The Clockwork Calamity lived up to its name almost immediately once they crossed over the threshold, but not nearly in the way Larek expected. He had known that the environment had been altered as the Aperture in the center spread its influence through its territory, but he honestly hadn’t paid attention to the information on how it had changed from its original environment.

  He discovered the differences immediately.

  While the overall terrain hadn’t changed much since being enveloped by the Calamity, the elements that made up the environment certainly had. The long grass that spread out in a sea of green was visibly made of another material, something that looked and felt like rubber but was lighter and much more flexible. Entire forests made of fully metallicized trees appeared identical in coloring to their normal counterparts, but once he got closer, he realized that they were rusted or tarnished in particular ways to achieve the proper coloring. Exposed hillsides that would normally be rock were instead solid pieces of an indeterminate, greyish material, uniform in appearance and coloring, which stood out compared to many of the other environmental elements. Lastly, the few streams and ponds that he saw when entering the territory of the Calamity had been turned into perfectly clear glass, exposing the same uniform, grey material as seen in the hillsides, lining streambeds and the bottom of every pond.

  It was odd, to say the least, but not the strangest he’d ever seen.

  But what made it obvious that they had entered the Clockwork Calamity was the presence of so many Clockwork Rabbits. Almost immediately upon passing over the threshold, thousands of the small clockwork monsters seemed to notice their presence, despite their being camouflaged, and they hopped over the strangely sterile environment in a swarm, darting through the rubbery grass as if it was perfectly normal. Massive herds of the Rabbits could be seen flooding the environment, many of them trying to keep up with The Hopper as it flew invisibly overhead, while the rest spread out and seemed to be moving in all directions haphazardly.

  “Uh, is this normal?” Larek asked his betrothed, looking down at the veritable sea of Clockwork Rabbits below. From the information packet he’d read, he didn’t remember anything about these massive hordes of monsters.

  Nedira shook her head with a worried frown. “No, not at all. This is bad, Larek; really bad.”

  “I can see that,” he agreed. “It’ll take forever to kill all of these things once we finally assault it.”

  She shook her head again. “No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, yes, it’ll take forever, but this is bad for another reason entirely.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She pointed at the ground below, before waving further ahead. When Larek looked, he couldn’t see an end to the number of Clockwork Rabbits flooding the environment. Granted, it wasn’t as if they carpeted the landscape, taking up every available space, but there were certainly more of them visible than completely clear landscape. He was starting to understand what she was talking about.

  “There’s too many of them,” he said slowly.

  “Exactly. From all that we know about Apertures and how they operate, which you should know better than anyone, this many monsters in such concentrations shouldn’t be possible. From what it looks like, the Calamity should’ve grown and expanded its territory many times over if it was able to support this many, but for some reason… it hasn’t. How that came about, I have no idea, but it’s abnormal enough that it’s a huge worry.”

  “I thought that the towns and cities around the border had been keeping up with the culling, preventing its expansion? Was that not true?”

  “Apparently not. We don’t have a lot of contact with those directly exposed to the Calamity, as it’s too close to the Gergasi, but previous records, from before we arrived back in the Kingdom, showed that it was being managed well enough. With its lack of expansion, we had concluded that this was still true, but apparently not.”

  Larek stared at the tens of thousands of Clockwork Rabbits he could see below, trying to figure out what was happening. As Nedira had mentioned, everything they knew about Apertures and the way they operated was being turned on its head right now. The sheer number of monsters in just this small part of the Calamity’s territory shouldn’t ever happen, as it was a strain on the Aperture at the center of it all; his own research into Apertures told him that the territory couldn’t support all of these individual monsters without a lot more territory, which meant that the border of the Calamity should’ve expanded multiple times by now. In fact, if he was basing how large it should be consistent with what he was observing right now, it wouldn’t surprise him if this Calamity should be the size of the entire Kingdom, if not even bigger.

  Yet, that wasn’t the case. As he shifted his focus on the magical energy floating around the environment with a deliberate activation of his Magical Detection Skill, the sheer amount of Corrupted and Pure Aetheric Force floating around was so dense that it nearly blocked out everything else. That alone told him that something was wrong, as he’d never seen it that dense before, even when observing a reopening Aperture from a short distance away. Something was keeping the Pure Aetheric Force, at least, trapped in the area, rather than being used to fuel an expansion of the Calamity’s borders.

