The blow had been so unexpected that Larek hadn’t seen the giant root until it was already making contact with The Hopper. The Corruption it gave off was connected to the massive tree, which permeated the entire area so that it was difficult to differentiate any separate parts that it possessed. As a result, he wasn’t able to move their transport out of the way, nor even start to move it before it was too late.
Everyone was knocked off their feet as the wooden disc was hit so hard that it cracked at the point of impact, shattering a good 10 feet of the rounded wall, along with the roof and floor. Time seemed to slow down as his mind sped up his perception of his current circumstances, and even as he was flying toward the new entrance along with everyone else inside, he was already forming a Pattern construct that sealed up the hole. It was just in time to not only catch them, but also to block the explosions as the various Freeze-Delayed Mist Fusions were broken, along with the wall. It took about a second for the Mana to violently erupt out of the three Fusions that were ruptured as a result of the blow, and thankfully The Hopper was already moving away from them when they occurred.
As he and all of the others slammed into the Pattern barrier he’d constructed across the hole, they had a front-row view of the explosions as they exploded right next to the humongous, 100-foot-wide root that had hit them. Chunks of the tree’s appendage were blown off of the root, even as the shockwave of the explosion sent them hurtling away even faster than they already were. The impact and the force of the shockwave also sent them spinning uncontrollably, forcing everyone against the interior of the Pattern barrier as they strained to move.
It turned out that being nearly weightless, and then having their vessel violently flipped over, was much worse than one would think. It seemed as though it didn’t really matter that they didn’t weigh as much as they normally would, as the spinning force continued to act like it would if that effect wasn’t active.
Larek attempted to stabilize The Hopper with the Fusions controlling their thrusting power, but before he could really concentrate on them with everything that was going on at the moment, a deep, penetrating sound that he could see vibrating the vessel reverberated through the area. It took him a half-second to realize that it was coming from the enormous tree, as it was likely a scream of pain because of what had happened with the explosion against its root.
That didn’t help him, though, because the sound was so intense that it seemed to overload the ability for the Fusions on board The Hopper to recognize his mental commands. One out of every ten or so commands were actually “heard”, which simply resulted in the vessel wildly flipping in a different direction, as he couldn’t stabilize it well enough. By the time the sound finally faded away, it was already too late, as he heard and saw them slam into the jungle-filled ground, snapping trees from the speed of their impact, before bouncing off the jungle floor.
Fortunately, the weight reduction proved by the Buoyant Sphere Fusion was still active, so The Hopper wasn’t damaged any further, but the same couldn’t be said for those inside. As they settled to a stop after bouncing up and down between the ground and the trees overhead, Larek looked around to see everyone laying on the floor of the wooden vessel, groaning in different states of distress – including himself as his body naturally recovered.
Pattern Manipulation has reached Level 116!
Body Regeneration has reached Level 73!
Even with a void-based protective Fusion over their bodies to prevent impacts from hurting them, being violently flipped while being nearly crushed against the Pattern barrier he’d created wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience. More than a few of the Volunteers were actually throwing up as he saw them starting to move and get up, which ended up disappearing into the void, thankfully, and he could feel more than a few Healing Surge Fusions activate to help repair some of the damage their bodies had sustained in the numerous impacts The Hopper had suffered.
“Are you alright?” he quickly asked Nedira even as he checked her over. A quick look didn’t reveal anything seriously wrong, for which he was thankful, but she was holding her hand up to her head.
“Ugh. Just a bit nauseous from being a bit dizzy, but I’ll be fine,” she said, waving off his help as she simply sat on the floor.
Glancing past her, he could see the rest of his friends were also recovering from the ordeal, and thankfully none of them were seriously injured – the same as Nedira and the Volunteers. It would take them a few minutes to recover fully, he suspected, but they wouldn’t be any worse for wear.
Mygor and Paluna were another matter entirely. Quickly moving to their sides as they lay in a pile of tangled limbs, he immediately reached out with his Magical Detection Skill and found that both of them were still alive – but just barely. Broken bones and internal bleeding were the least of their worries, as Paluna had a small portion of her skull crushed, and Mygor’s spine appeared to be snapped in two. Even if she had an extremely high Body Regeneration Skill, it was unlikely that Paluna would survive with all the damage to her body, but especially her head, and Mygor was quickly bleeding out.
Pulling out two Healing Surge Fusions from his Void Pocket sack, he slapped them onto the back of Mygor and the head of Paluna as he activated them, and then sat back and hoped that he had been fast enough. Ideally, he would use Graduated Parahealing on Mygor, but it worked much slower and with less urgency than Healing Surge; and if he wanted to ensure the Mage lived, he needed to go with the good stuff. It would likely leave him in a coma for a while, but at least he would survive.
