Chapter 266: First to Fall (Patreon)

Specks of soil swirled around Coop’s feet after he disturbed the pristine earth with his sudden appearance. Behind him, a blank canvas of untouched loam stretched to the horizon of the Underlayer, passed over by his long mistjump. Ahead, the endless expanse of repetitive dirt plains reached out like a stagnant sea of black and deep browns, barely reflecting the mysteriously sourceless light. It was a whole bunch of unoccupied emptiness, yet another abyss.

It had only taken ten long spear throws before Coop was feeling overwhelmed by the solitude once again. There was something truly alien about the cavernous underground that he couldn’t quite pin down, and it wasn’t helped by the infinitesimal hunger that was unsatisfied whenever he wasn’t actively on the hunt.

The next mistjump’s considerable distance placed him near the first landmark he had discovered since leaving his companions behind. He paused after he landed, taking a second to double check the surroundings while reconsidering the vacuity of the caverns.

Coop tried to assess how his disposition was affected by the Underlayer logically. His initial diagnosis was that he was instinctively detecting a complete and utter lack of life and it was triggering some prehistoric defense mechanism.

Before the assimilation, if he had wandered into a natural location that was totally devoid of any life, he would hesitate to explore it in fear of some invisible danger. The lack of living organisms would be taken as a sign that there was a deadly gas or some other imperilment that should be avoided. A completely dead place was just unnatural on planet Earth and at some point, ancient humans had learned to be wary in a way that carried on through the ages.

Coop had never been in a place so devoid of life before he entered the Underlayer. There were no trees, no burgeoning grasses, no molds or algaes, not even pioneering insects to break up the monotonous silence with their buzzing. Whatever breeze was present felt artificial, as if it wasn’t the stagnant air being refreshed, but rather mana flowing in a way that was barely discernible to human senses, causing a flow that was more similar to water beneath the surface of a turbulent ocean than the winds on a mostly flat plain. The air hardly moved, and if he let his mind zero in on it, the open expanse felt suffocating despite being sizable. The feeling wasn’t improved by the way the blanket of soil absorbed sounds.

When he was far off the coast, lost in the ocean, the constant waves and the occasional small disturbance on the surface reminded him that time was still flowing. When he was high in the sky, the clouds drifted and various birds glided to high elevations, untethered to the firm ground. In the Underlayer, there was no sun slowly shifting across the sky, no tiny critters proving they owned the habitat, and no real weather patterns to break up the monotony. There weren’t even regular Primal Constructs variants waiting to be confronted.

Coop cleared his throat for no reason other than to make a sound, but the effect was dampened by the ubiquitous dirt, making it seem even more stifling. It would take some effort to make the Underlayer seem comfortable even if it appeared to lack significant hazards.

He gazed at the giant pillar that had drawn his attention in the first place, tracing its edifice with his eyes as it climbed into the vaporous silvery clouds toward the top of the cavern. Unlike Ghost Reef’s column, this one was off to the side, occupying an area near enough to a wall for Coop to clearly see the slight curvature in the edge of the Underlayer, constructed of the same uneroded stone as the solid monument. Ghost Reef had been placed in what seemed like a central hub in comparison. The entire tunnel seemed more than 100 miles wide, so there was plenty of room for variance in the placements of landmarks.

There were no control points around this pillar and no Primal Constructs claiming territory for the miles around that he could see. Coop took a moment to consider if there was a correlation between the connections of the Underlayer to the surface with the locations of civilization shards. It was clear that this one wasn’t near anything at all, but perhaps it had originally been representative of a shard that was already lost.

The connections had all been made at the start of the assimilation at the same time that the civilization shards were landing on the surface, waiting to be claimed, so he thought it made sense that there would at least be a similar amount of coverage, if not a direct correlation. Having a direct connection like Ghost Reef would be rare, but having access to a way down proportional to shards seemed logical.

Coop shrugged his thoughts away, wondering where exactly he was. He had no internal odometer and the way he blasted his spear forward meant that he had no real sense of the distance he was traveling. The fact that the Underlayer shortened the equivalent distances on the surface didn’t help clarify his travel either.

