If the previous few days had been busy, the next few after visiting the CML were downright hectic. With the introduction of the new Skills, the Fusionists in the Fusionist Sanctuary were ecstatic, throwing themselves into their work with almost reckless abandon. Projects that had only been vaguely considered were now achievable in the near future, and the output of necessary Fusions to fulfill the orders that the Volunteers requested doubled overnight. It was exactly as Larek had hoped to see, which meant that he had some time to do the necessary experimentation with his new Fusions that he’d been putting off for more important matters.

  At least, that was what he was hoping to do – but he was snatched away almost as soon as he arrived back in Thanesh.

  “We need your input on the campaign against the final Calamity,” Kimble informed him just seconds after exiting the Traveling Gate linking the Sanctuary to the city. “I don’t think we have a clear idea of the resources that we’re working with yet.”

  As a result, Larek was pulled into yet another meeting that he didn’t really want to attend, but he knew it was necessary if they wanted to be successful.

  “Now, we have a total of 512 transports that we can pull away from defense around the Kingdom, each populated by a minimum of 50 Volunteers or former SIC,” the leader of the Volunteers began, once everyone in a leadership position was in Kimble’s office. The Pyromancer had let some of his hair grow out lately, giving him a short stubble covering the majority of his head; for some reason, it gave him an even greater sense of authority than he had before. “Given the size of this Calamity in comparison to the others we’ve helped to close, this should be more than enough to—”

  “You seem to have forgotten about the nature of the monsters inhabiting the area,” General Auran interrupted. “There’s a reason why this Calamity hasn’t been closed yet; those Clockwork Elementals are dangerous.”

  Bartholomew cleared his throat. “That’s already been taken care of by Larek’s new Fusions.”

  “Have they been tested yet?” the General asked, her tone making it obvious that she already knew the answer.

  “They’ve been extensively tested—”

  “Yes, but not directly against the Elementals. For all we know, we could be flying right into a massacre when those Clockwork bastards blast us out of the sky!”

  She has a point. I haven’t actually tested them against the Clockwork Elementals yet.

  “Well, there’s no reason to believe that they won’t work,” Kimble added, a bit hesitant as he looked at Larek.

  “But you don’t actually know,” Auran protested. “Let us take a transport into the Calamity and test it out—”

  “It’s too dangerous for only a single transport – and not because of the Calamity. You know this, which is why we haven’t been able to do any official testing,” Bartholomew patiently explained. “Especially with the recent Gergasi activity in the area.”

  “That may be, but I can’t justify the danger without a test of some sort,” the General reiterated. Crossing her arms over her chest, she stared at Larek as she asked, “What else have you got for us?”

  Not expecting the question for some reason, it took him a moment to respond. “Well, uh, you all know about the Focused Light Beam and the Camouflaged Magical Energy Negation Sphere, as well as the Absolute Protective Fields and the Multi-Purpose Arsenal, which have already been distributed. But I also have a few others that I haven’t tested as of yet.”

  “So, more that haven’t been tested? How confident are you that they won’t blow up on us?”

  “I’m 100% confident that they won’t blow up,” he stated. “As for how effective they’ll be, especially against a Gergasi, I can only speculate.”

  When he really looked at everything, Larek knew that this meeting and the hesitation that the General expressed weren’t about the upcoming assault on the Calamity. They had already proven multiple times that they could handle closing the Aperture at the center of the Calamity’s territory, and even the addition of something like the Clockwork Elemental wasn’t something that would normally worry them; it was just another obstacle to overcome in order to achieve the outcome they expected.

  Instead, what everyone in the room was worried about was the Gergasi. It wasn’t until the recent activity of the Gergasi moving around the center of the Kingdom that everyone began to find excuses not to close the Calamity quite yet.

  The Fusions they were going to use were untested.

  They didn’t have enough available transports.

  Resources had to be moved around, as there weren’t enough people willing to work the fields out in the northeast.

  There was a surge in the Apertures located to the southwest of the Kingdom, so they were short on Volunteers.

  Other nations were asking for them to send help their way, as they were still adjusting to having Apertures in their lands.

  While many of these excuses were generally problems that needed to be dealt with, in the end, there was only one that was the root cause of it all:

  The final Calamity was too close to where the Gergasi were known to reside.

