Dodging the enormous battleaxe that attempted to detach his legs from his upper body, Larek flew straight up, aiming his VED staff down below before triggering it multiple times with Magnitude 8 explosions. As the detonations rang out, sending multiple shockwaves through the air, ruffling his hair as he stared downward, he grunted in consternation to see the enormous skeletal monstrosity still standing on 4 of its 6 legs. It was holding up the weapon it had somehow formed from the necrotic energy it had absorbed from the orb, and he could see that it had blocked the majority of the explosions with the flat of the axe – though it obviously couldn’t block it all, as evidenced by the pair of shattered legs.
Unfortunately, those legs seemed to be reforming, even as he stared at the still-intact behemoth of bone, an abomination reaching 30 feet tall and twice that wide. It looked like some sort of crab with how it spread itself out, scuttling along with its extra legs, but instead of two large claws, it had 6 arms – 4 of which were used to swing the 40-foot-long battleaxe with a head that was at least 20 feet wide.
Well, crap. Guess it’s time for something else.
Larek hadn’t wanted to see what the Bone Wraith was going to transform into approximately 30 seconds ago, so he’d attempted to blow it up with his staff during its transformation. When the explosive force was instead sucked into the changing skeletal monster, seeming to add to whatever was going on, he then took to hacking it apart with his halberd. Unfortunately, no matter where he slammed his weapon into it, he would easily break through the bone, only for it to repair itself as soon as his halberd was withdrawn. A hastily created hollow sphere of Pattern Cohesion the size of himself was then slammed into the growing monstrosity, but his attempt to break more of it apart while he attacked with his weapon was all for naught, as it completed its transformation before he could destroy it.
That was when he had to dodge out of the way of the enormous battleaxe that the skeletal monstrosity had somehow formed, and the black-metaled weapon had swung faster than he had expected. While his Protection of the Void would likely protect him if it hit him, Larek didn’t want to chance it; dodging seemed preferable, especially since he was still faster than his opponent.
But now it appeared as though the explosive detonations formed by his VED staff weren’t quite strong enough to kill the evolved monster; in fact, he thought that the monster might even be partially resistant to those detonations, because it absorbed his attempts to destroy it while it was forming. Of course, he could probably stay airborne and constantly bombard it with a constant barrage of explosions, eventually wearing it down, but already he could sense another horde of Bone Wraiths nearing his location. He didn’t want to chance that this monstrosity would protect them while they went for his Fusion, only for even more of the Wraiths to evolve.
Instead, he switched tactics and began forming large boulders near the monstrosity, which then detonated with a hail of sharp shrapnel. The stone shards were moving so fast and hit with such force that they splintered any bone that they came in contact with, but the skeletal monstrosity was quick to protect its enormous head, which was just barely covered by its battleaxe as it moved it around to block the shrapnel.
This was just a distraction, however, as he pulled out and activated a pair of Fusions simultaneously, before dropping them down below to either side of the evolved monster. As his Vacuum Blasts activated near the monstrosity, he could see it beginning to be ripped apart as it was pulled in two different directions. But before it could be ripped apart, his opponent bent its legs and jumped straight up, somehow escaping the vacuum Effect of the Fusions as it launched straight toward Larek. His momentary surprise was short-lived as he dodged out of the way with his Pattern platform underneath him, sending a high-powered stream of acid at the ascending monster. Unfortunately, all he managed to do was etch a bit into the monstrosity’s axe as it deftly blocked the acid, the metal durable enough to resist most of the acidic effect.
This thing is smarter than I gave it credit for.
Retreating back toward the Fusions on the ground, he watched as his Vacuum Blasts finished sucking in all of the air and blasted them outwards, catching the just-arriving horde of Bone Wraiths in its range. As they were blown backwards, out of his area of illumination, he wasn’t sure whether they lived or not, because he had his own problems to worry about – such as the plummeting behemoth of bone that had managed to control its descent so that it was aimed straight toward him.