  As they drifted over the veritable sea of Rabbits down below, they came to the first subservient Aperture that had been swallowed up by the Calamity…

  …or what should’ve been the first subservient Aperture. Instead of a clear area where the Clockwork Rabbits wouldn’t pass over and the environment was different because of the Aperture there, they didn’t find any physical evidence of it. Nedira consulted their maps with the help of some of the former SIC members, verifying their relative position; and each time they came to the conclusion that they were exactly where a subservient Aperture should be, they were practically flabbergasted at its absence.

  “Where…? Where is it?” his betrothed asked, shaking her head at the impossibility of what they were seeing.

  Fortunately for her sanity, Larek found it – or at least what he thought were the remnants of it. What should’ve been a very wet Poison Toad environment had been entirely erased on the physical level, with no evidence that could be seen by the naked eye. But his Magical Detection Skill, along with his heightened ability to see and manipulate most types of energy, was a different story. Right where he suspected the Poison Toad Aperture originally sat, a diminishing vortex of swirling energy seemed to pulse in some unknown pattern. This energy was similar to Primal Essence, but it was missing a key component: Pure Aetheric Force. None of the nearby Pure AF was being absorbed by this vortex; instead, it seemed to be dispersing the energy it contained into the environment.

  Larek had believed that there was no way to close an Aperture permanently, as the connection to the world of Corruption was too strong for anyone or anything to overcome. But if what he suspected had happened here was true, then he was entirely wrong.

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  Something had destroyed the Aperture, and he was looking at the remnants of an explosion—no, an implosion. He wasn’t sure how it happened, but what he did know was that it wasn’t good.

  Why?

  Because this much Corrupted Aetheric Force in one area, even as large as the Calamity had been, was like a bomb waiting to go off at any point. And that point was likely when the Aperture in the center was closed, as the territory he was flying above right now was the only thing keeping it trapped in place. He tried to think about what would happen if it got out, and he blanched at the possibilities.

  Widespread Aperture openings that would make what had already occurred look like a simple prelude to a greater offensive.

  Mass death amongst those who hadn’t unlocked their full potential, as their bodies were overwhelmed by too much concentrated Corrupted Aetheric Force.

  The spontaneous creation of monsters outside of Aperture borders, along with wildly appearing Scissions.

  The list went on from there, and it just seemed to get worse as his imagination played around with the possibilities. Whatever it was that was keeping all of the energy within the Calamity’s borders, while also destroying the subservient Apertures, had to be stopped, as the dangerous levels of energy already present within the Calamity were enough to cause widespread damage, if that energy was ever released. Already, he could feel the thickness in the very air, which was obvious once he paid attention to it, and that was concerning enough that he was on the verge of panicking.

  Without another word, Larek immediately began to send The Hopper to fly outside of the Calamity.

  “Larek? What are you doing?” Nedira asked as soon as they began moving to leave.

  He didn’t answer right away, as he was focused on getting out as soon as possible. Once he saw the border to the territory up ahead, he relaxed enough to respond to her question. “The Aperture was destroyed somehow, and the Calamity is integrating its energy into the ambient environment. Unfortunately, the build-up of Aetheric Force due to the lack of the Calamity’s expansion is reaching extremely dangerous levels, and I’m worried that if we don’t leave, we could contribute to it breaking free. We need to get out of here for now, so that we can develop a way to siphon off the excess Aetheric Force safely. Otherwise, it could produce a catastrophe of never-before-seen proportions—”

  Larek’s explanation for their flight was cut off as The Hopper abruptly halted after slamming into something solid but squishy, as if it had collided with a massive sponge. The abrupt cessation of their movement caused more than a few of the Volunteers and former SIC to get swept off their feet, but none of them were hurt when they were tossed about. The Divine Fusionist also fell but caught himself before he hit the deck, so surprised at the sudden stoppage that all his vaunted balance had failed him.

  “What happened?” Nedira asked after picking herself up from where she’d been thrown, thankfully also unhurt.

  That’s a good question.

  Getting his bearings, Larek looked down and around The Hopper, trying to figure out the reason for the sudden halt in their progress. It only took him a few seconds to recognize that they were right on the border of the Calamity, not 10 feet away from exiting it completely, but there was something barring their way. An extremely dense form of Primal Essence had created a barrier of sorts along the border, and it was so concentrated that Larek had a hard time even looking at it; the strength behind it was almost unfathomable, and he mentally flinched at the sheer power it contained.

  “I’m not quite sure. There’s a barrier of condensed Primal Essence covering the border.” Larek looked to see if the barrier thinned somewhere else where they could slip through, but from all that he could observe, it appeared to be a fairly solid wall expanding across the border.

