The flight toward the capitol, which was essentially where the Diregate was located just a mile distant, was an on-and-off quiet affair, especially after he disseminated, among those who had joined him, an assortment of offensive Fusions. Of all of the newest Fusions he’d created, there was only one that he hadn’t tested at all; but with all of those that he and his friends had to choose from, he hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.
Shortly after takeoff, Verne had the idea to install additional Focused Light Beams to The Hopper; just like the rest of the transports, The Hopper currently only had two of them pointing down toward the ground. Verne’s idea was to add some which could be aimed outside the battle deck’s walls, where they could then use them to fire around the vessel instead of down. Normally, this wouldn’t be needed all that much in a transport, unless they were commonly facing flying monsters, as typically everything that needed to be fired upon would be on the ground. However, as they were essentially the only group dedicated to defending against the Gergasi if they attacked, he thought it would serve them well to have multiple angles of attack.
Larek agreed, and with some extra steel bars he had in his Void Pocket sack, he was able to use Shape Material to form them into mounts, which Verne then attached to the walls by wrapping the wood of The Hopper around them firmly to keep them in place. With the way that the Strengthen Fusion keeping the vessel together enhanced the durability of the wood, the shell of the vessel was more than strong enough to support steel mounts and stone columns with the Focused Light Beams on them. After they were installed, Verne used his ability with wood once again to open the walls a little more than usual, allowing each mounted Beam a wide range of movement. Normally, this would give flying monsters a way inside, but that was the least of their concerns right then.
Fortunately, Larek had ten of the Focused Light Beam Fusions that the others were able to install, giving them quite the weapon upgrade to its existing armaments. The Volunteers all eagerly manned them, leaving everyone else free to do what they wanted, which left the battle deck silent once again with nothing to do but wait as they traveled. The Divine Fusionist figured that the others were as lost in their own thoughts as he was as they drew closer to the eventual confrontation, so he didn’t disturb them. All Larek could hope was that they weren’t attacked straight away by the Gergasi, or even at all, while the Diregate problem was taken care of. He had full confidence that those who were currently flying in all of the other transports would be able to kill just about any monster that came their way, given the tools they had at their disposal, but that wouldn’t be quite as successful if they were immediately opposed by the powerful Gergasi.
He might have given them all an advantage, but his defensive Fusions couldn’t account for everything.
As The Hopper got closer to their destination, everyone was now on the lookout for monsters down below. At around 20 minutes away, they found the first monsters that had escaped from the Diregate – or at least the fastest ones – which just so happened to be large roaming packs of Night Wolves, some of the first monsters that Larek had ever seen, back before he even went to an Academy. They were quick as they flowed over the landscape, moving with purpose toward a town in the distance.
The transports, however, didn’t allow them to make it there unscathed. Even as his own group began to unload streaks of Focused Light Beams and unleashed explosive detonations on the Wolves down below using their Multi-Purpose Arsenals, the other Volunteers and SIC members under General Auran blanketed the entire area, using their VREP staves and their own Focused Light Beams installed in their transports.
The bombardment caused them to slow down slightly, but they didn’t stop; their main objective was to get to the Diregate and prevent any more monsters from leaving the area, not to clean up what was already out. That didn’t mean they couldn’t do their best to thin the numbers a little on their way there, but they wouldn’t stop, nor go back to ensure the job was done.
That was the job of the reserves that would be coming later.
Their assault from above was extremely effective, especially with how many projectiles and other long-range attacks they threw down below, but it wasn’t a 100% kill rate. Numerous lone Wolves were still alive as the death from above passed them by, though Larek thought that the ones that survived only numbered in the dozens instead of the thousands that there had been before. As he looked toward the east and west, past the line of transports converging on the Diregate, he could somewhat make out even more Wolves – and other fast monsters – out of range of their deadly bombardment. The urge to have some transports break off and chase them down before they could get too far was strong, but he suppressed it. They had a more important job at the moment, and he could already tell that such an endeavor wasn’t going to be quick or easy; it would require the entire Volunteer organization to clear out all that had gotten away.