Scrambling to find a solution, he considered what he had in his Void Pocket sack that could work against this thing. Unfortunately, he’d emptied out the majority of his older Fusions recently in anticipation of updating what he had stored inside, so he didn’t have much to choose from; what he’d already had should’ve been more than enough to handle most problems he might run into, short of being attacked by some Gergasi.
But he did have a few things.
Whipping out his Heavy Load Fusion, he aimed it at the descending monstrosity, and he heard bone cracking as the axe that attempted to block the Effect was forcefully slammed against the head behind it, damaging more than he’d been able to before. While the axe was occupied and held in place, he used his VED staff to crack a few Magnitude 10 boulders right next to its massive body, shattering the majority of its bone into pieces – which then seemed to be pulled into it again with a dark, magical force that set to repairing it. However, before it could do that, Larek tossed his staff up in the air, pulled out a Portable Lifter Fusion, and began grabbing spherical chunks of shattered bone and flinging them away into the darkness. Once those chunks were more than a few dozen feet away from its body, the magical effect seemed to fade, meaning that it couldn’t simply reattach and repair what had been shattered.
Unfortunately, before he could rip it all away, the evolved monster fell through where Larek was flying, forcing him to fly away lest it smack into him, which released its axe from the hold Heavy Load had on it. The monstrosity slammed heavily and uncontrolled into the dirt below, causing even more damage to its overall body, which he could see, even now, was doing its best to repair itself with a dark, magical force. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Nope, don’t think so,” he said, as he swooped down, forming a large sawblade of Pattern Cohesion, pumping nearly 50,000 of his Pattern into it, as he began rotating it around his body. Another few seconds had him forming a pair of clones using his plentiful Aetheric Force, and he sent the halberd-wielding figures down to start hacking apart the monster while it attempted to recover.
Meanwhile, he took something else out of his sack on an impulse, grinning as he was interested to see what it could do in a situation like this. At the same time, he flew to the side, where he caught the descending staff that he’d thrown upwards, aiming toward the downed skeletal behemoth.
A boulder detonation near its face caused the monstrosity to swing its axe around just in time to block it from the attack, and he stowed the staff away even as he used Heavy Load again, trapping it against its head – essentially creating an immovable shield that he couldn’t easily get past. That was fine, though, as his clones were already at work, hacking through every piece of bone they could target with their halberds, before grabbing the pieces and throwing them away. Larek joined in as he swept in close, absolutely obliterating whatever his Pattern saw blade cut through as he held the Heavy Load Fusion on the axe. Unfortunately, he momentarily forgot that his opponent had more than just the few arms now currently attempting to move its axe, and a bony fist the size of his torso hit him from the side – and passed right into the Void surrounding the Fusionist.
But its momentum was such that its wrist clipped the Pattern platform underneath his feet, causing it to shatter since he hadn’t invested as much Pattern Cohesion into it as into his saw blades, for example. As he fell a few feet while he recovered from the sudden blow, his Heavy Load Fusion was taken off-course, freeing the monstrosity’s battleaxe. A quick swing and one of his unsuspecting clones was annihilated, cut in half by the blow; its backswing attempted to shear through Larek as he dropped, but he’d recovered by making another platform under his feet, this time making it extra strong so that the same thing didn’t happen again. As such, he was able to avoid it completely, but in the process, he’d accidentally dropped the Heavy Load Fusion beneath him.
Rather than go after it, he left his remaining clone to whittle away the lower body of the monster as it struggled to move, while he went straight for the head as he pulled his VED staff out again. As expected, the battleaxe was moved to block whatever he attacked with, but he didn’t activate his staff; instead, he concentrated on the other Fusion he’d pulled out a moment ago.
