Larek braced himself for the detonation of the Area Suppression Fusion, but he was completely unprepared for the chain reaction that had formed when it exploded next to the Diregate. He still couldn’t believe that his father had somehow managed to forcefully power through the suppression and had actually broken his Fusion, something that he hadn’t known was possible until it was done. However, it had also given the Divine Fusionist an idea of how to manipulate the energy of a spell already in process, which allowed him to punch through the barrier that had been protecting the powerful Gergasi – only to force an Illuminated Free Will into his head.
He wanted his father to know exactly how wrong he had been about everything with a clear head, and it seemed as though he had succeeded. Larek hadn’t expected an apology, and he certainly wasn’t going to accept it after all that his father and the other Gergasi had done to him and the Kingdom, but he at least gave his biological parent a quick death – or what he thought would be a quick death. After using a similar technique to what Vilnesh had done to break his Area Suppression Fusion, he forcefully cut the spell pattern forming in the air away from his father before dropping a Mass Energy Absorption Fusion on it. After that, he shoved the rupturing Area Suppression into Vilnesh’s mouth, before kicking him hard enough to send the Gergasi flying toward the Diregate.
He hadn’t actually expected him to reach, but with the return of all his stats, he was stronger than he remembered. Unfortunately, that was where the trouble began, as the detonation of the Fusion inside of Vilnesh combined with the Primal Essence bubble Larek had placed around the massive Scission earlier, creating an explosion that shattered the portal to another world and amplified the detonation exponentially.
Thankfully, Nedira, his friends, and the other survivors of the transports had already piled into The Hopper and left the cavern at reckless speed, so he could only hope that they were far enough away from the explosion to not be affected by it. As for Larek, his only hope of survival was the still-expanding Mass Energy Absorption Fusion, which covered him and another 400 feet of area around him. The personal Fusions that protected him and made him stronger, such as Absolute Protective Fields and Omni-Boost, were currently deactivated by the Mass Energy Absorption, so he certainly hoped that this was the case.
The exponential explosion happened quickly, too fast for Larek to follow precisely, but he saw the result of it before it even reached his position. The top of the mountain was shattered and blown upwards as the detonation reached it, and that continued as it expanded in scale, practically obliterating the entire structure above and around where the Diregate once stood. The Divine Fusionist had just enough time to throw himself on the ground and cover his head with his hands before it reached him and the expanding Effect of the Mass Energy Absorption Fusion. He could feel when the two sets of effects collided, as the majority of the magical energy infused into the destructive blast was sucked away and absorbed, pushing the growth of the Fusion even further.
Unfortunately, it couldn’t do anything about the physical aspect of the blast, and Larek found himself yanked up from where he was lying behind the corpse of a monster and sent flying. The force of the blast ripped skin away in large chunks and shattered bones all over his body, but thankfully his spine managed to stay largely intact, despite every rib being cracked. He blacked out for a brief moment from the concussive shock of the detonation, but he woke up seconds before he crashed through a stone wall, which shattered with his impact – though the majority of the damage done to the wall was done by the leading edge of the explosion.
Landing roughly, which served to completely break the few bones that had only been slightly fractured, he rolled for a good 300 feet before coming to a stop. Unable to move from all of the damage, he was acutely aware that despite being flung away so far, he was still inside the range of the Mass Energy Absorption Fusion, which had obviously expanded so far and so fast that it was much bigger than he ever could have fathomed.
Landing on his back with his limbs twisted in their broken states, Larek saw small dots high up in the air above him, which he thought was strange because he doubted any birds actually flew that high. It was only when the dots quickly became bigger to his vision that he realized what they were.
Chunks of the mountain that had been blown nearly straight up into the air.
Larek couldn’t move, even with the threat descending upon him. His Fusion was powerful enough to shut down his Healing Surge Fusion, so he was stuck relying on his Body Regeneration Skill to heal him – but it couldn’t do that by itself in the time he had left before the massive chunks of the mountain fell on him, crushing him beneath their weight. He briefly hoped that they would simply miss him, but as they grew bigger in his sight – and closer to his position – he immediately deduced that not only would they hit, but the largest chunk, which was approximately 200 feet wide, would land right on him.
