Larek attempted to heal the woman to get her back in enough shape to answer some questions, but just like his use of Portable Lifter against her, the effect parted around her and dissipated shortly thereafter. Therefore, he had to make do with waiting for her to gradually recover, with a warning for Nedira to watch her but not to touch the woman, as he wasn’t sure what would happen. In the meantime, he went to the Volunteers, who were groggily getting to their feet, each of them with extremely confused looks on their faces.

  Which quickly turned to panic and horror as one of them, Nelmin (if he remembered correctly), shouted, “Why do I feel so weak? My Status! I—I’m back at Level 1, and all my Skills are gone!”

  Oh, crap. I guess that means their potential is completely gone. I wonder if the Gradual Aetheric Purification Array will bring it back? At a first look, he wasn’t sure it would; the Fusion normally took the spark of energy inside everyone and inflamed it into a full-blown potential, but he couldn’t even sense a single bit of energy in any of the Volunteers. Fortunately, none of them were hard to physically see, unlike the woman and the others with her; he wondered why that was, but rather than investigate, there was something more pressing at the moment.

  The Volunteers had practically collapsed to the ground in misery, loudly despairing at their lost potential – and Larek couldn’t blame them. He couldn’t even imagine losing his ability to make Fusions; the very thought of that happening brought with it a spike of fear that lanced straight into his chest.

  “Why am I so hungry? I just ate not long ago—” Nelmin said, but then his eyes locked onto Larek and then Nedira, seeming to look through them somewhat, while licking his lips. The Fusionist was 99.9% positive he knew what he was looking at: Their potential.

  Well, I guess that explains it.

  The ones he’d killed earlier, as well as the chained-up woman, were likely some of the Mages and Martials that had disappeared. It all started coming together as he put all he’d seen and felt among these dangerous individuals into one explanation that covered a good portion of things, though he was missing a few key pieces.

  Without even needing the woman to speak, he was fairly certain that she and the others like her were the reason so many people were missing – because they were the missing ones. What he didn’t know was why they were so difficult to physically see, how their “hunger” was able to consume potential, and what they got out of the act.

  Oh, and he also didn’t exactly know how this happened in the first place, but he was beginning to have his suspicions. There was only one instance when he’d seen someone lose their complete potential, after all, and if this stemmed from that one act, then this was potentially his fault. As much as he hoped it was something else, he feared that it was his use of Transfer Potential on one of the Unspoken Response assassins that led to this. While, at the time, he had been 100% certain the assassin had died as a result of losing his potential, as it hadn’t looked as if he could survive such an extreme violation of his power, The Fusionist had never actually checked. And if it was anything like his Volunteers, and even this woman, then it was entirely possible that he had only appeared dead, before waking up without any potential and a hunger to consume some from someone else.

  “Nedira, I think I did this,” he stated, low enough that no one but his betrothed and possibly the chained woman could hear.

  Keeping an eye on the Volunteers, each of whom was looking hungrily but cautiously at Larek and Nedira, he began to explain his reasoning. The look of horror on her face matched what was on the Volunteers’ not so long ago, and as much as he privately wanted her to, she didn’t refute his idea.

  “That’s… not entirely out of the realm of possibility. I’m not sure why it started here, and why it took so long, but I can’t currently see another reason for all of this.”

  Looking forlornly at the Volunteers, he knew that he would do whatever he could to see if their potential could be replenished. His Array Fusion might actually be able to help them, since they didn’t seem to have transformed into the hard-to-see version at his feet, but he still needed to deduce how that came about before he could know for sure.

  “Hey, I can tell that you’re awake now,” Larek said, squatting down by the head of the chained woman, “and I have some very important questions for you. If you don’t answer them, I may have to do to you what I did to your friends here, and I don’t want to have to do that.”

  The woman groaned as she struggled against her bonds. “I’m not answering anything! You’ll never stop the Bereft now that we’re here! Besides, even if you kill me, you’ll never be able to touch him.”

  “Him? Who are you talking about?” Larek asked, though he had a fairly good idea.

  She spit at his face, but he dodged out of the way. “You know nothing! The progenitor of the Bereft is too strong, even for the likes of you!”

  Progenitor? Is she talking about that assassin? Because if she is, then this was definitely my fault.

  “And how is he so strong?” he quickly asked. “If they’re anything like my Volunteers here, he should be a relatively weak Level 1 without his potential.”

  The woman answered before she thought it through, revealing more than she expected to. “Because he’s consumed the potential of dozens, if not hundreds of people, boosting his stats to levels—” Her jaw clamped shut and her eyes opened wide, as she realized what she’d just said.

  This is just getting worse and worse.

  While not comprehending exactly how it worked, what he did understand was that these “Bereft,” as the woman called themselves, could consume someone else’s potential and become stronger. Not through the advancement of their Skills over time and dedication, but simply by absorbing the potential of another to raise their stats.

