Unchosen Champion-Chapter 311: Fatal Reckoning

Coop firmly planted his left foot, generated torque through his hips, and braced his right arm as it supported his spear. His jaw was clenched tight as he incorporated every muscle in pushing his weapon forward, not wanting to leave any doubt about his own limits when compared to his target. The spear attack was aiming to sever the Icon of Mana’s right uppermost wing, just beyond the shoulder of the monster.

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He kept the Icon of Mana at his absolute maximum range, just hoping to puncture its defenses by a few inches at most, so that he could call upon an apparition and decisively end the exposed monster. But it was constantly driving him backwards, causing him to draw circles in the sand while he struggled in what seemed like a one-sided fight. The monster kept seeking to embrace him, as if it barely recognized him as a threat, with a constant chatter of many voices demanding that he join them in the ultimate unity of death.

Meanwhile, Coop was taking tiny amounts of chip damage from the motes of energy that accompanied the monster. It was as if the Icon was designed to carefully lower his health until reaching a specific threshold that would weaken him just enough to fall into its embrace. It was a strategy that would never work on someone conditioned to fight without limits, like a Revenant, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t painful.

The tip of his ethereal weapon exploded with energy as the creature flicked an arm into its trajectory and halted the attack. Another circle of protection appeared with an electrical hum, originating from an oversized eyeball centered in the palm of its outstretched hand, as if it had intended to catch the spear with its pupil before it was obstructed.

A cloud of black and gray mists wafted across the Icon of Mana’s form after the spear and runed circle collided, a display of the momentum Coop had created with his effort. The backdraft was highlighted by a flash of electric pink light and the sound of raw energy that buzzed through the atmosphere.

Several of the floating rocks in the vicinity were sent flying by Coop’s expenditure of strength and a blastwave exploded from the crash of the spear ramming against the magical shield, physically impacting the battlefield. The wave chased the fleeing debris, but the shield was unmoved.

Coop was prepared for the result, and was already jabbing at a different angle with a hissing grunt. He flexed his abs and forced himself to twist down as he contracted his torso while preserving as much strength as possible, aiming for the creature’s withered left thigh, where its unused legs limply dragged through the air.

The spear moved so fast that the blastwave from the first strike was still building when the second blastwave began, sending a repeated pulse of black sand flying from where the combatants met. Coop didn’t manage to bypass the defense of the creature with his rapid attack, but he did succeed in forcing a new circle of protection to form behind a second palm eye, and he was already recoiling to stab again.

As the monster shifted forward, constantly muttering overlapping strings of barely coherent but vaguely threatening words from a thousand different voices, Coop edged backwards, thrusting his spear at the same time in an effort to preserve his aggression.

A shout exploded from his throat as he was forced to abandon his firmly planted stance by the encroachment of the monster and he strained his upper body in order to maintain the pressure and compensate for disengaging his lower body. He aimed for the largest eye embedded in the creature’s forehead with a backward leaping thrust, almost as far from his previous strike as possible. Sweat sprayed from his hair as he put everything he had into the attack, only for it to be blocked by yet another circle of protection, revealed by a third palm eye.

Each time he struck one of the defensive manifestations, the pure white mana flashed a bright neon pink and the runes twirled around the outer edges in rapid succession, like they were working hard to solidify the shield specifically against the composition of his spear. The only note that Coop made was that the monster used its hands to summon the runed circles, but it only had four arms.

Coop was a simple guy. His initial strategy was to try and overwhelm the defense of the Icon of Mana with his own Strength by destroying the first shield with a single blow. When that didn’t work, he tried the same thing, but faster, and when that didn’t work, he switched to his current tactic of racing to see if the boss could keep generating shields as fast as Coop could attack. He might just be smashing his head against a brick wall, but there was at least a little bit of tactical nuance in his instinctual battle tactics.

His fourth attack broke the assumed pattern of distant attacks. Instead of the obvious attempt to exhaust the apparent limited number of shields, as he expected his opponent to anticipate, he planted his foot back down when he landed in the sand and rammed his weapon straight back at the creature’s face, testing how the boss would react. This time he aimed for its mouth, wondering if the voices would continue if the black toothy smile was smashed to bits.

