It was quite obvious where the Diregate was located; all it took was tracking where the constant stream of monsters was originating from. They turned out to be coming from a large hole in the side along a mountain approximately 4 miles to the east of the capitol. When they got close enough, it was also clear that the hole had originally been relatively small in size at one point, but had been expanded quite violently very recently, if the scattered stones throughout the ground on their approach were any indication. It appeared as though whatever had wanted to get out of the smaller hole had essentially blasted their way out, forcing it to become wider in their desire to escape.
Thousands of monsters continued to stream out of the opening as they approached, the light inside dim enough that they couldn’t really see anything but darkness, in comparison to the brighter light of day outside. Regardless of whether or not they could see inside, the remaining transports blasted through the outpouring of monsters, ranging in size from small Goblins to larger, elephant-sized creatures, as they approached the way inside. When they finally passed through the blasted-out hole, however, they were able to see a lot better as their vision adjusted to the change in ambient light.
Though it probably would’ve been better if they had been kept in the dark.
Just inside the opening were the remnants of at least 50 wooden and stone buildings, a veritable town built inside the mountain, but they had been completely obliterated by something that had ground many of their walls into a combination of stone shards and sawdust. Larek thought that either something very large and very heavy had come through there and stomped on them all until they were destroyed, or the passage of so many monsters streaming out had done it.
Even though the buildings had been largely destroyed, there were a few along the edges that hadn’t been annihilated completely, and that was where the Divine Fusionist could see evidence that the citizens within the buildings had fallen, probably just as quickly as the defenders. Bodies in blood-spattered clothing could be seen half-crushed under fallen walls and rooftops, and others appeared to have been ripped apart into pieces, killed and then left while the monsters ran past them in their escape. The destruction was so severe that if there had been any signs of the people in these buildings fighting back, it had been erased by the trampling of thousands of monster limbs on their way out.
Past the destroyed buildings, many of which he could only assume were barracks of a sort for the defenders of the Diregate, were the remnants of the once-strong wall that had stretched from one side of the massive cavern that they had flown into at one point. From the still-intact portions of the wall that were still attached to the sides of the cavern, Larek could tell that it had originally been at least 20 feet in depth, made of what appeared to be long rods of thick iron fed through massive stone blocks. The combination of materials likely made the barrier extremely durable, able to withstand just about any type of abuse – unless it met something that could destroy half a mountain with its might. That kind of monster was, by General Auran’s account, normally eliminated by the Gergasi before it could be much of a threat to the defenders, but that had obviously changed once the so-called “Great Ones” withdrew their support.
From what he could see, which was difficult under the flow of monster bodies pouring over the rubble of where the majority of the wall had stood, the barrier had even descended far into the ground. That made sense to Larek, as there were likely monsters that could tunnel into the ground and bypass the wall completely; the powerful stone wall was more than enough of a deterrent to force them back to the surface.
After looking just past the remains of the wall, it also became clear that whatever had destroyed the wall in the first place hadn’t simply barreled through it on their way out of the cavern, but had pulled it down. Enormous chunks of stone and iron bars were strewn all over the front side of the wall, where it appeared to have been ripped off and then tossed behind whatever did it. The Divine Fusionist could only wonder how tall such a monster was to be able to do that, as the walls had originally been approximately 150 feet high and were only 20 to 30 feet from the ceiling of the cavern.
“Whoa,” he heard from his side as he stared at the wreckage of the wall. Looking up, his breath caught in his throat at what his betrothed was entranced by, instead of what was below them.
When General Auran had mentioned that the Diregate was large, he hadn’t quite understood the scale of what she meant – until just then. The ceiling of the cavern rose quite swiftly from where they had entered, as it seemed as though the exit that the defenders had been guarding had only been on the very edge of the massive open space of the cavern itself, and the ceiling rose at least 500 feet at its apex, which was located on the far side from the entrance. The Diregate itself took up most of that space where it was situated, creating an opening so large that even the largest Calamity Apertures he’d helped to close were only half the size.
The sheer scale of the cavern they entered boggled his mind, making him realize for the first time that the mountain they had flown into was essentially hollow, as the space inside was so vast that it couldn’t be anything else.
There was a lot of open space around the Diregate’s front side, leaving a huge field of battle that was full of scars of battles past. Divots in the largely level stone and packed dirt floor showed evidence of being caused by countless spell impacts or melee strikes, and he also noticed a clear man-made pathway that had likely been trod by numerous armored figures over the years. The only conclusion he could draw from that was that the defenders of the Diregate weren’t always content to sit on the walls and attack from afar; most likely, tens of thousands of Martials had journeyed out from the safety of the walls to annihilate the incoming monsters on the ground.