He could only assume that, because he hadn’t discovered Empress City’s Primal Construct assault, he had simply reached a spot in the Florida Keys where a settlement could have been established in the beginning. Otherwise, Empress City’s nearest entryway to the Underlayer might be completely inaccessible.

As far as he knew, the chain of islands at the end of Florida had been completely submerged in the tumultuous start. However, his brief investigation of the pillar didn’t reveal any water leaking into the Underlayer, though he expected mana could easily establish a barrier, so that didn’t mean he was necessarily wrong in thinking this could lead to one of the Keys.

The enormous structure was a simple lonely monument, situated all by itself, with its only company the solitary Champion as he passed by. He supposed someone like Balor would need to fully establish the connection before the chasms connected for anything other than mana.

Coop left the pillar behind with another immense throw of his spear. He took a running start through the cushioning dirt, launching the missile with all of his Strength. The spear was lost from his vision in less time than it took for him to regain his normal posture, leaving spiraling rings of mana as it reached the speed of a fighter jet. It shot forward with no discernible arc.

A twitch of his fingers as he prepared to catch the spear helped him activate the mistjump, like a physical mnemonic device that remembered the natural process he had practiced so many times. He flickered from existence, reappearing some miles ahead, with the spear firmly in his hand.

Another splash of dirt left evidence of his arrival, and another running start initiated another massive throw. Without specific knowledge of his mode of transportation, someone tracing his path might think he had a stride that extended for miles and miles.

Coop was generally someone that was satisfied being alone. He had never been a person that needed to recharge his social battery with groups of people. Voluntarily becoming a lighthouse keeper would have been a mistake if he was worried about loneliness, but he had never considered how the general presence of plants and animals influenced his consciousness. He had only been in the Underlayer for a short time, but he already missed the beach like it had been ages.

He wasn’t sure if it was the seclusion of the underground cavern that was really bothering him, or if it was what the emptiness it represented. The Underlayer was lifeless in a way that seemed intentional. It was like a sterile room, quarantined from the rest of the planet. In the strictly cleansed underground, he was the contaminant. He could sense that he didn’t really belong.

Mistjump after mistjump sent him further away from his companions, but he didn’t slow down beyond making sure to glance around each time he landed. If there was anything to see other than dirt, he would notice it, even if he overshot it by a few miles, but other than the single stone pillar, it was always more of the same.

The Primal Constructs weren’t bothered by the stillness, though the whooshing of air in the distance did finally draw their attention. To their perception, the endless dirt shimmered with mana, blurring the glowing horizon with a haze of energy.

The invaders were silent aside from their limbs tapping their alien fortresses and the soft crunch of the soil compressing beneath their pointed limbs as they patrolled the area. They were the temporary custodians of a desolate landscape, but it was only a staging ground. They would take their positions on the surface if they could hold their ground. They would establish zones of complete dominance.

The most powerful warrior of the Primal Construct force assaulting Empress City, Andamarius, the Blight Howler, lifted its canine head, detecting danger a moment before the rest due to its elevated status as a Field Boss. Its stats were incomparable to any single Elite, and it was gifted with far superior perception.

For a fleeting moment, an almost imperceptible flicker of mana ripped through the shimmering mana on the horizon, carving a channel in the blinding energy like a bullet through steam. The Field Boss was the only one to react before the swoosh of air became a resounding thud. A missile embedded itself straight through his curious head.

The impossible glint of the fleeting streak of ethereal mana had been a silent harbinger of death for the alien invaders. They only had a moment to recognize it before violence exploded in its wake.

Andamarius’s decapitated body collapsed onto its side and began dissipating as the Primal Construct army that had camped around their fortress spun in the direction of the projectile’s origin, caught by surprise. They silently understood that they were under attack and quickly adjusted their orientation, reforming their battle lines while desperately seeking their mysterious opponent as mana shields activated. The attack had come so swiftly, they had no choice but to preemptively defend themselves from another salvo.

