“Larek,” he heard Kimble say with a long-suffering sigh, “what have you done now?”

  After throwing himself down on the couch and letting out a groan, as it felt like it had been days since he’d been able to relax, he replied, “Good to see you, too.”

  The Volunteer leader turned to Nedira, who sat next to the Divine Fusionist. “No, seriously, what did you two do up there to cause the Calamity to expand?”

  “You know about that already?”

  Kimble grunted in annoyance. “Of course, I do. We had scouts close enough to feel it who rushed back through a few key Traveling Gates in the area to let us know it was expanding within minutes of it happening. So, again, what did the pair of you do? You might think that I’m reaching by assuming it was you who did it, rather than it being coincidence that you were there, but somehow I don’t think that’s what happened. So, tell me the truth.”

  Larek leaned his head back for a moment, stressed out a little bit since he’d deduced what was happening to the Calamity. His current state of mind was a little off after the massacre of the Gergasi and the visit with his family through a mental connection, and he really wanted to think about what the plan was going forward. Ideally, it would benefit everyone to strike before the Gergasi could react to the deaths of their people, but what that would look like and how they would go about it was still up in the air.

  Thankfully, if there was anything good that had come from the situation, it was that Larek had Leveled-up again. His impromptu Fusion in the air, the Zone of Traveling Restrictions, had been enough to net him the final Fusion of 3 that he needed to achieve Level 73. With the 50 AP he received from reaching Level 73, he was stronger than ever before.

  Strength: 750 [2,250]

  Body: 760 [2,280]

  Agility: 750 [2,250]

  Intellect: 755 [2,265]

  Acuity: 755 [2,265]

  Pneuma: 20,520 [61,560]

  Pattern Cohesion: 615,600/615,600

  With his current stats boosted by his Omni-Boost +20 Fusion, he was more than a match for the Gergasi one-on-one – even if they used Battle Arts to make themselves stronger and faster. If he used his own Battle Arts, he would be definitely stronger and faster than them, but he still wasn’t too confident in large-scale fights with them. While he had succeeded in absolutely devastating 9 of them, the key to that was the fact that he had surprised them with his sudden aggression and a Fusion they weren’t expecting, one which would be difficult to replicate without a huge amount of Primal Essence floating around. He had managed to keep himself alive against their attacks before he enacted the Fusion, but if it hadn’t been for that, he wasn’t sure he could’ve actually killed them. He probably would’ve survived for quite a while because of his defensive Fusions, but that was different from winning.

  And the upcoming engagement with them was one that they needed to win. It wasn’t enough for him to simply survive, but to eliminate each and every Gergasi so that the Kingdom could be free from their oppressive presence. He also had to do all of that while also keeping his family alive somehow, because now that he knew that the Gergasi weren’t above using them to manipulate him, he was sure that this latest attempt wasn’t the last time they would be used against him.

  That all meant that it was going to be a tall order to win against the Gergasi without any collateral damage along the way. Then, once they managed to get through the difficult task of killing the Gergasi, which was becoming more and more of a likelihood as the days went on, Larek had to start the process of siphoning off as much energy from the expanding Calamity as possible, before shunting it into the tear in the world.

  That was, of course, if he was correct in that it was a two-way opening; if not, then he’d have to find some other way to get rid of all the energy in the Calamity before it consumed the entire Kingdom – and eventually the whole world, afterwards.

  Shaking his head at the improbability of all that occurring without some sort of problem cropping up, he looked back at Kimble’s impatient face, as Nedira opted to leave Larek to answer his question.

  “Alright, here’s the truth. Upon venturing into the Calamity, we discovered that the population of monsters was much higher than it should’ve been, and the density of energy inside its borders was verging into dangerous territory….” He began to recite the events of the last few hours, leaving nothing pertinent out in his explanation. He went over the discovery of the Calamity, the Primal Essence barrier keeping them trapped inside, his experience in being reunited with his family via a mental spell connecting their minds, the near destruction of The Hopper, and his annihilation of the Gergasi who had ambushed them. “…And then, after they were dead, I discovered something wrong with the Calamity. Or, to be more accurate, something even more wrong than before: It was about to expand.”

  Kimble was silent for nearly a minute after Larek’s recitation of events. “Well. That certainly sounds like it was an eventful trip. You killed 9 more Gergasi? I can only guess what kind of nightmare that is going to cause now.”

  “Very true. But that isn’t the worst part.” The Divine Fusionist then went on to provide his evaluation of the Calamity, specifically how it was unlikely to stop expanding anytime soon, and that closing it would cause even more damage in the short term. Larek additionally explained his plan for the siphoning and transfer of that energy off-world through the tear that the Gergasi had created long ago. Once he was done with that, he fell silent.