He supposed it made sense, given that many of the weaker monsters they fought constantly would be unable to reach the top of the wall, meaning that the Martials would have nothing to do most of the time. Going down to face the monsters on their own terms was likely an alternative to boredom, or even as a means of training and improvement. Regardless of the reason, such a practice wasn’t happening then, as there were absolutely no defenders left to walk the path.
As for the Diregate itself, other than the opening to another world being larger than anything he’d seen before, it wasn’t a single color like he’d seen in every other Scission. Instead, it pulsed in a different color every few seconds, as if it was constantly in flux, even as waves of monsters continued to pour out of the flat plane of its existence.
What was the strangest about the situation with the monsters, however, was that there were a half-dozen large, powerful monsters stationed around the massive cavern, unmoving as the smaller creatures passed them by, as if they were positioned as sentries and waiting for someone or something to arrive. Larek thought that they were simply guards to keep anyone from messing with the Diregate, but for them to be that intelligent and organized was a bit of a concern. Though, given that these sentries seemed to be floating balls of thousands of eyes, all arranged haphazardly over their main bodies and surrounded by hundreds of free-floating tentacles that seemed to emerge from nowhere and were the width of a person, he wouldn’t put it past the monsters to have some sort of innate intelligence.
The fact that they were all exactly the same type of monster was also suspicious, but he currently didn’t have any other information to go on as to what they were doing.
But none of that was what caused his breath to catch in his throat. Rather, it was the sheer amount of energy being funneled into the Diregate that made his mind pause for a moment as he took it in.
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Well, that explains why this thing is going crazy right now.
He had no way to know how or why it was happening, but there was an incredibly inordinate amount of Primal Essence being sucked into the enormous Scission. It was that Essence that was being quickly converted into what was currently pouring out of it the Diregate, creating a constant stream of monsters that didn’t seem to have an end. As for where the energy was coming from, that was a little more of a mystery.
At first, he thought that the central Calamity had somehow been breached and that the Diregate was absorbing all of that excess energy; it was the simplest explanation, as something like what was happening was one of the dangers he had thought might happen if that energy were ever to be released suddenly. However, as he watched the flows of energy pouring into the Diregate and mentally followed them slightly out of the cavern where they cut through the mountain, he discerned that the energy was coming from the wrong direction. It wasn’t coming from the Calamity; it was coming from almost the opposite direction. It also wasn’t coming from the capital, nor from where the General had mentioned the Enclave was located – though it wasn’t too far from there.
It only took Larek a few seconds of sensing the energy around him to understand what was happening and where the Primal Essence was originating from. He quickly discovered that it wasn’t just Primal Essence being moved about with a purpose, but also every other type of energy – though in the opposite direction. All of the Pure Aetheric Force, Pattern Cohesion, Mana, and Stama in the environment was being pulled toward the same location from which he suspected the Primal Essence was originating. There was only one reason he could think of that would explain what was happening, and it didn’t bode well for being able to stop this from happening any further.
In short, either something near the tear in the world or the tear itself was collecting all of the different energies, converting them to Primal Essence, and then sending that to the Diregate to create endless streams of monsters. Again, why this was happening was a mystery, as it didn’t make any sense why anyone would want this, but there was definitely a connection he could sense between the Diregate and the source.
But if the Diregate was being fed by a source of the energy it needed to operate, then Larek thought it might be possible to interrupt that connection. Ideally, he would prefer to go straight to the source and stop it there; he was fairly certain that he could trace the connection easily enough to find it, but he stopped that line of thinking after he considered the consequences of such an action. If the Gergasi weren’t there at the Diregate, which he was fairly certain wasn’t the case at the moment as he didn’t feel any of them directly nearby, then there were only two other places he thought they might be. One was the Enclave, as that was where they lived; the second was the tear in the world, as they either knew what was happening and didn’t want it to stop, or were actively causing it to happen.
He wasn’t ready to jump into the Gergasi’s home turf right then, searching for the source of the Primal Essence – at least not without some backup. Unfortunately, it was going to take all of the transports that had made the journey to the Diregate just to keep the capital and then the Kingdom from being overrun by monsters, so he couldn’t count on them right then. If he could determine a way to stop or even significantly slow the spawning rate of the monsters coming out of the Diregate, he thought he might be able to borrow some of them to help him hunt down the tear in the world. He had a reason to get to it in the first place, as it would be what he needed to siphon out the energy from the Calamity, but he would also have to make sure that doing so wouldn’t end up with the Diregate firing back up like the current situation.