The third circle of protection shifted a few inches down, doing its best to catch the spear in its center while its color struggled to return to the pure white of an unblemished shield. It slid in front of the misshapen head as the monster adjusted its hand, then flashed hot pink across the alien features as the shield successfully blocked Coop’s fourth attack.

Too many eyes were locked on Coop as he pulled his weapon back. They made him feel even more uncomfortable than the simple fact that he was being rather easily matched by the Region Boss ranked Icon of Mana.

Despite his discomfort, he kept going, fully intending to continue escalating his pace, adding more of the tricks he had accumulated during his many battles until the monster was dead. There was no other outcome he could envision, even while his health constantly ticked down one point at a time as he crashed through the barrage of motes.

He squeezed the spear as he recoiled, straining against inertia, and stabbed again, this time aiming all the way down at the Icon’s right ankle, floating ten inches above the sand. He was blocked by a fourth circle of protection, and for a split second, he wondered if he had already check mated his opponent. All four palms were supporting separate shields, as the first hadn’t yet disappeared during the series of rapid-fire attacks.

The spear blasted forward again, moving even faster, beyond what he had believed were his limits, empowered by the sense of opportunity. The tip aimed dead center, in between all four of the still fading shields. Coop jabbed at the exposed pale chest of the floating corpse of a creature. The spear moved with all of his might while all four palms were protecting different places, the first still raised high to protect a wing, the second over the left thigh, the third in front of its face, and the fourth below the right knee. Coop engaged every muscle fiber in his being, forcing his bonus stats to shift into Agility, as he tried to take advantage of the chance he had created.

He was too slow. The arm protecting the monster's face shifted down fast enough to receive a third powerful attack on the one shield. It buzzed with energy even louder than before and with an angry fuchsia glow that burned the runed patterns vividly in Coop’s vibrating vision. The Icon wouldn’t be easily undone by a simple test of stats, but that didn’t mean Coop couldn’t win.

Coop shuffled his feet in the sand, sliding a bit further to the back and side, finding the ideal distance even before the flash of pinkish light had faded. He conceded that he wasn’t fast enough to bypass the defenses in such an obvious way, just as he wasn’t strong enough to simply crush them in one blow. Instead, he concentrated on the one circle of protection that had already received three devastating attacks, wondering if he could wear it down with repeated efforts.

His recoiled spear and unused round shield transformed into a heavy two-handed axe as he raised them both over his head, then crashed down as if he intended to split the Icon of Mana down the middle, just as he had aimed for the head of the Primal Construct Region Boss. The shining ethereal edge crashed into the same circle of protection, blasting another wave of mana across the battlefield as the monster protected its forehead.

When he slammed again, the monster simply used its superior reactions to bring a different hand up to block, stymying Coop’s effort to concentrate on the single shield, but he didn’t need to give up on the tactic. His next swing came as a backhand, aiming for the upper left arm, forcing the monster to either use the potentially weakening shield to defend or dramatically spin around as none of the other arms could respond without tangling with his target.

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In response, the Icon finally revealed that it had its own powerful offensive capabilities, giving up on the embrace. The two arms on the opposite side each pressed forward, palms out, as if they were shoving the air itself into an individual mote that happened to be in the way. Coop felt the rainbow energy before he saw it, as it caught him on the right side of his ribs.

He flew backwards, spinning like a top for what felt like more seconds than the actual fight had lasted before he crashed through the trunk of one of the many trees in the forest. Steam drifted off his blistered skin where a blast of rainbow colored mana had slammed into him and gouged a massive gap in his normally reliable armor. A single mote had been filled with energy and discharged, transforming the small stings into a devastating attack. He stumbled back to his feet and blinked the sweat out of his eyes, telling himself that they weren’t actually tears of pain.

Despite all of his magical defenses, there was no way he could just shake off this Icon’s pure magic attack like he had so many others. Dark blue, purple, and yellow dust seemed to float from his raw, blistering skin before fading in the night air. The fact that he was back on his feet was a testament to all of his collective progression, but he had been blown away to an extent that the Icon seemed to have lost interest in the fight.