One thing stood out to Larek as they passed by the wave of Night Wolves.
“Doesn’t this seem like there’s more monsters than what General Auran had mentioned? Do you really think that the Diregate would send out tens of thousands of the same monster in a singular wave?” he asked out loud, toward no one in particular.
He’d seen his fair share of Scissions and Apertures in his short life, but he couldn’t imagine any of them being able to create and send forth tens of thousands of the same monster; defending against that kind of thing as a normal occurrence on the walls around the Diregate was also hard to fathom.
“You make a good point,” Kimble responded. “From what I inferred from her information, the waves of monsters were more like a typical Scission, if an unending one that had extremely strong monsters every once in a while. I can only assume that something else is going on.”
His words were proven true as they encountered wave after wave of monsters, from various roaming Undead to massive, club-wielding Ogres stomping along, and they were even assaulted by flocks of what appeared to be small, yellow ducklings the size of his fist. At first, he didn’t understand what they were, but when Nedira mentioned that they were called “Yellow Death,” he suddenly remembered hearing about them.
When someone looked at one of the Yellow Deaths for more than a second at a time, the cute-looking ducklings would suddenly swell in size until they rivaled a horse in height and width – though half of their changed body was in the form of a pair of giant, teeth-filled jaws. He got to see them in action, as there were thousands of them flapping along slowly as they seemed to spread out from the Diregate, and the people on the transports couldn’t help look at them. Fortunately, despite their size change, Yellow Death monsters were easily killed by the VREPs that every member on board had access to, so they were shot out of the sky before they could even get close.
For a good 5 minutes straight, they bombarded and killed hundreds of thousands of monsters on their way toward the Diregate, before there was a lull in the numbers. When they spotted the next waves, Larek could tell the difference immediately; these were the stronger and larger monsters, as if the first waves were simply the unevolved variety, with these being one evolution up. They weren’t exactly the same as what could be found in the Apertures, however, as they weren’t direct evolutions from the first waves, but were more like the Scissions; instead of being stronger wolves, bears, undead, or even Yellow Death, these monsters matched the theme of the Scission that begat their lesser cousins.
It was easy enough to determine what kind of theme each of these stronger and larger monsters came from, at least. Instead of a more powerful version of the Night Wolves, there were floating shades of what appeared to be shadow, each of them able to ascend up to 10 feet into the air and were closer to assassins than anything else. The Shadow Men could also teleport in between even the smallest shadows present around them; but fortunately for the transports flying overhead, there wasn’t much in the way of shadows in the mid-morning sun.
The first wave of undead were Walking Skeletons and were followed by Grasping Zombies, a much more powerful version of undead that reminded him of Barrowford all those years ago. Weaker Bear waves were followed by what appeared to be Dire Wolves, and the Ogres were followed up with Forest Giants, though they were only about 15 feet tall. As for the Yellow Death, they were followed up with transforming housecats that suddenly became the size of two tigers put together when someone made too much noise around them.
But that wasn’t all, of course. Large insects of different varieties could be found in between waves of Elementals; Slimes of different colors mixed with enormous Sand Scorpions; and bloated Disease Rats scurried in between the legs of Stone Boars. The waves and variety seemed never-ending; and while those in the transports wiped out many of them as they flew by, there were still thousands of them leftover after they passed. That, unfortunately, was only in the path that they took toward the Diregate, as Larek was sure that hundreds of thousands more monsters were spreading out in all directions.
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In short, it was a catastrophe of epic proportions. It was also similar to what he thought might happen if the energy within the Calamity was rapidly released – which made him think that something similar must have happened at the Diregate. How or why such a thing happened right then, he could only guess was probably the work of the Gergasi; even knowing that, there was nothing they could do about it but keep tearing through these monsters and see about containing the situation before it got even worse.
The only consolations he could think of for all of these monsters roaming around was that every town and city in the Kingdom, other than a few that might have been established over the last few years, still had walls to protect them from monsters, and communication and transportation between distant areas was much easier to accomplish with the help of transports and Traveling Gates. There also typically were a few dedicated groups present in each habitable area that were usually assigned to cull local Apertures, which meant that there were very few places that were completely undefended at the moment.