But there was nothing he could—
Just as he was beginning to despair, the Mass Energy Absorption ended as it consumed itself. The rapid expansion must have sped up the process significantly, and Larek wasted no time pushing his Healing Surge to its limit, as he manipulated the formation to increase the speed at which he healed. As bones snapped back into place, and feeling returned to his body, he struggled to get up as the shadow of the descending chunk of the mountain approached, but he still wasn’t healed enough to move quickly.
Stumbling to his feet as he wobbled on rebuilding bones, his energy felt sapped as the Healing Surge Fusion depleted it to fuel his recovery. Desperately pushing himself beyond all of his limits, it finally occurred to Larek that with the Mass Energy Absorption Fusion gone, he could now use his Pattern Cohesion outside of his body, and he immediately formed a chair-like construct around his body, which he forcibly pushed out of the way of the falling stone.
He was nearly clipped by the massive chunk that had just about squished him. The impact with the ground was so violent that he was thrown off the chair and into the air, as an enormous wave of dirt was flung into the air as it was displaced. He found himself flying once again. This time, however, there were obstacles in the air, as additional mountainous chunks followed after the first, and he was forced to deflect his trajectory to avoid one after another, before finally stopping himself with a platform construct once he had passed through the shower of falling stone.
As the rest of his body finished putting itself together, he reached into his Void Pocket sack – which had miraculously survived, though it had suffered some tears in its fabric – and he began to shove his face full of food, as his energy levels were so low that he could barely move on his own. Within minutes of consuming enough meals to feed a family of 4 for a month, he was starting to feel better as his body rapidly converted it into physical energy.
Once he started feeling better, he looked around for the first time and saw that the mountain that had enclosed the Diregate was no more than a few chunks sticking out here and there in the landscape where the pieces of it had landed after the explosion. However, where the massive Diregate itself had stood, there was a relatively small energy fluctuation, and as he lifted his Pattern platform up a little higher, he saw something in its place.
He spotted the Scission immediately. It was the same rotating color as the Diregate had been, but it was much, much smaller; it was only about 10 feet tall, smaller than any that he’d ever heard of before, but already he could see some small monsters moving out of it – Wilde Mushdooms, if he was correct. They were extremely weak and relatively slow monsters, so they didn’t really concern him, but the fact that the Scission was there was concerning.
Stretching out his senses, which had improved even over the last few minutes of chaos, he was able to sense the same connection between this Scission and what he suspected was the tear in the world located in the distance that the Diregate possessed, though it was much weaker than before. There wasn’t any sign of massive amounts of Primal Essence being pumped into it, for instance, but it was still receiving some energy from it.
If Larek had to guess, then this was how the Diregate normally operated, only sending out waves of monsters periodically, and not in an unceasing flood like he had encountered a short time ago. He had to wonder how and why the Scission formed there, but he suspected that it was a natural byproduct of the tear in the world; it was something that he was fairly certain he would discover more about once he was able to see it in person.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Regardless of how it was before, right now the Scission wasn’t a significant threat to do more than acknowledge its presence. What was more important to the Divine Fusionist was finding out whether his allies had escaped – which was fortunately fairly easy to discover, as he felt and then watched The Hopper appear on the horizon, flying quickly to his location. When the vessel stopped next to him, he had to brace himself as Nedira threw herself off the top deck, landing in his arms.
“Larek! Are you alright? What happened?”
