Unchosen Champion-Chapter 340: The Ones That Fade

Coop pressed deeper into the abyss, battling with the environment itself as he pursued the next variation of mana mutations within the Coral Forest. The further he moved away from the sandy ridge that led back to the fifth level, the more turbulent the local mana became. The initial hydrothermal vents seemed to be the weakest in terms of exhaust, as if the fuel that they tapped into had already been depleted over the course of the assimilation, but they were also the largest in terms of mineral deposition.

As Coop explored the region, he came to the conclusion that the Coral Abyss was actually the bottom level of the Coral Forest, and it would always be the bottom, no matter how many other levels were established in the rest of the mana well. All the mana that accumulated within the broader zone originated from these towering vents, climbing through the layers, filtering through the different environments, and providing the passive growth necessary for the different monsters. In the abyss, the mana was at its most unrefined. It was violent and pure, almost primordial as it activated and exploded from the disturbed bedrock.

It seemed like as time went on and the mana seed shifted, the area that it directly affected moved along with it. The first vents were the oldest, but they had calmed down by the time Coop entered the picture. There were probably more that were even older that had been buried by sand or grown over by pioneering corals and sponges. Even at their weakened state, the immediate area was hostile, making it seem like he was taking a stroll within an active volcano that popped and hissed with the constant threat of a larger eruption.

It didn’t take long before he was accosted by the local creatures for encroaching on their territory. The first opponent attempted to ambush him as he turned his back on the nearest hydrothermal vent, snapping its tentacles to life after they had been hidden among the soft corals at the base of the chimney. The fleshy arms shot forward like whips, but Coop reacted with deadly efficiency, twirling his trident in such a way that he tangled the tentacles in the prongs of his weapon like strands of spaghetti wrapped on a fork.

He yanked the monster out of its hiding place, grunting with effort and eager to properly face his opponent. He expected it to be on the opposite side of the mana infused vent since that was the most difficult place for his mana sight to penetrate, and by his observation, would be the source of their mana baths.

But to his surprise, instead of sizzling its flesh in the overwhelming heat as he pulled it against the vent, the monster was dragged from the black clouds above by tentacles that were far longer than anticipated. Coop didn’t spend much time in his thoughts, automatically adjusting his aim to accommodate the change in expectations. His counterattack was always meant to be deadly.

He didn’t hold back, having been put on edge by the unknown level of the boss. He afforded the Elite version exactly the same level of respect as the Enigma, which was to say, he put all of his strength into destroying the creature from the first strike. Just because his class level was in one place didn’t mean his stats necessarily followed. It was a rule he had firmly established a million times before, but it was a lesson he expected to have to teach with every battle.

Coop was far more than his level, but he was the first person to have to learn that fact. Before his class level was reset, he was trying to overcome his level, but afterwards he was practically removed from the standard measures of progression. The end result was a doubling down upon stats as opposed to levels. His muscles were bursting with energy, and his eyes vibrated with power, mana streaming beyond his brow, as the first opponent provoked his instincts.

If there was one situation where he comfortably accepted his title as Icon of Humanity it was when it came to simple competition between himself and an inhuman enemy. He wielded the full status of a Region Boss, with thousands of levels of attributes, far beyond what a simple glance at his aura would reveal. He had to rise to the occasion.

He wasn’t sure what boss rank the Enigma actually was, but he doubted it exceeded his own. He knew for a fact that the other creatures inhabiting the depths would be Elites at most. That put them several tiers below his own. Still, there was no room for modesty in battle, no matter how he felt about the system recognizing his classification as the superior status, as the Elite monster learned.

The tentacle wrapped trident tore through the attached One That Fades, passing clear through its body as the creature emerged from the billowing smoke, then crashed into the ultra-heated stone it had been dragged away from, sending a wave of sparks through the purplish darkness. Coop scrunched his nose at the sound of its flesh being destroyed, finding it rather disgusting, but he checked his notifications all the same.

[You defeated One That Fades (Elite Level 265)]

[+2175 Basic Credits]

[Congratulations! Your profession has leveled up!]