  In a way, he supposed that it made sense. As those with unlocked potential increased the Level of their Skills, they gradually strengthened the core of themselves, taking in what he now understood was essentially weak Primal Essence to purify their bodies through the use of Skill development, allowing them to increase their stats and therefore absorb more Primal Essence, strengthening themselves in turn. As their body learned new ways to utilize the Essence of the world, it allowed them to become stronger, faster, and even smarter in terms of mental acuity – and this was what these “Bereft” were stealing away.

  It explained why these people were much faster than he would’ve normally expected of those who hadn’t unlocked their full potential originally. The biggest difference, as far as he could tell, was that – just as magical effects couldn’t affect them – they couldn’t cast spells or use Battle Arts; they didn’t have any Mana or Stama inside of them, just whatever form of twisted Primal Essence that they had consumed. It was almost like the inverse of the energy he had come to learn how to use, something he’d never encountered before, nor even considered could exist.

  Though, when he looked at his Volunteers, who were still milling around with confused and hungry expressions on their faces, they appeared different from the Bereft woman in chains. They might have had their potential stolen away from them, but they hadn’t yet taken on the same energy-dispersing trait of the woman – and he could see them without any trouble whatsoever. Unlike the woman and the other Bereft, who seemed like bottomless holes of this strange inverse Primal Essence, the Volunteers were simply… empty.

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  Which made him think that they might be able to be fixed, if he was able to inject them with potential once again. If he filled them with real Primal Essence again, rather than whatever this inverse non-energy was that filled the Bereft, he could potentially reverse the process.

  In fact, he might not even need the Array Fusion to make that happen. On a whim, Larek plucked a bit of every type of energy floating around in the environment, including Mana, Stama, and Aetheric Force, and used his Primal Essence Mastery to combine them all together to form a tiny bit of Primal Essence. The little ball of energy wanted to come apart into its different forms, but he easily held them together as a cohesive whole as he directed it toward Nelmin.

  Strangely enough, while most people couldn’t see the energy Larek was controlling unless they had a high-enough Magical Detection Skill, the Volunteer tracked it immediately as it floated toward him. It didn’t take too long for the other Volunteers to see it, too, and they licked their lips in anticipation, as if Larek was delivering a snack.

  When it was within a few feet of Nelmin, an odd, shadowy claw seemed to emerge from the Volunteer’s chest, as if it was reaching out to grab the Primal Essence in order to consume it. The claw wasn’t visible as a physical manifestation, however, but as one that was just barely visible to him, and it had the same sort of “don’t look at me” vibe that the rest of the Bereft possessed, but on a much weaker scale. Still, it was enough of one that he was fairly certain that Nelmin didn’t even seem to know it was there, and Nedira didn’t seem to see either the Primal Essence or the claw.

  Larek obviously didn’t want this claw to grab and consume what he was controlling; instead, he moved it slightly out of the claw’s reach, and Nelmin took an involuntary step forward, as if he was unconsciously moving to get it. Rather than let that continue, Larek hardened the Primal Essence as he shot it forward without warning, and his energy projectile punched through the shadowy claw like it wasn’t even there, before impacting the man’s chest. It disappeared inside of the Volunteer’s body, but the Fusionist had directed it precisely where the man’s internal pattern was focused, and it hit the core with explosive force.

  An inaudible scream seemed to echo through his senses for a moment, as the emptiness inside of the man revealed itself to be some sort of amorphous shadow. The Primal Essence projectile pierced it and exploded, tearing it apart and consuming it in the process, leaving only the remnants of natural energy behind as Larek released his hold on the Essence.

  Nelmin, for his part, didn’t seem to understand what happened as he froze, before stumbling to a knee and nearly falling on his face. Fortunately, Larek was fast enough to catch him and set him down gently on the ground. A few seconds later, the man passed out, falling unconscious to the point where his heart even stopped and he appeared dead for a moment. Monitoring him over the next few seconds, the man’s heart started beating again, showing that he lived; more than that, there was the tiniest spark of energy inside of his body, which Larek could identify as the barest minimum amount of potential he’d ever seen before.

  But it was there. Nelmin was no longer empty, completely devoid of any potential.

  The other Volunteers, being near and seeing one of their own seemingly killed in front of them – or so it appeared – immediately began to attack The Fusionist, their hands outreached in front of them in the voracious hunger that seemed to take them over.

  “What did you do, Larek?” Nedira shouted, even as she began to back up, mimicking his own leap backwards out of their range.