  They were scared – and he didn’t blame them. The pervasive sensation that permeated the air around the center of the Kingdom felt like standing next to an angry person that was on the verge of snapping and killing someone, making most people want to flee. Even traveling through the edge of that aura – which he could tell came from the Gergasi, even if he didn’t exactly know how they were creating it – had made those he traveled with jumpy and looking like they were ready to run at the first sight of something frightening.

  Going into a Calamity feeling that way was tantamount to disaster, as the sensation was undoubtedly worse being that close to the Gergasi. Even though reports showed that the feeling was slowly receding, there was no guarantee it wouldn’t increase at some inopportune time while they were fighting the monsters inside the Calamity.

  He’d seen many of them fight monsters that were so much stronger and scarier than anything he’d ever seen and come out ahead, but facing down the Gergasi was something else entirely. It didn’t matter that the Dominion magic that had originally affected their very bloodlines had been eliminated by the Illuminated Free Will Fusions in their heads; many of them had heard or seen what the Gergasi had done in the past, including to Larek – who was the strongest of them all – and they were frightened of facing that. Where there was a possibility that more than a few might end up attacking them simultaneously, then most of these people were going to do anything they could to delay such a confrontation.

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  If it was this bad now, Larek couldn’t imagine how rough it would be once they actually planned to go after the Enclave and the Gergasi inside of it.

  There was another half an hour of back-and-forth between those in leadership positions, without much really being decided. Eventually, Larek held up his hand for silence.

  “Yes, Larek?” Kimble asked, seemingly relieved that he was finally doing something.

  “Look, I was actually intending to test some of my newest Fusions before I was called here, so why don’t I go and do that? It’ll save you from having to argue about whether or not they’ll be effective, and I’ll see if they’re worthy of more being created.”

  “Where are you going to test them?” General Auran immediately asked.

  “In the Calamity, where else?” While Larek was already fairly confident of the defenses he’d created to prevent damage by the Clockwork Elementals, he knew that unless there were some actual tests performed with them, those potentially coming with him would have one more excuse for staying behind.

  Kimble was shaking his head. “That’s too dangerous to go there by yourself, Larek.”

  “Then send some Volunteers with me. I actually need to test a Fusion that will hopefully lessen or even eliminate the effect put out by the Gergasi.”

  That declaration was met with astonished silence, at least until Auran skeptically asked, “You have something to combat that oppressive feeling we get whenever we’re close to the center of the Kingdom?”

  Larek shrugged. “Perhaps. Like I said, I need to test it first. If it doesn’t work, I need to know so that I can alter it until it does work.”

  “What else are you testing? You know what, don’t tell me; I’m sending 10 of my people with you to help test whatever you’ve created.”

  Norde spoke up for the first time with a chuckle. “What happened to not wanting to put anyone in harm’s way without the tests being performed first?”

  “That was before Larek volunteered to be the one to test them. If he’s that confident in them, I expect that he’ll take care of everyone with him to the point where they’ll be more than safe.”

  She was correct; he was 99.9% sure that everything he expected to work would function exactly as he planned, so everyone would be safe with him. The biggest question was still his final defensive Fusion that he’d designed to combat the fear that was emanating from the Gergasi; he didn’t have a firm understanding of how it was accomplished, other than it being an aspect of Dominion magic that he wasn’t familiar with, so his effort in creating a defense against it was haphazard, at best. So, anyone coming with him would be perfectly safe – but might also be frightened out of their minds.

  “Good point. I’m sending 10 Volunteers along, as well,” Kimble added.

  Even though they were on the same side, there was still a bit of a rivalry between the incorporated SIC members and the Volunteers. It wasn’t enough of a rivalry to cause detrimental conflict between them, but they still intrinsically thought of themselves as completely different entities.

  “Fine with me. Shall we go now?” He was eager to get the tests done so he could make any changes, if necessary.

  “It would probably be better to go in the morning,” the General stated. “It’ll be sundown in a few hours.”

  That should still be plenty of time, but whatever. If that’s what they need to feel better, then I guess I’ll have to be fine with that. Larek nodded. “Tomorrow morning, then. An hour after dawn.”

  “We’ll ensure that we have everyone ready for you at The Hopper,” Kimble let him know with a similar nod of thanks. “In the meantime, can we actually plan this expedition into the Calamity now? If we assume, for now, that the Fusions work as intended, how are we going to deploy our resources?”