It was at that point, when the two SIC Lieutenants were being healed, that Larek stretched out his senses as he realized that just because they had crashed didn’t mean they were out of danger. He tried to detect if there was another gigantic root that was about to slam down on them and crush the wooden vessel completely, but the same Corruption permeating the environment made it impossible without any visuals. It was possible that he might detect one of those roots once it was close enough, but that wouldn’t give him any time to move The Hopper down within the jungle. He briefly thought about bringing it up above the level of the jungle trees surrounding them, but he didn’t want to make them into a target; he had to imagine that there was a reason they hadn’t been smashed again, and he didn’t want to tempt the massive tree into hitting them out of the sky.
“I can’t believe one of these things actually exists at this size,” Nedira said as she came up next to Larek, looking down at the two SIC members as their bodies started to repair themselves. Already he could see that any of the excess fat in their flesh was being consumed as part of the healing process, and once they finally healed all the way, they would probably appear extremely emaciated – especially Mygor. Paluna would probably bounce back fairly quickly with some food in her body, but the Mage was another issue. He was probably looking at weeks of recovery, including the coma into which he would inevitably slip once the healing was finished.
“What thing? The tree?” Bartholomew asked, also coming up to check on his former colleagues.
“Of course, the tree,” Nedira said, waving her hand toward the giant arboreal presence they could all practically feel guarding the Aperture. “A Verdant Treehemoth. It could be called something else at that size, as the only one seen from a Scission was only a fraction of that size, but it’s the closest to what was described in our classes.”
Bartholomew shook his head. “I don’t remember that one. Anything useful you can tell us about it?”
“Not really,” she replied, shaking her head as well. “It was destroyed before the SIC could get too much information on its abilities, but it was supposedly mobile and used its roots to attack. That was enough to make the SIC nervous at the time, because those roots were strong and long enough, not only to reach the walls around the capital, but to break it down, as well. The defenders on the wall threw everything they had at it and practically obliterated the Treehemoth, but there was no consensus on what its weakness really was. Fire, though, was ruled out, as it wasn’t necessarily immune; instead it was highly resistant to being caught on fire.”Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Larek thought it was good to know at least a little bit of what they were going up against, but without knowing how to damage something the size of the Verdant Treehemoth, he was at a loss of how to even approach killing it. Therefore, he would ignore it as much as it seemed to be ignoring them at the moment, while concentrating his efforts on finding where the SIC had gotten to. He could still feel them out there somewhere, with the sense of them a little bit stronger now that they were basically grounded, but it didn’t tell him where they were or if they were even still fighting.
“What’s the plan?” Penelope demanded, making her way over to the others with Vivienne in tow. Instead of answering, Larek reached out and grabbed both of the Healing Surge Fusions from the two SIC members as he deactivated them. Bartholomew helped to rearrange them both so that they weren’t tangled up with each other, and as he had predicted, Mygor looked like a desiccated corpse that was just barely hanging onto life. While Paluna appeared thinner, she wasn’t nearly as bad as the Mage. Both of them were still unconscious, though, and it appeared that it would probably be a few hours before the Martial woke up.
“First, is everyone else alright?” he asked the entire crew aboard The Hopper. His friends all gave him an affirmative, and the Volunteers all flashed him a thumbs-up, though a few of them still maintained a bit of a rattled appearance. Good enough. “Alright, then. Our priority in coming here hasn’t changed, and that is to find the SIC and rescue them if necessary, while also looking for their leadership. I can feel that there are thousands of magical signatures nearby, as well as quite a few of the non-magical variety, indicating civilians, but they are difficult to pinpoint. At this point, I can only assume that they may have set up some sort of defensive position to protect themselves; but where it is exactly, I don’t know. What we need is more information, such as where the incoming monsters’ reinforcements are heading, as that may give us a better idea of where they might be holding out.”
He''d already noticed earlier, just before seeing the enormous tree, that all the rivers that led toward the center of the Calamity had disappeared, sinking into the ground as if the enormous tree was absorbing it all to fuel its growth, but he hadn’t been able to see where all the monster reinforcements had been heading. With so much Corruption infusing the area, it was next to impossible to detect nearby monsters, so he would have to get a better vantage point – which meant taking The Hopper back up.
“Is that safe?” Nedira asked when he mentioned that.
“Probably not,” he told her when he thought about it for a few seconds. “You know, it would probably be better if I just went up by myself.”
“No! I don’t want you risking yourself like that!”
“It’s the only thing I can think of – unless you want to wander around the jungle and hope that we eventually run into something?”
None of them seemed like they wanted to do that, especially after seeing how large the area around the enormous tree was. They could spend days wandering around without seeing anything – if they didn’t get lost in the process.
“It’ll just be for a few minutes, and I have much more maneuverability than The Hopper on one of my constructs. I promise, I’ll be as safe as I can be up there.”
Nedira didn’t really have any other protests, and he had to promise to not risk himself, which he was more than happy to agree to. The last thing he wanted was to put himself or the others in danger unnecessarily.