  “I gave them their potential back,” he quickly responded, even as he formed one Primal Essence projectile after another, quickly shooting each of the Volunteers in their internal cores, banishing the emptiness inside and restoring them – at least partially. What Larek told his betrothed wasn’t entirely true, as he wasn’t able to give them their full, unlocked potential back; instead, they were now like the millions of normal people throughout the Kingdom, with a spark inside of them that hadn’t been ignited. He was reasonably confident that another use of the Array Fusion would restart that process again, but he couldn’t be entirely sure until they attempted it.

  After helping their unconscious forms down to the ground, he briefly explained what he’d done to Nedira. She appeared extraordinarily relieved, an emotion he shared. “It’s good to know that you can reverse it, but will it work on her?” she asked, pointing to the bound woman, who stared at the Volunteers in what he took to either be shock or outrage.

  Shrugging, he answered, “Perhaps. But more importantly, I need to know where the other Volunteers are.”

  “Wait—the other Volunteers are… like this?”

  He just gave her a single nod before crouching next to the Bereft woman. “Where are the rest of my people?” he demanded, attempting to infuse some of his Dominion magic into his voice. It wasn’t something that he liked to use, but in this instance, he thought it was appropriate, considering what the woman had attempted to do to him.

  Unfortunately, whatever it was that made his Dominion magic work on people seemed to slip around her mind without affecting it – as with every other type of energy used against her. That made him wonder if his Dominion magic had a specific energy of its own, which he’d never visually seen before; he’d only seen the aftereffects, such as when it was used on someone’s mind, but it was more of an aura rather than a specific type of energy, as far as he’d seen, at least.

  “I’ll tell you nothing more! You might as well kill me now, because you’re not getting anything out of—”

  Halfway through her protestations that he wouldn’t get any more information from her, Larek shot the large ball of Primal Essence that he had been forming while she talked at her chest. It shot into her and slammed into the emptiness inside without dissipating like every other energy… only for the hungry emptiness to shudder violently before ultimately absorbing the energy within the Primal Essence projectile.

  She paused in her rant, her eyes open wide in surprise, before she started to strain her arms and legs at the chains keeping her bound. While it wasn’t a huge difference, Larek could tell that her muscles seemed to be producing just a bit more strength than before, which he could only assume meant that he had just increased her stats a little bit.

  That’s… interesting. So, it’s not just the potential inside someone that they’re consuming; it’s also any Primal Essence. Again, that sadly makes sense, but what do I do now?

  Having watched the reaction of the yawning emptiness inside of the woman, shuddering at the impact of the Primal Essence hitting her, he figured he might as well simply add more. Taking out his halberd, just in case he ended up making her too strong, he pulled in and formed an even larger ball of Primal Essence, until it was the size of his head. He used his Primal Essence Mastery to condense it down, but he struggled to keep it stable once it was the size of his fist.

  But he wanted it even smaller, so he kept pushing, using every bit of his focus to keep it together, and he could feel sweat beading on his forehead from the strain he was under. Finally, he reached the point where it was approximately the size of his thumbnail, and he launched it at the woman on the ground, still struggling to free herself, and he watched as it slammed into the emptiness inside of her. It hit with such force that it wasn’t stopped or slowed in the least, and it punctured the edge of the hungry void like the outside of a balloon.

  That was when he lost control of it, but at that point it had done its job: Inside of the emptiness, his focus keeping it intact let the energy go, and it exploded outwards, shredding it completely and thoroughly in an instant. There was a brief moment during which the woman froze, her eyes seemingly ready to pop out of her head, before she screamed so loudly that anyone nearby without ear protection probably had their eardrums ruptured. Fortunately for Larek and Nedira, their Protection of the Void defenses helped to prevent that from happening.

  Thankfully, the scream only lasted a few seconds before the woman fell unconscious, her heart stopping altogether. It actually stopped beating so long that The Fusionist grew worried, but when he knelt down and looked closer, intending to see whether a Fusion might help to heal her, he watched as it started to beat, though a lot more feebly than was normal. He didn’t dare use a healing Fusion on her once he saw that, though, because he thought that the shock of such a powerful effect might kill her. Only time would tell if she made a full recovery; she at least had the remnants of the energy he shot into her, displaying a tiny kernel of potential similar to the Volunteers.

  “Did it work?” Nedira asked, walking up next to the unconscious woman and kneeling down to check on her.

  “Somewhat. She’s extremely weak, but I believe I was able to eliminate the sort of inverse-Primal Essence inside of her, causing her to want to consume people’s potential.”

  Nedira nodded, before removing the chains she had put on the woman, after Larek told him that they wouldn’t be necessary any longer. “Speaking of that, how are we supposed to find the other Volunteers if she’s unconscious?”

  “There’s no need for her. Even as I was asking her the question, I had spread my Magical Detection Skill out wide and pinpointed where I’m fairly certain they’re being held. At least, there’s a bunch of these ‘Bereft’ nearby, so I can only assume that our Volunteers are nearby.”

  “Well, then, what are we waiting for – let’s go get them back.”