He stumbled back toward the beach, tripping over roots and rocks before he made it back to the dark sand of the barren battlefield. He resummoned his destroyed ethereal armor and returned his reliable spear to his hand, filling it with mana as he went.

The monster kept chanting things to itself, sometimes argumentative, sometimes in agreement, but as far as Coop could tell it wasn’t actually an intelligent being. It was more like a collective imitation of sentience, though it appeared to recognize its purpose, almost like a program rather than a lifeform. It was weird, but it didn’t matter. He wanted to kill it more than he wanted to understand it.

“A new Dawn/Beginning/End is here! We must bathe this world in our Cleansing/Burning/Healing embrace!” The monster continued, hovering above the beach as it drifted along the coastline, checking divots and craters as if it was searching for the perfect place to build a nest. It was a rare level of coherence in the monster’s words.

Coop’s spear shot across the cleared beach, leaving an enormous wake of sand as he sought to re engage in the duel, a bit frustrated to be so easily ignored. One of the eye palms intercepted the shield, but the resulting shrapnel as the volatile missile exploded, crashing all across the beach, obstructed the monster’s reaction for a moment in a cloud of mana and erupting sand. Even before the atmosphere cleared, the neon pink light was clearly visible within the haze.

Coop sought to follow up, mistjumping right back into melee range before summoning his one handed hammer to bash the shields some more. He was confident that one good opportunity without the shields was all he needed.

A massive gout of misty mana exploded as the head of his blunt weapon was caught by yet another circle of protection. He growled as he committed to a continued rapid fire sequence and further probing attacks while he searched for an opportunity to expand his tactics.

“Your prayers have been Heard/Answered/Heeded! Now, you will understand their Meaning/Consequences/Arrogance!” The voices shouted as Coop’s hammer whistled through the air and crashed into a series of shields, drowning out the utterances with the buzzing energy. The monster seemed entirely focused on his attacks despite a thousand conflicting dialogues happening at once.

Coop’s only response was to grunt as he quickswapped to his morning star, hoping the wider area of contact might be enough to gouge out one of the Icon’s eyes and therefore reduce its efficacy. The shields flashed with lights that were slower to fade, transforming the beach to a pink-themed nightclub as they caught his powerful swings and strobed with color to the beat of Coop’s attacks. Bursts of mists behaved like a fog machine, and the tiny motes glittered through the air.

When the monster tried to counterattack, Coop sidestepped the blast, prepared for such a move after seeing it once before. It wouldn’t work on him a second time. He let a mosaic of colors bypass his torso, then attempted to crush the extended arms with a powerful slam of his heavy mace.

When he was blocked yet again by one of the free arms, he called upon Legacy of the Mists, and a phantasm attempted to flank the monster. A blue-robed monk stepped forward through a splash of mists, seeking to land an overhand strike that would crush the monster’s wings, but the last of the monster’s arms twisted in an impossible angle, as if it broke its own bones and tore ligaments in order to block the surprise attack.

Coop and the phantasm both landed their attacks at the same time, and the monster blocked both, using separate hands. The shield flashed neon pink when it blocked Coop’s attack, but the other flashed yellow-green against the phantasm, forcing the runes to rotate in the opposite direction. They dealt different types of damage, so it seemed the shields were challenged in different ways.

Coop summoned another five phantasms, and they subconsciously coordinated with each other to leap in and out as they pummeled the boss before the motes could eliminate them, drumming the shields with morning stars of various ethereal materials. Circles of protection flashed lime green and highlighter yellow over and over, with the boss swinging its arms around at impossible velocities, as if it was setting a world record at some arcade rhythm game. Then, a circle glowed pink when Coop tried to land his own attack, forcing another blastwave across the coast.

At first, the monster tried to embrace the phantasms, promising Salvation/Conversion/Deliverance as it had with Coop, but the phantasms burst into mists when touched by its unearthly energy. The Icon seemed to recategorize the opponents and quickly ended the rest of the offensive with an energy blast that completely deleted the phantasms on one side and forced Coop to dive out of the way on the other.