  All through his recitation and explanation of everything that had happened, General Auran and many of the others involved in the leadership of the Volunteers, including his friends such as Verne and Bartholomew, had trickled inside the office after hearing that he was back. That was why it wasn’t too much for a surprise to hear Penelope chuckling shortly after he stopped talking.

  “Hold on. Let me get this straight,” she said once she got a handle on herself. “You accidentally triggered the Calamity’s expansion, which won’t stop growing until it has likely swallowed up the entire Kingdom, and going in and closing it would be worse than letting it expand? Then, the only solution you have to fix the problem is to assault the Gergasi directly in order to get access to the tear they created in the world, where you plan to siphon out and push the energy in the Calamity through it somehow? There are a lot of things that could go wrong during every step of the process, you know.” When she finished, everyone looked at each other as if now realizing the scope of what was at stake and the incredible hurdle that was in their way of reaching the other side, both alive and with the Kingdom intact. “That being said, sign me up. If that’s what it takes to save more people, while also getting revenge for all that the Gergasi have done, then I’m all for it.”

  Larek nodded at her, glad for her support, but that didn’t really help in the end. From what he could see of everyone else, they weren’t quite as on board with the idea as she was.

  “How are we supposed to fight them, anyway?” General Auran asked abruptly. “Look, I know that you can obviously fight them and win, but how many more of them are there? Can you take on 20 of them at the same time? 30? If not, then how are we supposed to contribute to a fight in which we’re significantly outmatched?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Well, the Fusions that I’ve tested have all worked the way I hoped, so there is an advantage when it comes to defense,” Larek answered. “And the offensive Fusions that I’ve produced are strong and can be particularly deadly if used against one of the Gergasi. Plus, you will all be working together, not separately; when you work with a group, you can be stronger than any Gergasi.” The General still appeared skeptical, but she at least seemed inclined to believe him somewhat.

  “Fine. I suppose that we don’t really have a choice but to trust that you know what you’re talking about,” she said with a resigned tone. “Are you able to work with Kimble to get these new Fusions distributed to my people?”

  “I believe so. I have a small quantity of them already finished, so I just need to create a few thousand more.”

  “Great. How long until we have to move? Two weeks?”

  Shaking his head, he considered the expansion rate of the Calamity while taking into account the potential reactions of the Gergasi upon the deaths of their people. “Doubtful. I suspect that we’ll have to start moving within 3 to 4 days.”

  “Only 4 days? That’s entirely too soon for us to plan our campaign and arrange for the appropriate logistics to be in place! If you can extend that to a week, I think we can just about make it.”

  The Divine Fusionist shrugged. “It’s not advisable, as the Calamity will simply be even larger by that point, but if that’s what we need, then that’s what you’ll get. I’d see what I could do to slow down the expansion, but I’d really rather not get close to the capitol at this point in time, if you know what I mean.”

  With the reduced timeline from what they had been expecting, the next hour turned into a planning session, as the resources that had originally been slated to go toward closing the Calamity were shifted to their new objective. The problem that they – and Larek, if he was being honest with himself – had about the entire operation was that they weren’t quite sure what to expect when going up against the Gergasi, given that they were a target that hadn’t been assaulted before. A Calamity, in comparison, was a relatively simple, cut-and-dry expedition; going up against, arguably, the most powerful people in the world was another matter entirely.

  They all broke apart from the meeting to go about their various tasks, and Nedira followed him home. Larek found that he was still exhausted from the experience at the Calamity, both physically and emotionally, and all he wanted to do was rest. Unfortunately for him, he had some work to get done before that could happen.

  “You need anything else?” his betrothed asked, once they finished eating a quick dinner and settling down for the night. He shook his head, and she stated that she was getting some sleep, as it had also been an eventful day for her.

  “That’s fine. I have some extra work that needs to get started if we’re going to be ready for what’s coming,” he told her, already heading toward his throne of pillows.

  “Don’t stay up too late.”

  He nodded, his thoughts already on what he needed to get accomplished.

  Within a few minutes, Nedira had passed out, and the Divine Fusionist got to work. First, he created tens of thousands of copies of Flood of Domination, which he set aside to grow with Fusional Growth. He also created thousands of Mass Energy Absorptions, since that had also been proven to work successfully, storing them to grow alongside the Flood of Dominations. Next, hundreds of Health Reversals were produced, as they had been quite effective against the Gergasi – though they would be difficult to use, as the Fusion needed close contact in order for it to work properly. Lastly, he created thousands of additional growing copies of the Absolute Protective Fields: Since the Fusion had been a literal lifesaver against the Gergasi, it would be best if everyone coming with him was protected just as well.

  That was all he did for the first few hours, essentially building up the stock of his newest Fusions, before he turned to his next problem/project. In short, he needed to develop a Fusion that would not only extract the energy from the Calamity, but would also transfer and inject it into the tear in the world.