  “I… I think I see it. Oh! I just got a Skill Level in Magical Detection and Primal Essence Mastery; I can see it a little better now,” his betrothed said, squinting as she looked outside of The Hopper. “Larek, this isn’t good.”

  “I know.” The Divine Fusionist wasn’t sure what to do now, as while he might be able to manipulate the energy blocking them from escaping the Calamity, he had a feeling that it would be the equivalent of taking a small bucketful of it out of a figurative ocean. In other words, it wasn’t going to make much difference.

  “How do we get through it?”

  Another good question – and one that I don’t have the answer to.

  Instead of answering, Larek tried to figure out why he hadn’t seen the barrier when they arrived, as well as why it hadn’t kept them out. It was almost as if it had formed after they arrived, as though in reaction to their presence. But that would require giving the energy around them some sort of intelligence that he didn’t believe the Apertures or the energy itself possessed; even if it was some sort of instinctual response to an invasion or something similar, it still didn’t make much sense for it to act this way.

  None of it made sense, when he really looked at the entire situation. The lack of expansion, the destruction of the subservient Apertures, and the massive build-up of energy inside of the Calamity just waiting to be let loose were all indications that there was a purpose behind it all, but he had no idea what it was. That there was an intelligent operator behind it all also occurred to him, but again, that was hard to fathom.

  Larek’s first thought was that the Gergasi had somehow done this, but he couldn’t figure out why they would’ve done something like this, let alone how. He wouldn’t put it past them to have a reason and a way to do it, of course, but it also didn’t seem like something they would do.

  That left either a natural occurrence or something else being the perpetrator, but it didn’t really help him figure out how to get out of the Calamity. That was his current goal, which took precedence over discovering what or who was behind this volatile situation.

  Fortunately, he thought he had an idea – if it worked.

  Reaching into his Void Pocket sack, he pulled out a fist-sized, smooth rock that he’d placed a Fusion upon, and he stared at it for a moment to ensure that it was the one he was looking for.

  “What is that? Will that help us escape?”

  Larek shrugged. “Perhaps. It was one of the other offensive Fusions that I had wanted to test, but I’m not sure it will function the way I envisioned.”

  “What does it do? Or what did you design it to do?”

  He thought about it for a second before telling her, “You remember the Bereft? What am I saying, of course you do. Well, I was thinking that it might be beneficial if I was able to somewhat replicate what they did in a Fusion.”

  “Why would you do that?” she asked, her face clearly aghast. “Wouldn’t that just create more of them?”

  Shaking his head, he explained. “No, I didn’t design it to mess with the potential in people in any way, unlike the Transfer Potential Fusion. Instead, I designed the Mass Energy Absorption Fusion to simply absorb all energy in an area, similar to the Resonating Mana Siphon, but with all energy – and at a much greater speed. The area it affects is limited, and it will eventually destroy itself as it cannibalizes even the energy built within the Fusion, but it should hopefully work to set us free from the Calamity.”

  “If I’m understanding what it does correctly, how do you know it will destroy itself? What’s to keep it from getting bigger and bigger as it absorbs more energy?”

  Larek pointed to a section of the Fusion on the rock. “Because of this. The seed of the entire Fusion is dependent upon my particular Mana to keep it functioning; once it has consumed all of my Mana inside of it, it’ll quickly dissipate without the necessary energy to keep it going. It’s like a fire being snuffed out because you took away the air it needs for fuel; same principle, different Effects.”

  At least, that’s how I intended for it to work. That’s why I came here to test it.

  Nedira seemed to be more accepting of it by the moment. “Alright, I can see how that might work. But where does all of the energy go?”

  “Remember the Reactive Necrotic Siphon? How it would create concentrated orbs of necrotic energy? Well, if I’m correct, then this will likely create something similar.”

  “Like what?”

  Larek shrugged. “Don’t know. That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  A few seconds later, the Divine Fusionist was on the top deck of The Hopper, cocking back his arm to throw the rock with the Mass Energy Absorption Fusion on it at the barrier of Primal Essence keeping them trapped inside. Just as he was whipping his arm forward, preparing to release the rock, there was a bright flash of light that temporarily blinded him. He nearly fumbled the projectile in his hand but kept ahold of it before he dropped it, even as his vision came back.

  When he could see again, he nearly dropped the rock out of reflex this time, because standing across from him on the top deck of The Hopper was his family.