Unchosen Champion-Chapter 352: Core of the Forest

The mayor of Iquitos tried to warn him, but Coop still severely underestimated what it meant to traverse through the Amazon rainforest in a post-mana scenario. The guidance of the Warriors of the Crossroads and the Jaguar Elites at the start of his journey had spoiled him, leading him to believe that while the forests, mountains, jungles, and rivers involved challenging terrain, they were relatively easy to navigate, assuming a specific destination was in mind.

Coop was mistaken.

The gap between Central and South America had been a battleground for months prior to his arrival, starting even before Coop reached Corozal for the first time. The monster nests and burgeoning domains that competed with local fauna for territory were chipped away by Sierra and other members of the Jaguar Sun until the Primal Constructs became second fiddle to the wild animals of the region. Sierra had already been one of the highest level humans on the planet specifically for her efforts extending her range from Costa Rica, while preventing the Cult of Chakyum access to South America.

Coop had been judging the area after thousands of people had toiled with the invaders over the course of the majority of the assimilation. He made the mistake of considering the forest to be the natural state of things, despite all of that effort. However, the journey between the Andes and Iquitos had been a preview for what the heart of the untamed rainforest might be like, but he had taken it for minor curiosity, with inexplicable bursts of power in individual monsters. The reason the people of Iquitos were specialized boss killers was because everything that lasted long enough to become a threat was forced to evolve into that level of danger or simply perish.

The jungle was packed with tangled vegetation. Trees had transformed into mountains of living bark, extending all the way into the low misty clouds, a few so high the tips of their crowns were capped with a hint of white. Vines moved like lethargic snakes, threatening to ensnare any whose attention lingered too long on the landscape, and the undergrowth so packed, it transformed into impenetrable walls of flourishing blossoms that demanded alternatives to bypass. The Amazon was an emergent realm, beyond even those areas untamed by civilization shard territory.

He thought that the empowerment of humanity through the activation of mana meant that they were better equipped to become proper stewards of planet Earth, but he was underrating the specific environs and the rest of the inhabitants. It didn’t take long for the environment to provide enough reminders to open his eyes and show him how far it had gone beyond his element. The heart of the rainforest was effectively its own unique domain, outside of the official designations.

Coop was relatively unpretentious, but in retrospect, the idea that it was entirely up to humans to resist the invasion of the Primal Constructs was a bit presumptuous, especially when he knew there were so many animals rising to the occasion in the various places he had previously visited. When it came to the galactic community, there were probably 10 million different species on Earth that could be leading the way. If humans were taken out of the equation, how much better would the Primal Constructs fare? Probably not as much better as the rest of the galactic community might like to think.

He completed his first two grinds within the territory of the Iquitos settlement, persisting with the impression that he was fully equipped to tackle the Amazon rainforest. The regular and elite variants of Primal Constructs did nothing to dissuade his thinking. However, when he left the taming atmosphere of the local civilization shard, he found it extraordinarily difficult to even follow the Amazon river. His first errant mistjump forced him to sit down and reevaluate himself and the environment lest he make the situation worse.

Wandering off course and exploring was completely off the table. Even mistjumping too aggressively put him at risk of permanently losing track of the winding river as it was swallowed by the enormous rainforest domain. He had been looking at the expansive territory all wrong.

The river may have ranged between 25 and 200 miles wide, making it seem like an indelible landmark, impossible to lose, but in the grand scheme of the interior, it was a hairline fracture weaving through the trees. The forest itself was potentially over 5,000,000 square miles itself. If he didn’t want to blast himself to either the Atlantic or the Pacific Oceans in order to start over, he needed to be a bit more humble.

Viewing the landscape through the Soul Shroud left him bewildered. The only way he could make sense of what he witnessed was that the trees themselves were behaving like miniature mana conduits, transforming the entire Amazon rainforest into a uniquely diverse domain. It was like the bottom of the Coral Forest mana well, except on a scale that was difficult to imagine. There were upwards of 800 billion trees, each performing a similar function to the hydrothermal vents in the coral abyss. It was absolutely staggering.

Coop invoked every bit of his survival skills, even calling upon Inheritance of the Mists to access the wisdom of ancient hunters and mythical explorers to get himself back on track. Even after he returned to the river, he hardly touched the solid ground of Earth. Instead, he existed in the branches of individual trees, towering above the world as they competed with each other for space along the river and access to the sun. They leaned over the flowing water, sometimes completely blanketing the breadth of the river, and other times being flooded instead, transforming into floating islands of lush greenery, stocked full of their own animals.