Giving her a long kiss, happy that she had survived, he looked at everyone else on the top deck of The Hopper, and his mood was immediately dampened when he saw how few had actually made it out alive. All of his friends were thankfully there, but of the other Volunteers and former SIC members that had joined them near the Diregate, the only ones he recognized were General Auran and the ones who accompanied him inside The Hopper. The once-distinguished and hardened veteran of the SIC appeared like she’d been utterly thrashed by someone stronger than her, and half of her hair was gone, burned or otherwise destroyed by something – likely the Demon Queen’s void sword. All told, there were only 72 people who had survived the battle against the monsters of the Diregate, the Demon Queen, and the Gergasi – which was a far cry from how many had entered the mountain in the first place.
“It’s over, that’s all that matters,” he finally responded to her question after looking at everyone for a few seconds. “Vilnesh is dead, along with the rest of them, and now I can go get my—” He was going to say that he was about to go get his family back, but he was suddenly seized with a terrible premonition. He opened his mouth to warn Nedira as he threw her away from him toward those on The Hopper, but he wasn’t able to get anything out as something seemed to envelop his entire body, somehow forcing its way past the Absolute Protective Fields entirely. The next thing he knew, the world blurred around him, and it felt like his body was being ripped apart from the inside out. He struggled against the force that held him in place, thinking to take control of whatever energy was doing this to him, but his honed senses when it came to energy manipulation were dampened to the point where he couldn’t even tell what was surrounding him.
Access to his Mana, Stama, and Pattern Cohesion for a way to get out of his predicament was unlikely, as it was like his mind was disconnected from his body and the world around him. Even physical movement was impossible, as he couldn’t feel anything but his body being ripped apart. In the end, the only thing he could do was let it happen, as he was completely out of options.
Thankfully, the entire process didn’t take too long, so he wasn’t forced to suffer his entire self being ripped apart piece by piece for eternity. Instead, as his mind fog cleared and he began to feel his senses come back, he found himself on his knees with a rough stone floor underneath them, and he was panting and trying to catch his breath like he’d just run 50 miles at full speed without a break. He quickly took stock of his current health, finding that the feeling of being ripped apart was obviously only mental trauma, as his body was fully intact. All of the damage that had been done by the explosion had already been healed, of course, but now that he’d had a chance to recover some of his energy, he felt better than ever.
His mind, however, was thoroughly disoriented, and it took him the better part of a minute to fully come back to himself. Once he did, he felt around with his senses, thankful that they had returned, and he immediately noticed a few things without even looking around with his eyes.
First, he wasn’t where he’d just been a minute or so before. In fact, he was exactly where he needed to be, which was no more than 200 feet from the tear in the world, which emanated a subtle hum of power, while also throbbing like an angry wound. Being in such proximity to the tear, it was almost overwhelming in its sheer force of presence, as if it had a personality of its own and wanted everyone to know how important it was. It was distracting, to say the least, but he didn’t let it overshadow what else he detected within his vicinity.
It was his family.
This time, he knew it wasn’t just some mental vision that he had been sucked into because of his connection to them, but was instead the real thing. Looking up, he saw them standing in front of the tear in the world, which appeared to be an oddly shaped combination of a Scission and an Aperture, but it felt a lot less controlled and regulated than those were. If a Scission or an Aperture were a Fusion formation, they would be one that Larek had created with precise lines and thicknesses after triple-checking that they were perfect; the tear, on the other hand, looked like a toddler had been asked to recreate a Fusion formation with finger paints before it was then activated. In other words, it was only barely holding on by the thinnest of margins, and it was possible that, at any time, it would rupture and explode.
As for his family, they were frozen in their positions, appearing as if they had been interrupted in the middle of a conversation with each other. Larek could sense the lingering energy around them that was gradually depleting, which he assumed was this “stasis” thing that had been mentioned to him before. He was fairly certain that he could eventually figure out how to manipulate the energy and release them, but he would want to study it first to make sure he didn’t harm them while doing so.