As Shape Material activated, he focused on the head of the battleaxe the monstrosity was using, specifically where it was attached to the haft. With a mental *yoink,* the Fusion targeted a section of the metal and pulled, ripping out a chunk of the dark metal 2 feet wide and a foot thick. He wasn’t even sure it would work, given that it was formed by a monster, but apparently his Fusion didn’t care about that as the chunk he ripped out of the axe was enough to detach the head of the axe from the haft, and a second later, the double-bladed weapon toppled off the haft, falling to the dirt below.
Larek smiled. “Peek-a-boo!” he shouted, seeing what he could only interpret as a confused expression on the enormous skeletal face, as he targeted one of its open eye sockets with his staff, sending a boulder inside.
The *crack* and detonation of the boulder as it exploded inside the already-cracked skull of the monstrosity was satisfying, as its head shattered into thousands of pieces. Some of it was pulled into the void protecting him or bounced off his spinning saw blade, doing no harm to him whatsoever.
And yet, the monstrosity wasn’t finished. Even as he stared down at its inert, headless body in consternation, he could see that a new skull was starting to grow out of its neck.
“Oh, heck no. What does it take to kill this thing?” he muttered to himself.
It turned out that when he was able to chop off and then fling away more than 70% of its overall body, that was apparently enough for the magic keeping it together and regrowing its body parts to fail, and he witnessed it finally collapse into a pile of bones, before crumbling to dust. A huge influx of Aetheric Force was absorbed a moment later, amounting to over 100,000; it wasn’t nearly as much as the Treehemoth from the other Calamity, but it was still a significant amount.
A noise down below caught his attention as he flew in the air, staring at the remains of the skeletal monstrosity, and he looked to see that his inattention with his opponent had allowed another pair of Bone Wraiths to arrive, and each of them had now transformed into their spear-wielding, evolved versions. With a sigh, he swept down and obliterated them simply with his spinning saw blade, before glancing at his Reactive Necrotic Siphon Fusion.
It works… but it might be too dangerous to use. The Volunteers and the SIC should be able to handle the weaker evolutions if some Bone Wraiths are able to get a hold of the condensed necrotic energy, but I would worry about them going up against anything stronger than that. Then again, I was able to defeat it by using Fusions that I can provide for them, so maybe it won’t be too bad. Plus, with more than just one person fighting something like this monstrosity, they should be able to take it down easier. I’ll have to see what the others have to say once I tell them of the danger; it would be a tradeoff with constant damage from the aura of death, but it might be worth it to them. Especially as it would provide a plethora of Aetheric Force to them.
Either way, he was fairly certain that he’d seen the extent of what would happen with the new Fusion if it was used within the Calamity. While it was possible that something might change if he stayed longer, he didn’t think waiting for something to happen would be very beneficial.
At least his Adjustable Illuminate Area worked exactly as he expected it would. That, and his Shape Material Fusion was more versatile than expected, especially when facing something made of inorganic material like the battleaxe the monstrosity wielded.
With the decision to leave made, he gathered up his two Fusions and put the Illuminate Area away in his sack as he walked through the border. The Necrotic Siphon was carried over the threshold, where it eventually deactivated, releasing the condensed necrotic energy, which immediately dissipated into the environment without harm.
A minute later, he was on his way back to Thanesh, sooner than he expected, but filled with news that he had to share with the others. First, there was the fact that the Calamity was already slowly expanding, which was a worrisome piece of information; second, there was the success and danger of his new Fusion in regards to the aura of death inside the Calamity’s territory; and finally, the underlying, familiar feeling that hit him again as soon as he stepped over the border had disappeared when he went inside.
But more than that, after its temporary absence and then being abruptly reintroduced to it again, he was fairly certain that he now knew what it was.
And if he was correct, that could lead to a whole new set of problems. Because it wasn’t just that the Calamity was surging and expanding – which was bad enough. No, what was even worse was that someone was causing it to surge and expand.
In other words, either someone powerful enough to survive in the Calamity was psychotic and wanted to watch the world burn…
…or it was a trap.