It would have added literal days for him to climb up and down the stratified world, even mistjumping from branch to branch, if he wanted to both touch the ground and see the sky. The vegetation became so thick, with roots wrapping and pinning competitors dozens of feet above the ground, that he might have mistaken knotted mats for the actual surface, at least until he broke a leg slipping between bunches of fallen leaves and caked mud. Forget about the blooming epiphytes; entire rubber trees were growing from the branches of ancient shihuahuacos. Kapok trees and walking palms stretched into gaps or created their own, while other species formed layers upon layers of substrate for even more to grow from.

It rained every day, and not just a drizzle like those brought by the wet season back home. It poured, ruining visibility such that he could barely see beyond his own outstretched hand. He was afraid of losing track of the river, and was forced to wait until conditions improved during every downpour. He couldn’t imagine what it would have been like during the actual wet season in the southern hemisphere, but it seemed like the forest itself was dictating its own weather events.

In those times, he actually hid from the wildlife, observing what he instinctively understood as the current highest level individuals on the planet. River dolphins essentially laughed at his precarious perches above the river, each approaching level 500 with pods of hundreds of animals. Then there were the multiple different varieties of piranhas, species of caimans, and anacondas that also occupied the clouded water.

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Bullet ants the size of his head, claimed entire skyscraper-sized trees with branches that combined for hundreds of twisting miles, then anteaters the size of city buses plowed through the middle layers. He heard the horrifying sounds of multiple howler monkey gangs, absolutely destroying the sanctity of night with what he could only interpret as threats to his soul.

The wildlife was completely out of control, with thousands upon thousands of different species simply existing as if the introduction of mana had barely been a factor in their already complicated lives. Coop felt like he was losing his mind when he watched a herd of Amazonian manatees hovering a hundred feet above the surface of the river during a particularly heavy rain, as if they were always meant to fly through the forest.

Giant armadillos, golden lion tamarins, spectacled owls, otters, ocelots, king vultures, and tarantulas with auras that identified them as ‘giant birdeaters’ were just a few of the creatures that casually doubled Coop’s level. He was especially cautious around the three-toed sloth that slowly wandered across branches with a visible aura that withered the few Primal Constructs who chose to threaten its presence, literally removing the color from the world as it went. The metallic invaders crumbled into clouds of dust just from getting too close.

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It seemed like all the animals were on the hunt at all times, and the Primal Constructs were the only real targets, no matter what the pre-mana diet had been for each creature. Even toucans poked their heads from holes in trees, supplementing their fruit diets with the occasional destruction of Construct invaders.

Meanwhile, the Primal Constructs were struggling to make any headway in the jungle despite the otherwise excellent conditions for their development. It seemed like the region’s mana was rich enough to empower them during their short lives, making it so that an individual alien manifestation could evolve through the ranks in a matter of hours rather than days, weeks, or months. It was a far cry from the expectations of the galactic community, where it would take years of concentrating mana before the higher ranked bosses could form. In the Amazon, they exploded with power, seeking to establish domains that were torn apart just as quickly.

Coop tried his hand at grinding some of the monsters himself, racing with so many other animals to get a piece of the action, but the excessive spawns and rapid evolutions did nothing to solve his issue with diminishing returns. It was made even worse with the inability of the aliens to hold onto significant numbers. Coop would have to fight other animals to hold even a tiny slice of the forest to use as a grind zone, and even Fog of War wasn’t enough to discourage many of the native species from encroaching his positions.

Truthfully, if he wanted to take advantage of the experience that was flowing through the Amazon, he would have to hunt the wildlife. The idea made him blanch. If he hadn’t realized it before, he recognized that defeating the integrating species would be a betrayal along the same lines as hunting humans to selfishly power his own growth. For him, it was unacceptable, and for others it would be a deathwish to even try. Aside from his personal objections, the animals were essentially allies engaging with the alien invasion, and they were clearly accumulating strength. Any diminishment of them would hurt their overall survival more than concentrating power would help.

So Coop kept moving, each day that past filled with a constant series of natural marvels and desperate alien development, focusing on navigating thousands of miles along the Amazon river until he finally spotted the distinct energy signature of a civilization shard with his unique bandana overcharging his sight. For the first time in a week, he left the river with a specific location in mind.

Honestly, as he approached Manaus, he couldn’t believe that anyone had ever successfully made the trip in either direction, but Iquitos had been aware of Manaus, and judging by the reaction of his battered form exiting the untamed jungle and finding tamed territory, the understanding went both ways.

The outer perimeter of the settlement was within the city, rather than the jungle, and the locals used it as a buffer to prevent both wildlife and invaders from encroaching on where they resided. Rather than a proper wall, they employed the rubble of multiple blocks worth of destroyed buildings and shacks as a soft barrier that left any attackers exposed.