  There followed a relatively boring discussion on logistics and participant placement in the ongoing battle that was involved in closing a Calamity, but Larek had heard it multiple times before for the others. He listened with half an ear out for anything noteworthy, but it seemed extremely similar to the assault on the Undead Calamity not too long ago. The biggest difference was that they weren’t knowingly walking into a trap set by the Unspoken Response leadership and a pair of Gergasi; instead, there was just the possibility that the Gergasi would interfere and attack them while they were in the middle closing the Calamity. Fortunately, Larek was aware of that potential disaster in the making and had created a few offensive Fusions that might be able to help; but just like everything else, they needed to be tested.

  “…use the Resonating Mana Siphons?”

  The question wormed its way into his ear, and he immediately shook his head, catching the attention of almost everyone in the room. “No, there’s no point. They might have been useful against the Unspoken Response, but the Gergasi are different.”

  “How so?” Kimble asked.

  Larek thought about how to explain it. “Tell me, based on your current Specializations, how much do they reduce the Mana costs of your spells?”

  It only took Kimble a second to answer. “For my fire-based spells, at least, it’s all the way up to 35%. I’ve heard of others with around 50% or slightly more.”

  “I’m at 50% for all of my elemental spells,” General Auran, an Elementalist, added.

  Larek nodded. “Once you start hitting some big numbers in terms of stats and Skill Levels, the bonuses from Specializations start to get crazy. Not only do some of them straight-up give you additional stat points, but they can start reducing the Mana and Stama costs of spells and Battle Arts to incredible heights. While I wasn’t able to unlock some of the more spell-focused Specializations because of my inability to cast spells, I’m familiar with them enough to confidently tell you that the Gergasi are likely approaching an 80% to 90% reduction in Mana costs – and probably something similar with Stama costs for Battle Arts. Based on how much the lack of ambient Mana from what we did in the undead Calamity actually affected them, as well as the sheer amount of Mana that they possessed because of incredibly high stats, depriving any Gergasi of either Mana or Stama isn’t going to work very well.”

  “90%!” General Auran asked, almost seeming to choke on the words. “How is that possible?”

  “Skills over Level 100 and all stats over certain thresholds. It’s a bit unfair, actually.”

  Kimble gave him a side-eye. “And you know all of this how?”

  “Because I’m a little unfair, also,” Larek answered, chuckling slightly. “But that’s beside the point. Resonating Mana Siphons will only add confusion to what would likely be an already chaotic battle if the Gergasi do end up showing themselves. There’s no reason to keep them in the plan at this time. Besides, if all of my other Fusions work out, they hopefully won’t be needed.”

  “Bold statement, but I like it,” General Auran stated, looking at him approvingly. “I guess that means the Resonating Mana Siphons are out for offense; I hope you have some other things in store for us.”

  “I absolutely do.”

  That was the last thing that caught his attention during the rest of the planning discussion, and the meeting broke apart not too long after that. Heading back home with Nedira by his side, she held onto his hand as she leaned against his arm. “You do realize that I’m coming with you again tomorrow, don’t you?”

  “Of course. I won’t go anywhere without you.”

  “Good. Then let’s get some good sleep tonight, because tomorrow is likely to be a big day.”

  Larek was confused. “Why do you say that?” He was only going to be testing some of his Fusions; there was no reason why it needed to be classified as a “big day”.

  “Oh, come on. Knowing you, you’ll likely get into some sort of trouble and end up clearing the entire Calamity on your own.”

  The Divine Fusionist wanted to laugh off her comment, but he had to admit that she had a bit of a point. It wasn’t always his fault, of course, but he did frequently seem to run into situations he hadn’t planned for, and sometimes the only way out of them was to see them through. If that meant closing a Calamity on his own to save his life and the lives of those with him, then he would expend all of his effort to close a Calamity.

  Of course, he wasn’t going to admit the possibility of that happening. It would be stupid to put something like that out in the world, after all.

  “I’m sure it will be fine. We’ll be in and out in a couple of hours, and then I can get back and make any alterations as needed.”

  His betrothed just patted him on the arm instead of responding, humoring his optimistic view of the next 24 hours.