Strangely enough, it wasn’t his family that garnered the majority of his attention. Instead, it was a figure wearing a thin golden robe standing to the right of his family, and judging by their appearance, they were originally a Gergasi – but they had left that designation behind at some point. There were subtle differences in their face that gave them a somewhat asexual appearance, to the point where he couldn’t tell if they were male or female; more than that, though, they radiated an authority entirely unlike what he’d felt among the Gergasi, as if it was more “complete” or “final”. It took him a second to realize what it felt like, but the strange kinship his own body felt with it told him exactly what it was.
Divine Spirit.
While he hadn’t actually been able to use whatever it was that made him a Divine Fusionist, the same couldn’t be said for this individual. The feeling of it oozed out of them and, in turn, made them seem even more impressive than they were, which was an odd thing to use it for – but it wasn’t like he knew any better. He was still new to this whole “Divine” thing, so it was possible that this was a normal method for others like him to use it rather than his own use of it in Fusions – which he still hadn’t figured out.
That realization confirmed it for him: He was looking at a person with another Avatar or Divine-type Specialization. He remembered his notifications telling him that only one other had achieved such a status before, and now he discovered who it was.
“Ah, so good of you to join us,” the melodic voice of the other Avatar seemed to caress his ears as they spoke. “Sorry for the sudden teleportation, but it was the only recourse I had, now that you’ve managed to kill the rest of my servants.”
“Who are you?” he began to ask, but Larek was finding it hard to concentrate on putting one word after the next, so all that came out was, “Who—?”
“How rude of me. You may call me the Grand One,” they responded, and Larek seemed to remember his father mentioning something about them – but he couldn’t remember what it was, for some reason. “I already know who you are, Larek. Or should I say, Avatar?”
The Divine Fusionist intended to shake his head, but he suddenly found himself nodding, instead.
Wait a moment. What is going on?
“Very good. I think we’ll get along great if you keep answering my questions like this.” The voice of the golden-robed individual was soft and hypnotic, and he couldn’t help but feel excited about answering whatever questions were presented to him. “Tell me, if you would, what are you the Avatar of? I’ll go first, just so that we’re on the same page here. I’m the Avatar of Dominion, which means that you’re the Avatar of—?”
“Fusions,” he answered eagerly.
Avatar of Dominion? Oh, no.
Despite his internal thoughts, that didn’t stop his conscious mind and his body from wanting to obey everything that the Grand One desired from him.
“Fusions, you say? I guess I should’ve expected that, given your penchant for those ridiculous things, but that’s of no consequence. The important thing is that you’re here now, and you’re going to help me reestablish control over the Breach. It’ll take decades, of course, and I’ll require you to procreate so that I can get additional servants with similar abilities as you seem to possess.”
Larek struggled against the commands laced within the Grand One’s words. “W-Why?” he managed to ask, but the effort required to get just that one word out exhausted him.
“Why? Oh, you’re fighting my influence, aren’t you? Well, that’s only to be expected, given your status as an Avatar, which is why I have your so-called ‘family’ here. Family: A weakness that I’m not above exploiting to get you to obey. I shouldn’t have to tell you what would happen to them if you ever disobeyed my orders, or worse yet, decided to attack me, do I? I assure you, if you somehow – which is doubtful, but possible – manage to kill me, they will die before you could do anything about it.
“As for why I need your help? I thought that I had already mentioned that. You killed my other servants, and now it’s all I can do to keep this world from being consumed by the Breach. They helped me share the load, but now I need someone else to take up that duty – and with your strength, that should be easy enough to do.”
Larek felt the anger in the Grand One’s words as they mentioned Larek killing his other servants, which was when he finally put it all together. The Gergasi might have been in charge before they opened this “Breach”, but something had obviously gone wrong – which led to the Grand One taking control. The “Great Ones” were just as much slaves as those that they enslaved, though that didn’t excuse what they’d done. They all needed to die, and so did this Grand One.
And yet, his conscious mind and his internal thoughts were completely at odds. As much as he might think about breaking free of the control of the Grand One, who was an Avatar of Dominion, his body had absolutely no ability to do that.
Larek was trapped, just as surely as his family and even the Gergasi had been before he killed them all.