The residents of Manaus asked no questions before they offered Coop aid and shelter as he left the treeline, but they quickly realized that Coop wasn’t actually in bad shape. He was a bit tired, looking like a tourist that had gone on his first hike in the jungle, but he was otherwise in good condition, despite a week in what might have been the most volatile environment on the planet.

A quick explanation from his side granted him an audience with their leaders, and a single conversation with them sent him to the riverside with an escort of locals that grew as they went. Coop’s eyebrows shot up at his first sight of where the settlement met the river, more or less opposite of where he had arrived.

He was a bit of a sucker for beaches, and thus far, his trip through South America had not provided a single beach worthy of his time. He never expected to find a respectable beach thousands of miles away from either ocean, but Manaus revealed a section of sand that left him impressed. There were even groups of residents sunbathing near umbrellas or playing soccer in their free time, though he viewed the water with a bit of suspicion. It was dark, a bit like the swampy marsh water that filtered through the Mangrove Forest back home, despite the opposite shore being invisible on the horizon.

Overall, his initial assessment of Ponta Negra Beach wasn’t bad at all. Even though Coop could imagine relaxing for a few days on the sand, there was another reason he was so surprised by the scenery. There were more than a dozen phantom ships also present, idling slightly off shore with short masts and small furled sails. He could only shake his head at the realization that the Tempest Fleet had made just as much progress as he had.

The representatives of his own faction were also unexpected, having disembarked some time before Coop had wandered out of the forest. An entourage of well-dressed office workers stood in the sand, all wielding clipboards and lanyards while they discussed business with settlement officials in bathing suits. Apparently, the European Emergency Community was actively integrating into the Lighthouse. He’d recognize them anywhere.

While it wasn’t Commissioner De Witte, they had the same energy, explaining their current task and with the help of the local Champion, providing Coop with some updates regarding the progress elsewhere in South America. Thankfully, the rigid adherence to protocol was offset by the many phantom pirates and Ghost Reef residents that accompanied them.

They were doing a fine job, so Coop was able to focus on his own mission. After Coop finished exploring the selection of monsters provided by Manaus, his three closest options were to go back to Iquitos, further along the river until he hit the Atlantic Ocean, or almost due north to where Ghost Reef’s residents had bolstered some smaller shardless communities adjacent to an Underlayer connection.

Coop made his choice as he completed two more Slayer quest chains within the territory of Manaus.

—

Mistjumping over the Amazon rainforest without any concern for following particular landmarks was significantly easier than tracking the Amazon river across the continent. Coop made up for lost time by skipping over another thousand miles of rainforest domain, spotting his next destination while he was miles in the air, above even the tallest canopies.

The Guiana Highlands were still densely forested, but they weren’t the equivalent of an open air mana well the way the core of the Amazon rainforest had become. His target was a place known as a sky island, called Mount Roraima.

It lived up to the description, a flat topped mountain nestled at the border of Venezuela, Guyana, and Brazil, surrounded by clouds that clothed it like a skirt. It was a massive sandstone plateau, peaking above the clouds, that had been eroded over two billion years. The distinctive shape was impossible to miss.

The reddish sandstone established dramatic sheer cliffs and a flat summit that was equally elevated to the volcanoes Coop had already visited in the Pacific Andes. Wind and rain left hard sandstone caprock exposed with numerous waterfalls cascading down the cliffs, and because sandstone is porous, it allowed water to percolate into the mountain, creating extensive cave systems that eventually led to the Underlayer.

When Coop arrived, there were hundreds of members of the Lighthouse with an established camp on the surface. He found the entire Cleary family admiring the views while manning an experimental spotlight that was meant to provide a guiding line for anyone in the region, so that others could find the Underlayer and make their way to Ghost Reef. It wasn’t yet installed when Coop appeared, but his companions were coming up with ways to unite the parts of humanity that were still hidden away while he was off gallivanting through the jungle. Elly was riding on top of Buck’s shoulders and excitedly pointed at Coop as he coalesced from the mists.

Evidently, she was on summer vacation and the brothers had brought her along. Coop ended up receiving the local tour from Elly as she repeated what she had learned on the trip. He nodded along as she pointed out the low-growing, scrubby plants that had adapted to living in the harsh conditions of high altitude, strong winds, and poor soil. In particular, the large portion of carnivorous plants that the three brothers agreed had the potential of integrating the way other plants had not. Thus far, they hadn’t discovered any that had gained levels or demonstrated auras, but it wasn’t outside the realm of possibilities.

Otherwise, the animals were almost universally small, whether mammal, reptile, insect, or bird. They existed on the flat-topped mountain in isolation, creating their own private ecosystem that was untouched by Primal Constructs. For Coop to grind, he had to venture into the cloud forests at the base of the exposed rocky summit.