While he was thinking about all of this, General Auran and the rest of the transports that had accompanied the group inside the cavern began their assault, with Focused Light Beams tearing through hundreds of monsters at a time while barrages of flaming balls, ice spikes, flying stones, and a variety of explosions tore into the monsters trying to pass through the area where the wall used to stand. Other spells and even physical projectiles powered by Battle Arts slammed into the hordes below as well, as many of those who accompanied the General were former SIC and had the ability to contribute, in addition to the Fusions they were given. Thankfully, there were enough transports to line up over where the previous wall used to be, and soon enough the assault was annihilating everything that got close, leaving very few monsters – or none at all – to get through their blockade.
But Larek was focused on the Diregate and the Primal Essence pouring into it from an exterior connection. As such, he barely even registered that the large, many-eyed, and tentacled sentries began to move as a result of the transports killing the monsters attempting to escape the cavern.
It wasn’t until Nedira shook his arm to get his attention that her betrothed finally saw the sentries moving toward the invisible transports blocking the way out. “Larek! I don’t know what you’re doing, but give me control of The Hopper – we need to help out against those All-seeing Parademons!” Without questioning it, the Divine Fusionist immediately gave his betrothed control of the vessel, even as he dedicated a portion of his focus to discovering why she sounded like she was in such a panic.
The reason quickly made itself known as he watched the transports firing upon the floating sentry monsters that Nedira called All-seeing Parademons, something that he didn’t remember ever learning about at the Academy. Every magical projectile, and even the Focused Light Beams, were suddenly blocked by a tentacle, which seemed to create a wide, transparent, crystalized shield that appeared to be able to fully absorb the effect of the magical attack without apparent harm. The only thing that seemed to get through, or that at least weren’t blocked by the crystalized shields, were the arrows and bolts from the various SIC members with a Skill in Ranged Weapon Mastery, but even those were physically blocked by the tentacles. The physical projectiles impacted and penetrated the All-seeing Parademons’ appendages, but they didn’t seem to do all that much, as the creatures didn’t even bleed.
Huh. I wonder if I could adapt something like those crystal shields to enhance my Absolute Protective Fields?
That stray thought was interrupted as the sentry monsters fought back against the onslaught. Larek suddenly felt a pressure around him coming from the monsters as their eyes seemed to glow from within. What he sensed it was trying to do was either confuse or addle his mind so that he would be helpless when the monster attacked for real, but nothing actually affected him. It was both different from and similar to Dominion magic for it to work on someone like him, and looking around, he could see that everyone else in The Hopper was likewise unaffected; all of them had his new Flood of Domination Fusion, after all, so they were essentially immune.
The same couldn’t be said for the other transports. While a limited quantity of his newest Fusion had been passed out to them, most didn’t have the same sort of protection. This became obvious when more than half of them stopped firing their weapons and spells and their vessels began to slowly drift to the ground when everyone on board was suddenly unable to think straight. The others managed to maintain their altitude, but their damage outputs were severely limited.
It was when the Parademons were getting closer to the transports, intending to rip them all apart with their tentacles, most likely, that The Hopper began to move at Nedira’s direction. Dropping down below and under the nearest sentry monster, the Volunteers and his friends began to attack the Parademon from behind and below, using their Multi-Purpose Arsenals to inflict a number of different Effects upon their target. When someone used a Vacuum Blast Effect and a Heavy Load next to each other, they managed to get through the crystalized shields and actually inflict a bit of damage to the vulnerable eyes hiding behind the tentacles. It wasn’t enough to harm the monster significantly, but it certainly got its attention – as evidenced by the localized pressure on those in The Hopper, stronger than it was before. Again, Larek and the others shrugged it off, but that wasn’t exactly the worst part of getting that particular Parademon’s attention.
It was that every All-seeing Parademon now saw The Hopper as the biggest threat, and it had garnered the attention of each and every one of them.
“We’ve got this, Larek; you just figure out how to stop the Diregate from spitting out all of these monsters.”
The Divine Fusionist was about to jump in to help, but now that he’d been given permission to focus on the Diregate again, he devoted nearly all of his attention back toward cutting or blocking the connection. A small portion of his focus was on the battle going on around him, but he had confidence in the others to get this done without his help.
Alright, let’s see if I can figure out how to stop this thing….