Unfortunately, many of the towns and cities located near the center of the Kingdom had been largely out of the jurisdiction of the Volunteer organization, so whatever defenders they might have wouldn’t have the advantages of Larek’s Fusions that the others had. The organization had reached out to some along the fringes of the area, but the majority of those living in the center of the Kingdom were greatly unprepared for what was currently happening. His hope was that the reserves coming later would be able to come to their aid, but for now they were on their own.
When they began seeing even stronger monsters, some that Larek had never seen before, he began to wonder if there would be anyone left in the area to save if what they were encountering was an indication of the danger they might be facing. He recognized some, such as a Cloud Dragon, which had attacked Peratin from a Scission while he had been attending Crystalview Academy, or the same Warped Void Hunters that had attacked Chinli while she had been bringing Larek back to the Enclave, but there were others that were equally as dangerous. Enormous walking trees that reminded him of a smaller version of the Treehemoth were interspersed with giant eagles the size of a small village, which spat out gobs of flaming acid from their beaks. There were even some Undead that were unfamiliar, but despite their small size – they were smaller than Larek – he could sense that they were probably even more dangerous than anything but the Hydragon found in the Undead Calamity.
The sight of so many powerful monsters had apparently surprised General Auran, because Larek could see her somehow communicate with all of the other transports, and soon enough they had split their overall group. It seemed as though half of the transports were staying behind to start doing what they could to eliminate these stronger monsters before they roamed too far, while the other half would continue on toward the Diregate.
The Divine Fusionist agreed with the decision. The threat that they represented when going up against the basic defenses of a town or city – even those that were protected by the Volunteers – was too great to let them live. The risk from those few that would inevitably slip through no matter what they did at this point was bad enough, and would likely result in the destruction of more than one village or town in their path, but there was only so much they could do at this point. Once the reserves began to trickle in, they might be able to corral the dangerous monsters a little better; but right then, they were simply providing triage to the hemorrhaging and unending Scission located nearby.
Larek could finally start to feel the Gergasi as they got closer to the capital city of Andrin. Their presence wasn’t strong enough to put him on edge quite yet, meaning that he didn’t think there were any coming for him at that time, but he was still acutely aware of them, nevertheless. So far, though, there wasn’t any sign that they were going to involve themselves in the business of containing the monsters flowing out of the Diregate.
He wasn’t sure if he preferred if they came right out and attacked immediately or not; that way, at least, he would know what to expect from them. As it was, he was forced to follow the other transports as they continued on, keeping up their continual barrage of monsters running or flying seemingly everywhere.
Once they could see Andrin, however, Larek realized that what they had encountered along the way was only a portion – albeit a large portion – of the monster forces.
But where were the rest of them?
Besieging the capital with a sea of monster flesh surrounding every single side of the biggest city in the Kingdom, if not the world. He remembered passing through the area when traveling on his way to Copperleaf Academy, and while he hadn’t been able to see all of it, his memories were still of a city that was so big that it was hard to comprehend at the time. The majesty of its size was overshadowed by the number of people that he figured must’ve lived there, staying in buildings that were taller than anything he’d seen before.
At that point in time, he could barely even make out the walls of the city, as there were so many monsters of different kinds and sizes attempting to climb or breach the barrier in between them and the hundreds of thousands of people inside. As they flew closer, he could see the interior of the city, which was looking worse for wear as there were collapsed buildings scattered throughout its length, along with at least a half-dozen fires that looked to be contained, but hadn’t been put out quite yet.
And all of that was even in spite of so many people working to defend the city. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, of SIC members – who were not part of those who had joined the Volunteers – were along the extremely tall walls, the Mages and Martials fighting for their lives against the unending onslaught of monsters. He could see many of the Mages and Martials with ranged weapons tackling the flying monsters swooping down above the walls in waves, and the state of the city was clear evidence that they weren’t always successful. Unfortunately, because they were distracted by the scattered flocks of flying monsters, they were less able to help the Martials defending the walls themselves. Even in the few seconds he was watching, Larek had seen at least 3 different sections that were in danger of being overrun, as the monsters from below managed to crest the wall in significant numbers.