[Fortune Seeker (27/50)]

Coop grunted as he resummoned his trident rather than retrieve it, uninterested in the gore that had accumulated from his brief bout with the first representative of the Faders. He avoided getting any closer, but he still glanced at its corpse while it boiled away in the heat, turning to steam that joined the clouds, recognizing that his demonstration was a bit overkill, but still deeming it necessary.

Emmanuel and the other adventurers had been convinced that the Ones That Fade were mana mutants based on a species of octopus, but Coop had other thoughts now that he had seen one up close. Even with just a glance, it was clearly more like a portuguese man of war, coasting on the clouds created by the hydrothermal vents. Its tentacles certainly resembled those of an octopus, thick as pythons and spanning dozens of feet, but there were far too many, and they lacked the suckers he expected to find.

More importantly, the main body was far more distinct from a cephalopod. It was sort of a fleshy bubble spanning a gradient of pink, purple, blue, and eventually black, from top to bottom that had deflated after being demolished by his ethereal trident. As far as he could see, it had no eyes or mouth, just a massive bunch of tentacles extending from the dark side of its body.

Judging from its anatomy, it seemed like it only cycled up and down within the clouds of smoke, using the expulsion of mana from the vents as an engine to fuel its movement. Mana had drastically increased their size, but enough similarities were there for him to be confident in the association with a man of war.

His conclusion drew his eyes back up to the clouds. More enemies must have been drifting in the turbulence. He spent a long time considering the currents, imagining the local cycles so that he could properly conduct a search. If they were like their parent species, they only had minimal ways to manipulate their movements, by adjusting the gaseous mixture within their main bodies. The tentacles seemed much more independently motile, and he hadn’t come into direct contact in order to determine if they stung, but it wasn’t such a departure that he wouldn’t recognize the creatures.

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While fishing in the past, he had once believed he had hooked another line, but when he went to remove it with his bare hands it had felt like he was electrocuted, being stung by the loose tentacle. He didn’t really want to test the more advanced mutated version to see how powerful their stings could be, but he kept the possibility in his mind as he continued his hunt.

Portuguese man of war weren’t exactly a species known for their stealth, so he wondered if their hidden nature was deliberate. It could have been a simple accident that they were hard to spot, a result caused by habitat rather than their adaptations, but that didn’t change the fact that he failed to perceive them at all.

Coop actually ended up spending hours trying to unravel the mystery of the Ones That Fade, but he ultimately only encountered them when they attempted to ambush him. He couldn’t figure out how to properly detect their presence.

His mana sight only showed him the outlines of the constantly billowing smoke, like watching a raging chemical fire that gave everything purple and turquoise hues. Presence of Mind only revealed how alien the environment was, and unless a tentacle released enough killing intent to trigger his instincts, he couldn’t passively determine the differences between an idle limb, a soft coral, or another invertebrate. Fog of War struggled to exist more than a few inches off the ground as he approached the vents, and when it got too close, it evaporated like mists in an oven. He could only really use his eyes.

He tried relying on simple luck, sending his trident blasting through the clouds after studying the currents, anticipating a random hit given the size of their bulbous bodies, but even after dozens of attempts, he hit nothing. His hunt was having trouble getting started. Still, he wanted to figure things out before he moved too far from the sandy ridge, knowing that once he was committed, a simple mistjump might not be enough to send him across layers.

In the end, he had to adjust his thought process. Rather than rush to his prey and establish a proper rotation as he had against virtually every other enemy in the assimilation, he transformed himself into the ambusher.

Like a crocodile lurking within a filthy watering hole, he stalked his prey where they came to drink. A healthy expenditure of mana to create a low layer of rapidly evaporating mists as close to the base of a hydrothermal vent provided his temporary camouflage. Coop lay prone within the fog, embracing the ashen stained ground, surrounded by soft-bodied invertebrates, covered in soot, sand, and grime. He inched closer, ignoring the searing heat as he crawled, eyes fixed on the roiling clouds.

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Then, with the patience to wait for grayish purple tentacles to delicately grasp at the nearby minerals and secure the man of war body within the vent’s expulsion, he finally took the initiative against the local creatures. He rose, targeting where the tentacles emerged from the billowing smoke, and launched his weapon, finally connecting with the flesh of the creatures. When it was all done, he reset, having spooked the rest of the herd with his aggressive appearance.

