Unchosen Champion-Chapter 310: Reckless

Coop took his place back on the hazy beach, alone with nothing but his shield, spear, and ethereal armor. He kept his eyes on the rippling rift as it hovered just above the surface of the water, off in the distance. The flat plane of light was steadily growing brighter while bursts of white sparks surged to life all around it, creating tiny rainbow flashes as they drifted away.

A steady flow of energy was being sucked into the disc, seemingly from all directions and Coop found himself squinting as his eyes watered while he observed the flow. He rubbed his eyes, feeling like he had when he had activated Vaporform within the Underlayer. The ley lines had been an avalanche of mana that were difficult to look at, and he felt a similar discomfort after his extended battle with the Omega Construct even when he was outside of the mists. He did his best to ignore the migraine-like sensation behind his eyes.

The rift sent streaks of illumination into the depths of the sea or floating off into the clouds, lighting up the darkness with flashes of heavenly pillars as it absorbed concentrated mana from the region. The color of the light reminded him of the spotlights granted by the system whenever he gained a level, but as it faded, it bled into all the colors of the rainbow instead of simply dimming to nothingness.

Without a doubt, he knew it would be a portal that would hail another Icon of Mana, though it didn’t seem to represent one of the three he was already acquainted with. If he wasn’t already familiar with the process, he would have doubts, as it wasn’t nearly as ominous as the others, but knowing what he did about the Eradication Protocol put him on high alert.

The first Icon that appeared after the defeat of the first Siege Boss, Irrevocable Condemnation, was a parasitic creature of black oozing corruption; the white heavenly colors he was witnessing this time didn’t fit its profile. Monolithic Destiny was the second that appeared after the blood curse siphon to cure Jones, and it was a massive demon of stone and blood, much too large to fit through this disc of light. The third was Inevitable Conclusion that had been summoned by the ritual initiated by the Avatar of Huracan, and it was a monster of sand and manipulation, but not the smooth colors that were dancing around this portal. Whatever this one was, Coop intended to welcome it to Earth as he had all the others: with a firm rejection of its presence.

He took a deep breath, fully prepared to continue fighting. The Omega Construct had managed to hold him off for days with a steady barrage of powerful enemies while being a tank itself, but it hadn’t truly weakened him in any way. His Reaper title was too much of an effective counter to any powerful enemies that incorporated minions into their strategies.

Even in terms of fatigue, it was nothing compared to what he had experienced in the weeks spent in the Underlayer. The Primal Constructs had long been relegated to fertilizer for his development. Even the Region Boss had only managed to temporarily slow him down. This Icon would be meeting Coop at his best, immediately after he was satisfied by an appetizer consisting of the strongest enemy the world had ever seen.

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His resummoned shield and spear had already recovered their equilibrium as well. They were expelling reassuring wisps of ghostly spectral mana as well as bits of the blackened abyssal energy in equal measure, in what had become a natural balance. He found the harmony between affinities comforting.

During the time he spent wielding primarily abyssal affinity in his manifestations, he had felt a change within himself, or if not a change, it had been a revelation of something that had been shifting over time being exposed by the temporary imbalance. The yin and yang of Spectral and Abyssal affinities had broken.

Coop squeezed his eyes shut, trying to get his vision to return to normal, to no avail. He spared a glance at the palm of his hand, feeling like the subsumption of his spectral mists had been wrong. He didn’t know exactly why he felt that way, but the whole situation reminded him of the tickle in his brain when he had first experienced the flavor of eldritch power that came with the abyss. The painful transformation he had undergone in order to defeat the Lich had been initiated by a similar invasive wrongness. It was like something had been growing inside of him, and it made him both nervous and uncomfortable to recognize such a possibility, as if it threatened to fundamentally change him in ways that abandoned his previous progress. He shivered at the thought.

A quick assessment of his level 500 skill choices offered the same series of Dedications he had seen almost a dozen times before, but the one specific to the Deep Dweller was highlighted and practically jumped out of his vision. Even though he already knew his choice, something about the eagerness of the normally standard text put him off even more than the uncanny feeling in his gut. It was like multiple warning lights were flickering on and off in the back of his mind. At this point, he knew better than to completely ignore them, even if he ended up plowing through the alarms to reach the next echelon of strength in the future.

However, selecting what promised to be such a transformative skill immediately before another fight just seemed like a bad idea in a way that was different than in the past. Even then, he didn’t like making such commitments without the peace to imagine as many possibilities as he could.

“Not yet.” Coop muttered as he dismissed the skill choices for the time being. He recognized he was already at his current best. His present status had to be enough to repel the Icon of Mana’s early arrival. There was no reason to gamble.

