“We’re landing here,” Larek told everyone in the main deck of The Hopper, which was more than he had planned to bring. But with the sudden assassination attempt not so long ago, it seemed as though he couldn’t go anywhere without a bodyguard of Volunteers 20-strong. Not that the Fusionist thought that they could actually do much to prevent an attack by the Unspoken Response if they showed up, but if it made them feel better, then he was fine with giving in on letting them come with them. Besides, they weren’t going toward any particularly predictable place, so it was unlikely that anyone would know to ambush them there.

“Why here?” Nedira asked.

Larek set The Hopper down while he answered. “Because this Aperture was still a part of the Calamity not so long ago, and so, it is unlikely that anyone we don’t want to see will show up here. That, and the monsters are weak enough that I don’t have to worry about anyone getting hurt.”

There was another reason that he didn’t explain to her, as he thought that it really only made sense to him. Quickly disembarking from The Hopper, the Fusionist was joined by Nedira and Norde, along with 20 Volunteers armed with both staves and melee weapons of one sort or another on their belts or strapped to their backs. While those who had the Gradual Aetheric Purification Array now had access to their Martial stats, most of them still relied on the range that their staves gave them as a first line of defense.

Almost immediately, the monsters of the newly reopened Aperture arrived, hopping along in their effort to bite the infiltrators. Needless to say, the Wilde Mushdooms didn’t get closer than 50 feet before they were obliterated by the Volunteers, who took the protection of their charge very seriously.

Larek quickly led the team toward the central location where the Aperture was visible in the distance. It only took a few minutes and a short jog to arrive, as the territory of this Aperture – along with all of the others that had originally been a part of the Calamity – was kept small without allowing it to expand. If he understood correctly from the information he was given while looking for an Aperture to visit, this one had opened only that morning and was due to be closed again by a team of Volunteers the next day. He was going to throw the schedule off a little bit with his actions there, but he was sure they would be able to figure it out.

“What exactly is it that you need to see?” Nedira asked as they approached the small, floating, multi-colored sphere that comprised the heart of the Aperture. “You’ve been a little circumspect when I asked you before.”

Realizing that he’d been a little too focused on his objective to explain what he was doing, he thought about what he wanted to say before he opened his mouth. His hesitation was because he finally looked at what he was going to try to do from an outsider’s perspective. I’m going to make an artificial Scission? I want to create one of the things that had threatened and terrorized centuries of people throughout the Kingdom? Will she think I’m a genius, or will she stop helping me because this is a crazy idea? He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer to that last question, though he also didn’t want to lie to her about what he was doing.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a little more gentle in his words about such a sensitive topic.

“I need to look closer at the Aperture to determine something,” he began to explain. “I’m hoping that it will give me the answers I need to enact the next stage of the plan.”

“How will that help? You’re talking about moving monsters, right?”

He nodded, even as he came to a stop about 20 feet from the Aperture. The Volunteers were almost done with clearing out any of the Wilde Mushdooms that were hanging around the Aperture in small groups, and they were vigilant in standing guard in case any more appeared. “About that,” he began, before explaining his reasoning of why their intention to pick up and move monsters to the cities using the Transports and some Fusions wouldn’t necessarily work. “So, I’ve thought of a different method. Instead of moving them one-by-one or in groups, I’m thinking more of a… doorway between here and wherever we want it to end up. In other words, a connection where we can send monsters through it from here and have it end up near a town or a city.”

She was silent for a moment as Larek shuffled a little closer to the Aperture. He didn’t want to get too close and walk into the field around the sphere that tended to stop ambient Mana from being absorbed into his Fusions, as that would eventually break them. Fortunately, he could detect where the field was based on the movement of the energy in the environment, and he was able to get to about 10 feet away before he stopped.

“Are you talking about some sort of… what? A portal of some kind?”

Again, he nodded at Nedira’s question as he peered into the Aperture, flexing his Magical Detection Skill and tapping into his new Pattern Professional Specialization.

“That sounds suspiciously like a… you’re not trying to make a Scission, are you?”

She was quick, he’d give her that. With a shrug, he told her, “Not… exactly. It isn’t going to connect to the world of Corruption, after all, but I’m hoping that I can use some of the same principles behind it to create what I’m thinking about.” He held up a hand slowly, not wanting to be rude, but he also needed to concentrate. “Now, give me some time to observe this thing.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Nedira looking at him in disbelief, but she soon seemed resigned toward whatever he thought he was doing as she folded her arms across her chest. At least she doesn’t look mad.