“Feeble/Weak/Pathetic attempts at defiance. This is a Divine/Righteous/Necessary correction!” The voices continued in an unending lecture that most of the time made less sense than the ramblings of the insane.

“Shut up already.” Coop panted, raising his morning star above his head.

He was hoping to find a way past its defenses before he started empowering himself with an Apparition, worried as he was about failing to break through the Icon’s protection and leaving himself without any further responses, but if it came down to a simple test of strength, he would just have to go for it. He saw it as his last card to play, and he wanted to hold onto it until he was sure it would make a difference, or he was desperate enough to have no other option. He was drawing closer to that level of desperation as he accumulated ten thousand instances of damage from the motes.

Before he cast Inheritance of the Mists with the simple request for destruction, he kept skirmishing, using every trick he could think of to try and exhaust his options. Quickswaps and mistjumps, baiting its attention with his ethereal swordsmanship, and coordinating multiple attacks with phantasms didn’t get him much further than the straightforward slams at the beginning of the engagement.

However, something finally broke when Coop and a phantasmal spearman both thrust their weapons at the forehead eye of the monster in a synchronized attack that eschewed part of both of their strengths in favor of precision. The level of coordination was borderline impossible, but thanks to Legacy of the Mists, Coop could push into difficult to comprehend heights. The Icon raised a hand to block, and the eye vibrated as a white circle of protection appeared.

When both speartips hit the shield at the exact same time, instead of a flash of color as the runes spun, the circle shattered into tiny shards of mana, glowing in a medley of colors only after it fractured, as if they broke a rainbow into pieces. It seemed as though the circles of protection were only able to defend a single instance of damage at a once.

Coop didn’t hesitate, despite the sudden opening catching even him by surprise. He drew upon the Inheritance of the Mists, slowing down his perception of time as the Icon’s fingers closed around the destroyed palm eye, seeping black blood from its ruined socket. The monster’s misshapen head turned too far, as if it was breaking its own neck, revealing another face where its ear should have been, this one not smiling at all.

Coop was still holding his spear, thrusting it forward, directly at the turning head as the possession took place. He didn’t feel anything within him change as the apparition manifested, though he could sense a stimulus to destroy the evil dead, and once it was complete, his spear did transform. It had gained a certain unique heft, the balance changing into something rather useless for melee while it took on a metallic appearance more akin to a pipe than an ethereal manifestation.

The flow of time seemed to resume as soon as the end of the weapon was about to touch the sickly skin of the Icon of Mana. Coop gritted his teeth as he braced himself for contact, feeling like his possession had fizzled and he was only going to land a regular attack with a slightly modified and blunted weapon, despite the reservation of mana taking hold. If his attack wasn’t enough, he would simply keep trying, though wasting his ace was discouraging. That’s what it meant to fight like the Revenant.

The metal tube rang against the forehead of the second, scowling face of the creature, depressing its wet sickly skin. Before the monster could recoil from the force, a loud ‘Boom!’ rang across the beach.

Coop flinched as the spear recoiled into his shoulder and the multi-faceted head of the Icon of Mana exploded into a wave of black ooze. His ears rang from the unanticipated blast and his eyes burned from the shock.

The headless body of the Region Boss ranked Icon of Mana fell to the ground limply, followed by bits of alien gore splattering into the sand and water in the distance, and random gray feathers that tore from its wings slowly drifted down on their own. Coop flashed in bright light as the fight came to a shockingly abrupt ending. It wasn’t exactly the thunder he would have expected from Inheritance of the Mists, but the result was more than adequate.

Meanwhile, a montage of bright colors scattered all across the beach, a disorganized jumble of mana being released by the rapid decomposition of the monster. Coop just stood still, barely keeping his balance for a moment longer, wide-eyed and momentarily deafened, subconsciously waiting for a next phase that clearly wouldn’t come. His health was low, and his body had been completely pummeled, but he had won decisively.