He sighed as he thought about the palm trees at home. They were always a reliable audience for his thoughts when it came to shaping his build. All he wanted to do was relax on his beach and take his time working through his ideas, but the assimilation was constantly keeping him busy. Someday, if he worked hard enough, he’d earn the luxury of lounging in the sun and listening to the waves again. But first, he had monsters to deal with.

Coop could see the energy that was gathering, as if hints of mana had become visible to him. He scowled at the growing white rift that floated just above the surface of the water, the source of the vacuum that concentrated the mana in the region. The disc didn’t represent a Primal Construct that felt entitled to his planet just because they had won an auction before the natives were even aware of the rest of the galactic community, but he hated it all the same.

Icons of Mana represented the power that was behind the curtain of the galactic community. In his opinion, even if they were simply forces of nature, they were the greater evil. If not for their persistent suppression, some species somewhere would have already shaken up the universe long before humans were assimilated.

He squeezed his spear, fired up to get the fight started, but whatever his opponent was, it clearly needed a few more moments to form. Coop scoffed at the Icon’s need for higher mana concentration. He checked his titles instead, seeing what he had gained and what had changed after reaching another massive level threshold.

Defeating the world’s first Region Boss granted him the Stalwart title. The title rewarded him with a ‘Boss’ status equal to his highest ranking kill, making him immune to the handicaps normally applied by superior beings so long as he matched or surpassed their rank.

“Huh?” Coop raised an eyebrow at the description, suddenly confused. “Was I being handicapped?”

He wondered if that was why it had always seemed like the more advanced monsters were getting more stats per level. There was some kind of hidden multiplier constantly being applied by the system to give them an advantage. As far as Coop knew, he would have been classified to the same rank as a ‘regular’ monster variant before, since he was just a normal, Rank 1 human, meaning Elites, Field Bosses, Siege Bosses, and Region Bosses would all have been steps above him.

Now that he had defeated a Region Boss and received the Stalwart title, he wondered if that meant in a hypothetical assimilation where the Lighthouse was the planetary sponsor, would they have to fight a manifestation of Coop as a Region Boss? It was an amusing thought, but he had forgotten he was already the Champion of his settlement, which had its own separate ranking system that he had been consistently advancing. In the end, he wasn’t sure how he would be categorized by the system at all. It seemed like there were several options.

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In any case, the Stalwart title had been the final piece of another title, along with the titles for defeating the world’s first Field Boss and Siege Boss. Dauntless, Defiant, and Stalwart were all fuel for a new title called Reckless which had the simple description of doubling the effect of any boss titles acquired.

Both of Coop’s eyebrows rose this time, because both Defiant and Dauntless were hugely impactful to his experience in combat. Defiant increased his damage to bosses by 100% and Dauntless had increased his body’s Durability to the point that he had rarely met an opponent that could truly incapacitate him.

“My damage will be tripled against bosses?” He shook his head in awe, realizing that it could be even more, depending on how the now erased rank handicaps had applied. It seemed like while he was carefully forging himself into a boundless skirmisher through his skills and progression, his adventures had been picking up the pieces to transform him into a real boss hunter as well.

He felt better about delaying his skill choice until after he defeated the Icon of Mana, considering the Reckless title would be a bigger individual upgrade to both his offense and defense than virtually any of his skills had been in the past. It was rare that something that didn’t interact with his web of stat multipliers would have such an enormous impact, but there it was. It was a huge damage increase that also benefited his other sources of multipliers without diluting them.

Coop chuckled at being designated reckless. It really seemed reckless to have been at the forefront of so many tiers of combat, but it was only natural as Champion of Ghost Reef. Clearly, it was worth the effort, because more than just getting stronger, he was being officially recognized for his achievements. He wouldn’t rest on his laurels, though. There was plenty more to do.

His eyes twinkled as he watched the rift in the sea, growing a bit excited to flex his progression. The white portal was now bright enough to create a glowing haze across the sea, lighting up the horizon the way a major city added light pollution to an otherwise dark night sky. The stars were invisible once again, but this time instead of being shrouded by shadows they were drowned out by a soft glow.

Finally, in a flash of light that originated from the rift and climbed high into the sky, a figure appeared. Coop had to squint into the brightness before his eyes adjusted enough to take in the figure of an angel, hovering above the glowing sea, a clear depiction of holiness. He blinked as he hesitated, not wanting to attack the Avatar of the System if she made a surprise appearance in a slightly different way than before.

However, as he focused on the newcomer, it quickly became apparent that this wasn’t the beautiful Lyriel imitating a celestial being to ease her presentation for the rebels against mana. This thing was a monster in the biblical sense. Its features were all wrong, disgusting, and horrific. Coop inspected its aura, suppressing the unexpected revulsion he felt in his chest.