Now that he could fully devote his attention toward the Aperture, he realized that the sphere that pierced through the veil separating two different worlds was a lot more complicated than he thought. He’d seen and closed plenty of them in the past, but he was now convinced that he’d never actually seen them for what they were.

The first thing of note, which he already knew, was that they weren’t Fusions. He would’ve noticed before this if they were, as he had a special relationship with Fusions that he, with no false modesty, had to admit was unlike that of anyone else in the world. That being said, for the first time since he’d seen either Scissions or Apertures, he could see that there was an internal structure embedded in the form of the sphere. It was subtle and hidden by the multicolored outer shell, but once he focused on it long enough, it quickly became clear to him.

Of course, even though he could see it now, that didn’t mean he understood it immediately.

The second thing he noticed about this structure was that, contrary to his expectations, it wasn’t a pattern. In other words, it wasn’t the same as his Pattern Cohesion or internal pattern, nor was it a spell pattern, Fusion formation, nor even anything constructed of Aetheric Force. It was unlike anything he’d seen before, making it otherworldly in appearance, and yet… it was familiar in a way that it took some time to understand.

“It’s made of… everything,” he whispered when he finally comprehended what he was not only seeing, but feeling from the Aperture.

“What?” Nedira asked, but Larek was too deep in his focus to respond.

When Larek said that it was made of everything, he didn’t mean that literally. Instead, what he meant was that the structure that comprised the Aperture was made of the same energies he was used to seeing. But unlike when he had considered Mana, Stama, Pattern Cohesion, and Aetheric Force to be different energies, this was a combination of all of them, molded together to create something entirely new.

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He had first observed this phenomenon when his Magical Detection Skill had risen high enough to see the density of energy in the environment, seeing strands of light that he had assumed were bundles of Mana, Stama, and even Pattern Cohesion. At the time, he understood that the denser the light strands were in the environment, the faster his resources would regenerate. This still held true, but what he didn’t realize at the time was that these bundles of energy were missing something crucial.

Aetheric Force.

To be more specific, a mixture of both Pure and Corrupted Aetheric Force.

Based on his recent observations, natural Corrupted Aetheric Force was all around them because it was ejected from Scissions and Apertures, and it was left over from the monsters that emerged from them. This Corrupted Aetheric Force was what triggered the change in people to become Mages and Martials, and the density of it had slowly risen over the years, leading to more people with potential, but also bringing with it stronger Scissions and monsters.

Of course, that was all knowledge that he’d already theorized as he began to understand the nature of Aetheric Force and how it reacted to the world around them, but what was inside the Aperture was different. The closer he looked at it, as well as the environment around him, he began to observe something that he hadn’t seen before.

There wasn’t just Corrupted Aetheric Force floating around him; there was also Pure Aetheric Force, as well. Once he finally identified it in the air, its presence was undeniable, and it seemed to clash with the Corrupted AF, constantly at war with it like fireflies buzzing around each other, with neither being able to do anything to the other.

Looking at himself as well as at Nedira and the Volunteers, he could see that miniscule amounts of Corrupted AF were absorbed by them, before being released as Pure AF a short time later. He’d never realized this was happening before at such a steady rate, as he hadn’t been able to see the minute amounts in the environment before, and it made a few things a whole lot more clear once he turned his attention back to the Aperture.

While energy was expelled out of the sphere, acting as a conduit to the world of Corruption, none of that energy was Pure AF. However, when he deduced that the Aperture’s structure was made of all energy, he found that while it was sending out Mana, Stama, Pattern Cohesion, and Corrupted AF, it was pulling in Pure AF from outside of it. It then took this incoming Pure AF and somehow combined it with the Corrupted AF it already had nearby, mixing it with all the other energies to become something different, something stronger and with a signature of energy that was unmistakable. Larek suddenly understood that it was this energy that people could feel coming from Scissions and Apertures, even if they were miles away from them.

What he couldn’t understand was why this powerful energy came into existence in the first place, especially if the Aperture was from the world of Corruption and somehow utilized Pure Aetheric Force, which he thought would be anathema to it. Rather than spend any more time trying to deduce the whys of the whole thing, he turned his attention more to the how.

It wasn’t until he saw the process in which another group of Wilde Mushdooms appeared and were spat out of the Aperture that he finally got a chance to see how the structure was able to somehow combine both Pure and Corrupted AF together. The entire sphere seemed to flash in his vision for a split-second, but he was able to see how miniscule amounts of both energies were melded together in an instant, and the release of some sort of power ran through the structure. This power seemed to execute a process that “opened” – for want of a better word – a small tunnel in between this world and the world of Corruption. He had to speed his perception of time up a bit to see what happened next, but he was fortunately able to see a half-dozen chunks of Corrupted AF arrive through the tunnel before they were changed by the Aperture’s structure, where they took on the form of six Wilde Mushdooms, which were immediately cut down by the Volunteers. That same Corrupted AF that had just recently come through the tunnel was absorbed by those who participated in the killing, though he did notice that very tiny portions that of AF were left behind, dissipating into the environment.