Coop appeared from behind them, like a specter shrouded in quickly evaporating mists, and he wasn’t alone. The second attack came from himself and a full complement of phantasms already in melee range. A single attack from an entire phalanx of spear-wielding warriors decimated the backline supporters of the army as they wagged their torso and powered the shields. The spears followed through, cleaving straight through the mechanical bodies. They had no warning thanks to the attackers’ ethereal existences.

The spear thrusts crippled the ranged Scourge and Spite Constructs as well, deeper in the formation, but the phantasms evaporated into the Underlayer before reaching the back of the shield bearing frontline, leaving Coop alone after piercing into the interior of a massive group of Elite Primal Constructs. Coop wasn’t disheartened by his solitude on the battlefield. It was different when compared to the loneliness of the Underlayer. This was better. He smiled as the hunt he desperately sought was finally upon him.

Dirt bounced off Coop’s cheek, as his lunge carried him forward, through the spray generated by his opening attack. He pierced the metal armored head of a Ruin Construct with the tip of his ethereal spear, firmly gripping it with his right hand, making it seem like a natural extension of his forearm. The crunch reverberated through the stagnant air of the Underlayer as the Construct’s life was extinguished.

Coop didn’t stop moving, having practiced with a level of intensity that was appropriate for this battle during his most recent grinds. At this point, his truculence came naturally. The speartip melted into mists, expanding until it reformed into a flat blade that was already tearing out of the dissipating body. The stagnant air whistled as the blade cleaved a second Ruin Construct before it could even set its feet.

Each time he struck one of the mannequin-like enemies, a phantasm burst from the mists, joining him for combination attacks that caught additional targets equally unprepared, multiplying his damage to the enemy formations.

Coop’s glaive ripped forward as the army collapsed upon his position, firing ranged attacks that he ducked beneath, or attempting to strike his blindside only to be met by phantasms too powerful for them to push. When he spun and the glaive transformed back into his ethereal spear, he pitched it forward in one smooth twirling motion, turning his tactics into an aggressive dance.

The missile cut a hole through the army before Coop mistjumped into another bunched up crowd. He swapped again, this time to his sword, and used the blade to slice down multitudes of the enemy casters, then when the shieldbearers attempted to get Coop’s assault under control, they were crushed beneath the immense weight of his enhanced morning star, leaking streams of spectral mana with just a slight touch of the abyss.

Coop had an answer for each of the five enemy types if he needed it, and their small party formations lacked the ability to match his personal adaptability, requiring their specific strengths to be leveraged before their weaknesses were exposed. Coop pierced their cores and whittled them down while they attempted to adjust. Their only advantage was sheer numbers, but repeatedly defeating monsters in extended periods of combat was Coop’s absolute specialty.

When Coop finally discovered some enemies in the Underlayer, there was no hesitation in his actions. His mistjump had continued as planned, though the most dangerous enemy was targeted first. There was only a single fort within range, nearly identical to the ones that had spawned around Ghost Reef’s trench-lined stronghold. The main difference was that rows of the alien soldiers were organized beyond its exterior, too numerous to all fit inside the metal confines of their walls.

Coop was a whirlwind of violence, finally unleashing his pent up frustration with the galactic community on the hapless Primal Constructs. He didn’t bother holding back. He was completely unwilling to give them even a single second to delay him further.

The organized columns of alien invaders were torn to bits as Coop crushed their invasion force before turning his attention to the fort itself. Between the Champion and the Legacy of the Mists, the representative of Earth had carved through 2,500 Elite Primal Constructs and a single Field Boss in less than an hour, leaving the fort’s defenders alone on the walls and within the parade grounds.

Coop used his knuckles to wipe dirt from his brow, creating a smear as he decided on how to proceed on their stronghold. It wasn’t like he needed a siege engine to break their defenses.