[Region Boss: Fatal Reckoning (Level 500)]

[Vision of Extermination]

[Icon of Mana]

The monster wasn’t exactly the pure white it had seemed at first. It was pale, like a corpse, and its multiple pairs of wings were gray and decayed with rotten colorless feathers that hardly moved the air. Rather than flapping, they all hung limply while the creature hovered in the air on its own magical power.

At the same time, random pebbles, globs of water, and boulders also hovered, as if gravity itself was unsure of its own consistency. Small stringy waterspouts and dust devils appeared all throughout the area. Tiny motes of white popped into existence, lighting up the beach, the sea, and the forest. When one of the motes drew close to Coop’s face, he absently swatted it away, only to have it sting him. He glanced at the back of his hand, noting that a welt was forming. He squeezed his hand, frustrated by the minor injury from something so insignificant.

The Icon’s power was far beyond any of the others Coop had encountered, and it thoroughly inundated the region, but it felt foul. Its mere presence was enough to transform the previous domain into its own, and it hadn’t consciously moved a finger or even shifted any of its sealed eyelids open.

While it was humanoid, it had four arms, all wrapped around its torso. It had two pairs of eyes and a single larger eye in its forehead, though its head was lumpy and misshapen. The eyes were all closed. Like the feathers, its hair seemed to belong to a corpse rather than a living being. It was gray and stringy, catching the light so that it seemed silver. Thousands of the stinging motes were appearing across the landscape, concentrated around its position.

Its flaking lips spread wide, the first movement it had made. They spread much further than they should have, revealing pointed teeth, stained black, and serrated like a shark’s. Then, all the eyes opened at once and began moving independently of each other, rolling around within the gaunt deformed skull, taking in the atmosphere until one after the other, they settled on Coop.

Then, it laughed cheerily, the sound echoing as if it was a crowd all laughing together rather than an individual monster. Coop was so unsettled he glanced around, making sure it was just the Icon making the sound and not an army of regular people that had suddenly been summoned and possessed. He swore he could hear children giggling, men and women chuckling, and elderly people wheezing, all overlayed by something monstrous.

“Wonderful/Joyous/Jubilation!” A crowd seemed to shout in exultation, unable to make up its mind. “We have Arrived/Awakened/Ascended once again!”

Coop shifted his feet, gathering his senses as he remembered what this thing actually was: something he needed to kill.

“Let us Celebrate/Consecrate/Consume! This world is Ripe!” It concluded, voices finally uniting on the last word, like a chorus finding harmony. It made Coop’s hair stand on end.

Coop’s spear shot forward, breaking the sound barrier enough times to sound like a rapid fire burst of a machine gun. Mists expanded like wings along its trail, condensating from the illuminated atmosphere. The tip was so sharp, it sheared the air and passed forward with minimal resistance, preserving the enormous amount of Strength Coop had put behind his throw even while cleaving the tiniest of motes. He had already met one enemy that could withstand his attacks, if this one could do the same, he intended to make it work quickly to do so.

In response, the monster raised one of its four arms, revealing another eyeball in the palm of its hand. The tip of the spear smashed into a flat circle of mana that hummed like an electrical transformer and appeared inches in front of the wide open eye. It was only the size of a frisbee, transparent, and thin as paper. Somehow, the pure white circle of protection was strong enough that Coop witnessed his spear crumble in on itself, destroyed by its own momentum, though the mana at the point of collision turned from white to a dazzling neon pink for a moment as it dissipated excess energy.

Coop looked closely at the mana shield, wondering if he would be able to break it. The formation was surrounded by dozens of runes that rotated in rings, all in alternating directions, and as the palm eye in the center of it locked onto Coop, he felt a chill run down his back.

The monster spread the rest of its arms, then floated directly toward Coop, deceptively fast, drawing all the way into melee range while Coop’s quick cast of Retribution summoned another spear. The motes followed along, as if they were all tethered to the Icon at different distances, and Coop felt himself bombarded by a thousand tiny pangs. All it took to ignore the pain was for him to flex, bracing himself for a collision.

“I have Returned/Rebirthed/Responded to rectify the error of your existence.” The voices came without its mouth moving and all the eyes in the palms of its hands opened wide, pupils vibrating, as it reached forward, like it wanted a hug. “Embrace Me!” It screeched with a thousand echoes.

Coop bashed the hovering monster with his shield, too close to properly thrust his spear, but another circle of protection manifested, blocking his attack with another flash of pink, and all he managed was to move himself backward, through more of the floating motes.

He set his feet, digging his toes into the sand, surrounded by floating rocks and debris that just hovered silently, lacking the violence that normally resulted in such an eruption of power. However, every tiny sting was ticking away at his health, making it clear exactly how the Icon of Mana could win.

The monster seemed unperturbed, calmly continuing its pursuit, but Coop was in position to actually fight, and he prepared to do so desperately. The uncanny monster, an abomination of angels and death had immediately triggered every survival instinct he had.