It didn’t take long before he was outside The Hopper on a Pattern platform construct attached to his lower legs. With a look at Nedira and the others watching him outside the hole in the wooden vessel, he cautiously lifted into the air, making his way through the overhanging leaves of the trees above, before poking his head out above their level. The sight of the Treehemoth nearly overwhelmed him with its sheer size as he had another look at it, and he had to shake his head to pull his gaze away. The part of him that was still a Logger wondered if he would be able to chop it down if he was given enough time, while his practical side couldn’t even imagine how heavy it would be and whether it would crack the world upon impact with the ground.
Unfortunately, just sticking his head out above the tops of the jungle trees didn’t help him to determine where the SIC was located, nor was he able to see any monster reinforcements from his position. That meant he had to go up higher, which was more than a bit dangerous.
Larek barely lifted fully past the nearest tree when he saw a root approximately half a mile away lift out from the ground, the dirt and vegetation that had been camouflaging its presence falling away as it moved quickly in his direction. Not wanting it to slam down on him like it was squishing a bug, which would put his friends below in danger, he shot up and away from them, with one eye on the root and his other on the ground as he attempted to find any monster reinforcements.
The Treehemoth’s natural appendage was fast as it whipped at him, but he was able to move much faster. He was suddenly glad that he hadn’t brought The Hopper up, as he was fairly certain that he wouldn’t have been able to move it fast enough to make a difference. As it was, he was able to pass above the swinging root as it followed through with its blow, and it took the root a few seconds to stop its momentum and swing back towards him. Larek took that time to try and home in on the sense of magical signatures he felt, and he drifted a bit more toward the massive tree protecting the Calamity’s Aperture.
He dropped underneath the root this time when it attempted to smash into him again, but his attention was caught by movement down below. Moving through the jungle was an 8-foot-tall, grey-furred monster with 6 extremely long legs below a relatively long but thin body, and it sped around the trees with an agility that was surprising because it appeared a bit ungainly at first glance. With his attention now fixed upon it as it headed for the Treehemoth, Larek was still aware enough that he was able to dodge the next root attack, but his distracted focus nearly led to his downfall when he nearly missed a second root that came out of nowhere.
Seeing it coming for him out of the corner of his eye at the last second, he was able to create another Pattern construct below his feet and angled it so that it covered his body. It was a simple, flat square that he created in the nick of time as he lifted himself slightly upwards, and the giant root that hit the angled Pattern construct gave him enough of a boost to lift him further into the air without being hit. He wasn’t exactly sure what would happen if the root hit him even with his Protection of the Void, but he wasn’t willing to test it just yet.
When he was about 400 feet above the ground, he spotted the monster he’d been tracking, but he also saw something else.
A dozen more roots lifted up from the ground, exposing where they had been lying in wait until a threat approached, as they started moving toward him. Not wanting to lose his lead on where the SIC might be, he continued following the monster below him as he dropped down below the tops of the jungle trees, drifting close to the ground as he chased after it. A second after he drifted into the trees, he barely avoided being crushed by a root that crashed down where he had just been, the trees and vegetation beneath the incredibly heavy appendage absolutely obliterated in the process.
Staring above him and out through the few breaks in the trees, he used the speed of his mind to predict where the next roots were going to land, and he barely managed to dodge them as they slammed into the ground with incredible force. The displaced air and debris caused by the impacts flew past him without affecting him or his vision, but he was certainly conscious of how close he came to falling victim to the same fate.
All 14 roots that he’d seen rise into the air to smack into him eventually slammed down as he sped through the trees while he chased the monster reinforcement, creating a swath of destruction that stretched for a half-mile before it stopped. He kept expecting all the roots to continue attempting to crush him, especially as he was getting closer to the Treehemoth, but they seemed to disappear after their initial impacts. It was almost as if they weren’t able to see him clearly while within the jungle trees, considering how poorly they had been aimed, but the last thing he was going to do was complain.
It took longer than he thought to finally arrive at the destination, which appeared to be right at the base of the Treehemoth. Larek stayed on the edge of the jungle tree line as the vegetation tapered off quickly, a clear demarcation of where the environment ended and the monster began. He wasn’t exactly sure if the smaller trees were blocking the Treehemoth’s sight of him or not, but he didn’t feel like testing that theory yet. Instead, he floated there as he watched a hole in the bark of the enormous Treehemoth open up, the hard, ridged surface pulling back to expose a dark passage that seemed to lead down. As soon as the monster passed within, the bark flowed back over the hole and covered it up, so that within seconds it was as if it had never been there.
Looking to his left and right along the base of the tree, he could see additional holes being opened here and there as scattered monster reinforcements arrived from different locations and descended into the giant tree, disappearing as if the Treehemoth was eating or absorbing them. He had no proof of that, nor would it make any sense for it to do that to its defenders, but he didn’t know either way.
What he did know, however, was that the general sense of magical signatures he’d felt before was much stronger now that he was close to the Treehemoth…
…and it was even stronger when the hole had temporarily opened along its base.