Thousands of 8-foot-tall, vaguely female figures made of wood emerged from all over the sphere, their long arms ending in thin branches extending in front of them to grab onto the roots near them, swinging or sliding down toward the bottom.


    “Juvenile Dryads,” Nedira pointed out unnecessarily, as Larek figured that was what they were, at least based on their appearance. As they swarmed through the roots toward the falling Felis Stalker, their larger cousins also emerged from the sphere, standing approximately a dozen feet tall and an extra foot in width compared to the Juvenile variety. The Elder Dryads appeared faster and stronger, as well, as despite emerging from the wooden walls of the sphere after the Juveniles, they used their abilities to affect the material around them to pull them forward, extending branches from their bodies to connect with the roots and fling themselves along at incredible speed.


    As a result, by the time the Stalker hit the floor of the sphere, it was surrounded by a dozen Elder Dryads and a smattering of Juveniles, who attacked in concert, with wooden projectile javelins formed from seemingly nothing and flung toward the cat-like construct, accompanied by dozens of sharp branches that stabbed like spears. Even if he hadn’t mentally ordered the Felis Stalker to not fight back, he doubted it would’ve survived much longer, as the overwhelming assault was too much even for the strong Pattern Cohesion forming its shell.


    In fact, as he observed the attacks, they seemed quicker and hit with more force than he would’ve normally expected, especially from the weaker Juvenile Dryads, and he could visually see a faint dark-green aura around them that hinted that they were being enhanced in some way. He could only assume that their proximity with such a massive tree gave them a boost somehow, as their Nature-based forms would “naturally” become stronger in the presence of such a monster.


    His construct only survived a couple of seconds before it was destroyed, the Aetheric Force inside of it having been released into the environment, which was absorbed by a number of nearby roots. Larek was able to see them slightly speed up in their rhythmic pulsing, at least temporarily, but it appeared as though spreading out the purity of the AF among multiple roots was enough to make it marginally safer.


    That’s good to know.


    What was also interesting to note was that the Dryads only stuck around for a few seconds after the construct was destroyed, before seeming to melt into the wooden sphere around them, disappearing without a visual trace. However, now that he knew what he was looking for, he could sense them spreading through the entire outer shell of the spherical space, moving around to cover its entire area with the speed of thought; it quickly became obvious that they could move through the wood faster than they could outside of it, treating it as a medium for transportation rather than an impediment.


    What shouldn’t have surprised him, but did anyways, was the fact that there were more Dryads inside the wood surrounding the spherical space than had emerged. Those that made an appearance had only been a fraction of what he could sense, but there were so many hidden in the walls that it was impossible for him to give more than a guesstimate of around 10,000 Juvenile Dryads with another 1,000 of the Elder variety.


    But that wasn’t all. There were also dense concentrations of Corrupted AF that were different than that of the Dryads, which he could only assume were the Nature Elementals that had been mentioned to him before as the third-tier monster commonly found near the center of the Calamity, with the Treehemoth being the fourth-tier. As a third-tier, evolved monster, they were supposedly large and dangerous, though he hadn’t gotten a better description than that; the dense concentrations of Corrupted AF he sensed, though, certainly indicated that what he’d been told was probably fairly accurate.


    “So… that just happened.”


    The Fusionist looked at Nedira, who – like everyone else – appeared shocked at the sudden appearance and subsequent disappearance of the Dryads. He grunted in acknowledgement.


    “See? It’s a trap,” Bartholomew said with a tone of vindication, though there was a note of despair in there as well.


    “Yes, but we should be able to handle those things, despite their numbers. We have our powerful Fusions, after all, which make us all but invulnerable,” Penelope stated confidently.


    Larek wanted to refute what she’d said, as they were far from invulnerable, but he stopped as he realized she was largely correct. There wasn’t much that could hurt them, due to their Protection of the Void Fusions, and they had enough firepower in the form of their staves to absolutely devastate whatever attacked them. Still, neither of those things would necessarily help to free the captive SIC members, or at least free them safely.


    Fortunately, he hadn’t been idle as they watched all of the events unfold inside the sphere. His mind had been evaluating all of the information he’d gained from watching everything and comparing them to his senses via Magical Detection, and he was fairly confident he had a plan that had a decent chance of working. First, though, there was one more test that he had to perform in order to know for sure.


    “What are you—?” Nedira started to ask as he stepped forward, crossing over the threshold to the sphere. There was no physical barrier that he passed through to cross the threshold, but there was certainly a different feel to the space; it was a hushed, expectant sensation, as if it was just waiting for something to make noise before striking. He tensed up momentarily as he waited for something to either attack him or show some sign that he had been detected, but after a few seconds, nothing happened.