Huh. That… changes things.

He – along with everyone else, he assumed – thought that the world of Corruption was filled with billions of monsters, and only through the means of Scissions and Apertures were they allowed through to his world. But if what he saw there, as well as what he’d observed in the Calamity with the large trees that were birthing Ghost Ravens at a distance from the central Aperture, then there weren’t any monsters in this other world. It was simply a bunch of Corrupted AF floating around, which only took form when it passed into this world, thanks to the processes within each Scission or Aperture.

They weren’t doorways at all; they were conduits that transferred energy from one place to another, where it was then converted into something else.

The Fusionist’s mind was reeling at this revelation, so much so that he suddenly felt dizzy and had to sit down. He felt Nedira by his side and heard her ask him what was wrong, but so many truths suddenly crashed down on him that he was overwhelmed for a time.

Scissions were created when the density of Pure Aetheric Force in an area rose to the point where it interacted with the Corrupted Aetheric Force already present; this was more prevalent in larger population centers, which was why small villages were typically safe from their threat, as there weren’t as many people. When the Scission was formed, it would initially create its structure, and then gradually build up an army of monsters as Corrupted Aetheric Force was transferred from the world of Corruption, before releasing it all in waves.

Apertures are different, as they are more permanent. When they are closed, they do something similar to what the Scissions did and gradually build up enough of an army to release them upon opening. To expand, an Aperture must obtain enough Pure Aetheric Force that is incorporated into their structure, as it can be used for that rather than as opening the conduit to the other world for more Corrupted AF. It’s why an Aperture can never expand if its monsters are culled regularly, as it will never have a chance to do so.

And the reason the Apertures can never be fully destroyed is because of this combination of all the energies together, which is stronger than anything I’ve ever seen before. I can only assume that Scissions were the same, as no doubt someone in the past attempted to destroy one of them before it could spit out monsters, only for their efforts to fail completely. I’ve blown one up with an enormous explosion before and all I did was close it, so I know that to be a fact.

As for why hitting the Aperture closes it temporarily, it seems as though we’re not actually damaging the structure; instead, we’re dissipating the volatile energy around it that is keeping the structure contained. The multicolored appearance of the sphere isn’t the actual structure; it’s more of the glue that keeps it from falling apart as it grows larger. As the glue is diminished, the structure shrinks in order to keep itself from collapsing into pieces, which is why it gets so small when it’s closed. That is what I would consider to be its dormant state, where it hasn’t expanded at all, and only when it is able to open and bring the glue back can it expand to its normal, operating size.

These thoughts were almost too much for him, as they fundamentally changed his view of the entire world, and especially the world of Corruption, forevermore. However, over the next few minutes, he was able to rein his mind in from the multiple tangents it had been going on and focus on the task at hand. He wanted to somewhat replicate what the Aperture could do with energy, though perhaps with a material being rather than a bundle of energy.

Getting to his feet with a reassuring smile toward Nedira, who still looked worried, he concentrated more on the Aperture’s structure, attempting to delve through its confusing formation to discover its secrets. Hours passed as he stared at it, observing every little portion of it until he could recreate it on his own with Pattern Cohesion, and he felt he was getting closer and closer to learning how the two different Aetheric Forces were melded together and combined with every other energy to produce something that was apparently indestructible.

Finally, it was just starting to make sense. He needed to watch it for a little longer before he really understood what was—

Larek’s focus was blasted apart as he felt something that sent a shiver of fear down his spine. The sudden wrenching of his attention made him wobble a bit on his feet, but he quickly regained his sense of balance and was able to orient on what it was that had interrupted his observation of the Aperture.

Oh, no.

The unmistakable and overwhelming feel of a Gergasi in the distance had him scrambling his halberd out of his Void Pocket bag. A quick thought had a clone of himself forming as a pattern construct a few seconds later as he got ready to fight. However, it was only a short time later that he looked at Nedira and the Volunteers, screaming at them to run to The Hopper so that they could flee.

It wasn’t because the Gergasi he could feel in the distance was marginally stronger than Chinli, though that did worry him a little bit.

It was because there wasn’t just one Gergasi; there were two.