  That was easier said than done, however. Each time he began constructing a formation that could produce those types of Effects, his intuition regarding Fusions told him that his Pattern Cohesion – as strong and sturdy as it was, especially in a Fusion – wasn’t going to be enough. Even if he was to grow it from a weaker version, handling the concentration of energy that he’d felt and witnessed inside of the Calamity was something his Fusions couldn’t handle. At least, not easily, and there was every chance that simply trying to funnel that much energy through the formation would degrade and destroy it within seconds.

  Therefore, Larek had to think of a different method by which to perform the task. If making a singular Fusion robust enough to handle the energy was out, then how about multiple Fusions to share the load? In theory, he thought it might work if they were all activated simultaneously, as each of them could process smaller packets of energy, but the issue that stymied him was the transfer rate.

  Slowing down the rate of energy absorption and transfer was harder than it sounded, at least in respect to keeping it steady and regular. The problem he immediately identified, as he pictured his thoughts in operation, was ensuring that each of the energy transfer streams was perfectly coordinated with the others, as his intuition told him that once the energy started to be released from the Calamity, it would come as a haphazard rush, instead of being neatly organized. If the balance of one or more of the Fusions was skewed one way or another, it could cause the collapse of the entire operation.

  Again, the ideal situation would be to gradually feed the energy where it needed to go, but that just wasn’t possible. Actually, the best situation was one where the Divine Fusionist could easily dump all that energy into the void, but his experiments at using void as a defensive measure told him that it could be overwhelmed at times – and the last thing he wanted was for a Fusion involving dumping the energy into a void to fail suddenly, releasing it all—violently—out into the world.

  It took him a few hours of experimentation and theorycrafting, but he thought he might have found a solution. Instead of one, singular Fusion, or even a dozen or more separate Fusions working together, he thought he might be able to connect dozens or even hundreds of Fusions together in some sort of array-like fashion. Technically, they would be autonomous Fusions; but by connecting them together, they would act like separate parts of a greater whole.

  Clusters of separate Fusions for each type of energy, such as Mana, Stama, Aetheric Force, and even Primal Essence would all contribute to identifying and absorbing what they were designed to capture, distributing the load across all of the separate Fusions. They would then focus and eject the captured energy toward a distant space – in this case, the tear in the world – regulating the flow in between each pair of clusters, to ensure that no one section was overloaded.

  The key would be hooking each Fusion together so that they worked in conjunction with the others. First, each cluster created for different energies would have to be created separately with individual Fusions, and then he would have to go in later and use his Pattern Manipulation Skill to add the connections individually, while also maintaining the balance of energy flow through them, ensuring that there were no interruptions in the flow. Then, he would have to connect each cluster together with the others, before then connecting them with a central Fusion that would act as the kind of control center, balancing energy flows through each cluster properly.

  It was a huge undertaking, and he would need something much larger than what he had at hand in which to place what could likely be hundreds of Fusions. Once he had figured that all out, he decided to get some sleep before he tackled such a project, as he was fairly sure it would take up to a full day to properly assemble it, especially as it was going to have many different parts – and a mistake might cause the entire thing to explode catastrophically.

  It felt like his head had just hit the pillow in his bed next to Nedira when there was shouting coming from outside of their building, his senses picking it up before he was even awake. He grumbled in annoyance as he got up to see what the shouting was all about, but a series of panicked knocks on the door beat him to it.

  Opening the door, he encountered a frantic Volunteer in the middle of knocking again, putting him a little off-balance, but he caught himself easily enough. “What is it?” a tired Larek asked gruffly, still waking up to what was an even earlier morning than he usually enjoyed.

  “Sir, uh, Fusionist, sir. Militia Leader Kimble needs you at headquarters immediately, sir.” The young Volunteer appeared panicked and ready to flee as soon as Larek’s gaze upon him looked away, but the Divine Fusionist wasn’t about to let him go so easily.

  He needed some answers.

  “What is this all about?” he demanded harshly, tired of one emergency after another.

  The young man at his door nearly passed out at the tone of Larek’s voice, but he managed to keep his feet and wits about him enough to answer, “It’s, uh, just a rumor, but apparently some scouts came back from the capitol – and there were fewer of them than there should’ve been.”

  “What are the Gergasi doing now?”

  The Volunteer shook his head. “Not the Gergasi, sir. It’s the Diregate.” Larek was confused for a moment, both because he was still waking up and because he hadn’t really considered the Diregate to be much of a threat. His confusion evaporated at the man’s next words, however. “The defenses have failed, and tens of thousands of monsters are flooding out from there, attacking everything in their way.”

  Oh. I guess that’s a good enough excuse to wake me up.