    “What—? Why aren’t they attacking you?” Bartholomew asked, though his voice was muted to the Fusionist’s hearing and he was clearly perplexed – which matched the expressions of everyone else.


    Larek walked back over to the group, exiting the sphere, before he spoke. “Sorry for the scare; I needed to make sure I was correct in my assumption.” He waved toward the inside of the large spherical space. “I believe that the roots can only detect foreign concentrations of Aetheric Force, which is why they didn’t sense me; our defensive Fusion essentially expels our AF away from us, leaving no large concentrations there for them to latch onto. We’re basically invisible to them, though I don’t believe we’re undetectable; if you notice how silent it is in there, I think that the Treehemoth – or whatever is controlling all of these roots and the monsters in the walls – can sense vibrations, which also includes sound.”


    “So, we just have to be quiet?” Penelope asked incredulously.


    Larek nodded. “Very quiet,” he stressed.


    “But what about the SIC? How are we going to free them from the roots without making any noise? I assume that cutting them down would likely bring a lot of attention that we would prefer to avoid?”


    In answer to Bartholomew, the Fusionist grinned.


    Nedira barked out a soft laugh. “That’s a bit of an evil grin; what do you have planned?”


    “You’ll just have to wait and see. For now, this is what I have in mind….”


    * * *


    Nedira crept along the bottom edge of the wooden sphere, cautiously navigating her way around the numerous roots that seemed randomly placed along its length. She used all of her new Martial stats to move as silently as possible, as making more than a light scuff in the massive space that was pregnant with poised action could throw off their entire plan. It took a few minutes to finally arrive at her destination, and looking up, she saw that Larek had beaten her to his own position across from the entrance they’d passed through – though that wasn’t that much of a surprise. There was very little that he did nowadays that was more than briefly shocking, as his ability to turn the world on its head had forced her to become slightly numb to all of the changes.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Not that those changes were bad; on the contrary, most of them were incredible and would help them and those in the future survive against the Apertures and the monsters they spawned. At the same time, those changes scared her a little with how sudden they’d come about – and Larek acted like doing something “impossible,” such as granting people the opportunity to become Guardians, who had both Mage and Martial abilities, was simply just another Fusion that he’d had fun creating. Given his one-track mind when it came to his love of Fusions, however, she supposed that it made sense how he treated his creations.


    Each one was just a step toward something greater.


    And as crazy and scary as it was, it all contributed to why she loved him.


    She flashed a smile at her betrothed, who nodded seriously back; she didn’t mind, because this wasn’t exactly a time for displaying affection. They had a job to do, after all – and it was either going to go smoothly, or all hell was about to break loose. Or both, she supposed, if it goes the way I think it will.


    There wasn’t much that she or the others scattered around the space had to do right now, as the next stage in Larek’s plan was all him. As much as she would love to be able to help with whatever mysterious process he was going to engage in, he had briefly mentioned that it had to do with Aetheric Force – which wasn’t something that she could manipulate as he seemingly could.


    Still, she braced for what was about to happen, because their part would be coming soon enough – and it was about to get dangerous. She was doubly glad that she had one of the powerful Protection of the Void Fusions covering her body, because they were about to bring about a swathe of destruction at a scale at which she’d never participated before.


    Peering through the hundreds of roots toward the entrance, Nedira caught a glimpse of movement. It didn’t take long before she saw a dozen roots detach from a particular cluster, and she witnessed the natural appendages spear into Larek’s Felis Stalker constructs, before quickly enveloping them and sending them up their length to join the SIC members up above as additional sources of Pure Aetheric Force. So far, this was going according to the plan that he’d laid out, but she had no idea what was going to happen next.


    It was hard to discern exactly when the constructs emerged again up above, but the abrupt change in the rhythmic, pulsing, green glow illuminating that section told her that the process of sucking the Pure AF from the Stalkers had begun. Just when she was expecting the roots to drop them, there was a sound of rustling and tearing, which was loud in the complete silence of the sphere, and she looked over to see Larek staring upward, his face a study of concentration and determination. She thought she even saw sweat starting to form on his brow from some unseen effort, but it might have been her imagination; regardless, at the sight of his shoulders slightly relaxing and an inaudible but clearly deep breath, he flashed another evil grin.


    That was when all hell broke loose.


    The pulsing of the glow in that particular cluster of roots suddenly sped up and became blindingly erratic, which was accompanied by a shaking of the entire hollow sphere, and an incredibly loud groaning that sounded like the Treehemoth above was being ripped apart in pain. A second later, figures began to emerge from the wood near Nedira, and she immediately used her VREP staff to blast a stream of flaming balls into the back of the Juvenile Dryad’s head, which blasted apart from the sudden attack. Before it could fall dead to the floor of the sphere, Nedira was already targeting another nearby Dryad with her VREP staff in her right hand, while her left hand held the much more powerful VED staff and pointed off to where she could see even more Dryads emerging from the wood. A Magnitude 4 explosion obliterated more than a dozen Dryads instantly, but there were even more coming out all around her.