It was, by far, the worst grind ever. It was so far outside of his normal tactics, he barely recognized himself, but he had successfully found a way to catch the mysterious enemies that had stymied his companions. Theoretically, he could optimize his strategy and maybe, eventually, transform it into a reasonable grind by rotating between vents, but ultimately he was after the boss, so he forced himself to feel satisfied with the least active hunt ever.

Even though he knew the Enigma was outside of his optimal experience window, he hoped that receiving the maximum amount of experience from an individual boss would provide the final boost of levels before he fully embraced the diminishing returns that had been nipping at his heels. In the meantime, he built up toward the leader, stalking individual hydrothermal vents for hours at a time, as he gradually inched deeper into the abyss.

In some ways, his hunt of the Faders was similar to the Gliders. Rather than establish a circuit, where he patrolled across the realm, he moved cautiously, gradually claiming ground as he cleared what were effectively nests of the creatures. They attached themselves to the vents and bathed in the scalding mana smoke, eagerly concentrating the mana within their fleshy bodies to gain more levels.

Unlike so many other creatures within the Coral Forest, they seemed to passively accept the presence of each other. They weren’t consuming their rivals like the Chompers, nor were they locked in an unending series of duels like the Ones That Hunt. They just bunched up like the products of a balloon stand outside of the hydrothermal vents. They competed by growing larger than the others, giving themselves a greater surface area to absorb mana and crowding others out of the way, all while migrating from vent to vent to try and become the biggest among the herds.

However, even after learning and observing their habits, and with the knowledge of their locations, Coop couldn’t properly assault them unless they let their guard down. Like turtles sunbathing on an exposed log, they were skittish if they noticed his presence, preferring to be the ones that took the initiative when it came to combat. So for once, Coop really practiced his stealth.

Individual Faders were culled from the packs when they grew too comfortable siphoning off the mana, causing the rest to literally fade into the smoke, then he had to wait until they let their guards down again. If he tried to rush, by throwing his ethereal weapons prematurely, they refused to engage and he never managed to actually connect. It was almost like they existed within another plane, and only emerged with the desire to feed.

If they hadn’t attacked him, he doubted he ever would have encountered them. Given the hostile environment, he understood why the residents of Ghost Reef had failed to make as much progress in the depths of the Coral Forest. The habits of the Faders magnified the challenges presented by the vents, and their patient nature allowed them to always have the advantage. Add on their optimized location, letting them level at a rate that was unprecedented even within the mana well, and it created a recipe for a roadblock that resisted explorers and adventurers.

Coop accepted the challenge, focusing on the enemies as if they were the only creatures in the universe. He sought to optimize this iteration of the grind, ignoring all other options, slowly dragging himself from hydrothermal vent to vent, progressing deeper and deeper into the abyss. The levels came inevitably, but the real prize was the boss that occasionally appeared, as if it was the one patrolling the depths, keeping the others in line.

The massive tentacles sometimes emerged, drifting across the landscape from the height of the smoke, but each time, the boss retreated, refusing to engage with Coop as if he wasn’t worth the effort. Its attitude said that the smallfry would take care of him, but even as the second day approached, the Revenant was still there, eating up the Elites, and slowly getting even stronger.

Finally, as Coop cleared the most violent of the hydrothermal vents, he was left with just one more volcano of mana. This time, the expulsion was from a simple indentation in the ground, too young and violent to have generated a mineral deposit. Behind it was a wall of solid bedrock, stained with smoke as it gradually crumbled. A partial cavern had formed as the mana sheared the surface of the stone, slowly increasing the size of the domain, but it still represented an enormous barrier, and the end of the mana well. The Enigma would have to make a choice. Fight or flee.

Coop stood, drenched in a combination of debris and sweat that formed an abyssal muck, his trident gleaming as electric purple highlights exploded to life in the clouds. If not for his ethereal armaments, he would have seemed like a shadow, risen from the abyss. Only his eyes were clear from the mire, glowing with the same colors that drenched the mana well’s deepest layer in energy.