking all your potential. I know you’ve always wanted to be a Martial, so now’s your chance to be both.”

Mouths gaping open, Mygor and Paluna stared after Bartholomew as he disappeared inside the vessel, before turning toward Larek in disbelief. “What? Was he telling the truth?” Paluna asked, clearly in shock.

“Yes, but only if you get your butts on board right now. We need to go investigate what happened to the SIC, and it needs to be done yesterday. Come on, we don’t have any time to lose.”

Though they still seemed extremely reluctant, the two SIC members shuffled toward the floating wooden disc at a slower speed than he liked, but he didn’t say anything. He’d rather they come at least semi-willingly rather than forcing them, but as it was, he still didn’t trust them completely. If they proved their worth and didn’t betray the trust he was putting in them to lead them to the rest of the SIC in the Calamity, then he had absolutely no problem giving them the Fusion to unlock their full potential.

Jumping through the bottom hole after boosting Mygor up inside, as he didn’t have the strength to pull himself up, Larek looked to the northeast, where he could feel the border of the Calamity not so far away.

“Alright, we’re going in. Let’s see what’s happened with the SIC and whether we can salvage what could be a potential disaster.”

With that, he shot The Hopper into the sky and took off toward yet another unknown Calamity.