    Soon enough, she lost all track of what was going on around her as the sphere erupted with the sounds of wood cracking and explosions going off all around, as the others also began the process of defending the center of the space where Larek was now located. Her betrothed had passed out VED staves to all the Volunteers, as those were going to be necessary to handle the sheer number of foes they were about to face; and from her own perspective, it was just barely enough to hold back the tide. Fortunately, each of the staves he had passed out were of the new variety, which absorbed ambient Mana from much further away than the local environment. Otherwise, they would’ve run out of Mana, with everyone using so much in a relatively small area.


    Nedira caught a glimpse of Larek near the cluster of roots holding the SIC members, while she shot another trio of Juvenile Dryads in the back as they attempted to get past her, and he was currently using his halberd to slice through the spasming appendages, each of which seemed to be shriveling up and expanding uncontrollably. She also noticed that bodies were falling from above him, which were being caught by angled Pattern constructs that acted like slides, depositing them safely on the floor. The ones she saw were splayed out on the floor of the sphere, clearly unconscious, but they were also somehow alive – and their skin was gradually lightening up as the greenish brown appearance began to fade. She wasn’t sure how he did it, but her betrothed had somehow not only forced the roots to release the captives but also compelled them to remove whatever they were doing to keep them alive with whatever nutrients were being pumped into them. Whether or not the SIC members would still survive once they got them out of there was still to be determined, but so far, so good.


    At least, things seemed to be going well, until there was a series of ear-splitting cracks reverberating through the sphere as much larger shapes emerged from the wood. Appearing like enormous stumps with dozens of arms and numerous roots as legs, the Nature Elementals looked like miniature versions of the Treehemoth – but “miniature” was only loosely used in this context. In reality, they were a huge step up from the Elder Dryads, which were stronger and faster – but couldn’t handle being exploded very well – as they were each 40 feet tall and half that wide, and they flowed along the wooden interior of the sphere wall with incredible speed, so much so that Nedira was barely able to react before she was hit with a barrage of branches and roots.


    Or she would’ve been hit by them, if it wasn’t for her Protection of the Void. Instead, all of them appeared to pass right into her, but they were really sent into the void surrounding her; the Nature Elemental apparently wasn’t intelligent enough to work out what happened, because it continued to try to impale or smash her with its powerful limbs – right before she hit it with three Magnitude 5 explosions point-blank, sending it careening away. As the smoldering remains of the monster landed approximately 50 feet from her, she thought she had probably killed it, but it started to reform as it pulled wood from the shell of the sphere, essentially healing itself.


    So, she blasted it again before it could do more than smother the flames still burning on it, sending shrapnel flying in all directions. A second explosion finally finished it off, as more than 90% of its overall “body” was obliterated or sent flying, and she gave herself a self-satisfied smile as she saw it stop moving at all.


    But her successful pat on the back was cut short when two more Nature Elementals assaulted her from the sides, and it was all she could do to push them back with additional explosions. A third joined in a few seconds later, accompanied by Dryads that appeared thirsty for her blood, and she was dual-wielding her staves in a circle, pushing them back over and over as they attempted to swarm her. It was only after about a minute of this that she realized that for every Dryad or Nature Elemental that she killed, their remains were somehow being absorbed by the Treehemoth, and she had a feeling that it was reusing those remains to make additional foes. She couldn’t be sure, but some innate intuition told her that this was happening, whether she could prove it or not.


    Larek, you better hurry up with whatever you’re doing, because things are going from bad to worse. While she wasn’t too worried for her safety, as her Protection of the Void would keep her from being touched by these monsters, the same couldn’t be said for the SIC members that the Fusionist was saving from the roots. It was only a matter of time before the monsters realized they couldn’t kill her – or another of the other Volunteers, who were still audibly fighting as hard as she was – and go for the more vulnerable people near Larek.


    As thousands of monsters that weren’t Dryads or Nature Elementals began to rain down from above, as they were released by the roots, she began to worry. While more than half of them appeared too weak to be much of a threat, there were as many or more of these half-drained monsters than the ones already attacking them. While she and the others were doing their best to keep their attention, it was inevitable that it wouldn’t be enough after a while – especially since they couldn’t go all-out right now. There was too much risk that any high-Magnitude explosions would end up harming the unprotected SIC members that Larek was still actively rescuing.


    But something had to change soon, because otherwise there wouldn’t be anyone left to save.