Inside the city, citizens were helping to bring supplies to the defenders along the walls, as well as transporting the wounded or dead out of the way so that they could get treatment or be stored somewhere else. They were also helping to pull people out of wrecked buildings, put out fires, and they even worked together in desperation to kill the few monsters that were able to get through the wall defenders. There were even teams of what appeared to be some sort of royal guards in fancy ornamental armor rushing here and there through the city streets, though what they were doing was a mystery to Larek.
In short, the entire area was total chaos – and it was on the verge of getting even worse. So far, the defenders seemed to be able to hold off the tide of monsters without too many casualties, but the flow of the monster was unending. If General Auran and those who had arrived to contain the outbreak didn’t succeed, and quickly, then there wouldn’t be a capital to speak of in what Larek judged to be only a few hours.
“It’s… horrific,” Nedira said by his side as they floated over the city. “I think the only reason they’ve been able to hold on this long is because some of the strongest Mages and Martials were stationed in the capital; otherwise, they’d already have lost the walls.”
The Divine Fusionist could sense the truth to her words. The Mages and Martials defending against the hordes were strong enough that he could feel them even from a few hundred feet above; there were a few that were, undoubtedly, stronger than any other non-Gergasi he’d ever met – other than perhaps the assassins and the leadership from the Unspoken Response.
“Auran is breaking off more of the transports to assist them, it seems,” Kimble noted as he walked up next Larek, his vision not on those below but in the skies above. While all of the transports had their Camouflaged Magical Energy Negation Spheres active and were relatively invisible if they were sitting still, it was easy enough to make out the distortions in the air that were starting to spread out toward the perimeter of the city.
As soon as the transports got into position, they unloaded hell upon the monsters, both in the air and along the exterior of the walls, acting as secondary defensive points for the defenders of the city. Larek chuckled a few times when he saw the first reactions to the sudden assault upon the incoming monsters, as many of them were so shocked that they could only stare upwards with their mouths open. Of course, this nearly killed a few of them because the monsters climbing near the top of the walls weren’t as surprised and took advantage of the sudden lull in the defense. Fortunately, it didn’t take them long to rally once they understood that the invisible transports were helping them, instead of being another threat, and the clearly exhausted wall defenders pushed back those that monsters that had managed to climb to the top before being able to rest for a few moments.
For the first time, the Divine Fusionist got to see the results of his Fusions, from the VREP and VED staves that the Volunteers and former SIC members utilized, to the Focused Light Beam that practically melted large swathes of monsters as they were strafed along the perimeter, and even the protective measures in the Negation Sphere, as it was able to negate magical attacks sent toward it from the few scattered monsters that had long-range attacks. They were floating platforms of destruction, killing hundreds of monsters per second in a macabre display of annihilation.
Yet, all it did was give the defenders on the wall a momentary respite, as there were already more of the monsters coming to replace those that had been killed. The extra invisible defenders in the air were only a stopgap measure – not a solution.
It seemed as though General Auran thought the same, as not 30 seconds after they arrived and a good portion of the transports aided in the defense of the capital, she took off toward where the Diregate was located. Once they were away from all of the magical spells and effects being thrown about around the city walls, Larek was able to get a rough count of how many transports were left for the next stage of their plan.
Including The Hopper, there were only a total of 20 transports left. Normally, against any Aperture – even a central one in the middle of a Calamity – this would be more than enough, especially with the firepower they were bringing to the table. But against the Diregate, which appeared to be even worse than what the General thought it would be for some reason, he wasn’t sure it would be enough.
Then again, there was only one way to find out.
“Here we go. Be ready for any sudden ambushes,” Larek warned everyone in The Hopper, before he sped up a little to catch up with the rest of the group. “It’s time to see what we’re getting into here.”