A single spear throw blasted a hole straight through the side wall, revealing the other half of the preliminary fort’s forces. The interior Constructs were organized to defend the gate that he had completely ignored, anticipating the attack from the weakest point of their structure. Coop crashed into their side, a single flanking force accompanied by fleeting ghosts of silent human vanquishers.

The remaining 2,500 system limited Primal Construct soldiers didn’t stand a chance either. They were slaughtered, trapped within their own defenses with someone that had exceeded expectations on a level they could never have calculated for. Phantasms made wild leaping attacks that prevented the aliens from establishing any sort of coordinated defense, and a repeat of the fight club during the siege event took place. The main difference was Coop’s multiplicative growth since that time.

Once the walls faded away, dissipating with the last of the defenders, the control point began transitioning from red to blue. The Champion was left alone on the southwestern corner of Empress City’s blockade, and he waited with a bit of impatience. His heart was pounding, 5,000 enemies were defeated, but he wasn’t feeling fulfilled. Like a fiend, he wanted to kill more, to defeat them all. 

He took a deep calming breath, forcing himself to be disciplined and remember the objectives before he greedily chased more kills. He planted the butt of his spear in the ground and stood like a statue, dirt sticking to his sweat while his ethereal armor hummed with energy. Spectral mana drifted from his torso, making him the mirror image of one of his ghosts, though the rare black wisp added an eldritch flavor that the human phantasms lacked.

Broadening his horizons beyond Ghost Reef was making him feel a different kind of urgency. It almost felt selfish, but if he was going to let even more people rely on him, it seemed necessary to take another step forward.

He watched as the nearest fort on the horizon, miles away, mobilized its own army to prevent him from capturing the point. They hadn’t reacted until its possession was contested, much too late to make a difference. Once it was clear that the first fort had fallen, they committed to its defense, not that he thought it would have mattered if they had been more timely.

They marched toward him in orderly columns, evidently seeking to engage the army that had caught a quarter of their entire assaulting force by surprise. The absence of an opposing force hadn’t dawned on them.

Coop couldn’t wait. He met them in the field near their fort of origin, repeating his opening spear throw with an explosive volatile attack that formed a crater in the dirt while sending the enemy forces into chaos. It seemed like they didn’t expect his aggression in the slightest, but Coop had been fettered by responsibility and modesty for too long. He would kill all these aliens before he captured any of the control points. The Champion of Ghost Reef was feeling bloodthirsty. A new grind was finally getting started.

He left the first control point unclaimed, instead seeking his second conquest while he was revved up. The slaughter was a repeat of the first, though the second point lacked a Field Boss leader. Another 5,000 Primal Constructs were sent back to wherever they came from with several ethereal weapons slipping in and out of existence and countless phantasms providing bursts of power.

Coop didn’t wait for the third to mobilize their assault force before he blasted into them. He was upon the third fort while they were still lining up to face the second exposed control point. When he was done, he moved on to the next, relentlessly seeking the defeat of his enemies.

The fourth fort collapsed before its army. The Primal Constructs had sent their last army to reclaim the first partially captured control point while he attacked their other strongholds in a clockwise rotation. The exposed army of the final stronghold were crushed where their first brethren had been defeated after their fort was stolen out from under them.

The Primal Constructs had placed their forts equidistant from each other. Coop assumed they were surrounding Empress City, placing a fort on each intercardinal point. There were no landmarks designating the location of the settlement, but he doubted the Primal Constructs were camping out randomly. The first stronghold would have been located approximately where Peacock Park was on the surface, assuming the empty central area would have been the airport, while the second fort might be near the golf course, if he tried to account for the differences in distances in the Underlayer. That meant the other two would have been north and south of Battery Park and the accompanying port.

Unlike Ghost Reef, the Constructs had sought to completely enclose Empress City’s settlement. A stronghold of alien invaders would have trapped the entire center of the pre-mana city within their net. It was less of a foothold in the civilization shard’s territory and more of a complete takeover.

“Ambitious.” Coop muttered as he settled into position in the center of the first capture point, 20,000 Primal Construct defeats later. Since he was just getting started, he figured he could let himself be a bit more ambitious as well.