Chapter 146: Chosen Champion (Patreon)

Supreme Champion Jerry the First was positively giddy with excitement. The victory he anticipated was almost within his grasp, and with it, he knew his position within the Sapphire Armada would be secured. This would be his gift to what would become his new faction. A settlement as a tithe. Then he would have the leverage to keep climbing. The Endless Empire was no longer useful to him, so he was perfectly willing to trade up. Accepting the offer to align with the Armada was the logical choice. Loyalty was something for the dimwitted.

The lightning tornado that had interrupted the final assault had been an unexpected development, but just as the rest of the rebel efforts, it merely delayed the inevitable. It further cemented the idea that they had been involved in breaking their leader out of jail, but Jerry didn’t find the sequel as awe inspiring as the unexpected hurricane that engulfed the airport. Some of his best soldiers could scrape together theatrical abilities every once in a while as well, though the tornado had annihilated the hailstorm that one of his promising captains summoned to counter it. It was just another small embarrassment from one of his underlings in a long series of such disappointments.

The Chosen of the Empire maintained both a numerical and a material advantage with the clearly established enemy. As long as he kept his forces together, he would prevent the rebels’ initial guerilla tactics from being effective. Forcing them into standing toe-to-toe with his superior force, or simply cede their base, scattering them to the wind, had been the adjustment they needed to grasp victory. Trying to root them out of the decimated warehouses had proven to cost far too much.

He had no idea how the insurgents concocted such a dramatic area skill, but it was too little, too late. A temporary, last minute reprieve was all that they could buy with their efforts. They remained cornered inside of the port, and the storm was rapidly fading while he allowed his battalions a short rest. If he was lucky, the traitorous rebels would feel emboldened enough to meet them on the open highway again where they would be more easily steamrolled by his troops.

The remaining Chosen of the Empire were being forged into his personal army through the constant series of battles since the end of the siege event. Fighting against their brothers who had abandoned them for the doomed revolution only pushed them further into Jerry’s grasp. The rebels represented a baptism for those who would become truly loyal to him, and him alone. In that sense, he owed the revolution gratitude, they did him a favor, discarding the chaff that had accumulated beneath him and honing what remained.

Jerry almost pitied the Sapphire Armada, for they would be welcoming a Trojan Horse into their midst. They thought they would get a subordinate settlement in Empress City, submissive to their authority, but Jerry wouldn’t be content with them as his master. He couldn’t help but giggle at how well things were going. Nothing would stop his rise.

The sound of a distant, muffled explosion, followed by muttering among his troops brought his attention away from his plans for the future, back to the present. “What’s this?” Jerry asked, as the smile slid off his face.

His expression transformed to his more typical scowl as his new Viceroy’s battalions appeared on their side of the highway, as expected, but in an all out retreat, practically tripping over themselves to run and join Jerry’s resting squads. His generals should have led a controlled retreat to hold the end of the highway as he had ordered ahead of time. Jerry raised an eyebrow as he failed to spot his advisor among the fleeing troops and the army was notably smaller than expected, as if they had been cut in half. The rebels shouldn’t have been capable of reducing them so drastically given how the rest of the campaign had progressed.

“How many are missing?” He asked as the exit ramp emptied completely and the remnants put distance between themselves and the battlefield, racing to join Jerry’s forces as if they were chased by invisible monsters, hot on their heels. They had completely abandoned their own formation even though the weeks of fighting the rebels had been a lesson in the advantages of coordination.

“Hard to say, Supreme Champion, but it looks like they were beaten quite badly.” His scout advisor answered. Jerry hadn’t learned his name yet, but he had some uses, mostly when it came to identifying enemies from a distance. “The Viceroy is not among them.” The scout finished.

Jerry rolled his eyes. Viceroys died so much, it was almost as if the position itself made them incompetent. When his eyes returned to the road, he noticed a single man standing still in the distance, near the end of the highway, far behind his fleeing troops. One glance told him he wasn’t one of theirs. “Who’s that?” He asked. It seemed like Jerry only blinked and the warrior suddenly appeared. Was that who the legion was fleeing from? Preposterous.

“Hm.” The scout advisor squinted, then seemed to swallow his tongue after he triggered his skill, bemused by what he saw.

“Spit it out!” Jerry demanded impatiently.

“Ultimate Insight says he is an Unchosen Champion, but it fails to give a proper designation of his stats. He could have a high magic defense preventing the skill from working properly.” The scout revealed.

“Unchosen Champion?” Jerry scoffed, imagining that his pathetic second legion had fled from an opponent that wasn’t even worth a third-rate faction’s sponsorship. The enemy just stood there, almost half a mile away, in the center of a multi lane highway, with black smoke billowing across the sky and a fading tornado behind him.

“But something isn’t quite right. I believe he also has an unsanctioned faction.” The scout couldn’t decipher his own skills. Jerry couldn't expect much from people in general, so his scout displaying his ineptitude was expected. They always disappointed him.

However, a Champion appearing at this stage could only be a boon. Jerry wouldn’t miss an opportunity to obtain a backup civilization shard if it was going to come gift wrapped at a time like this. He was particularly amused by the idea that this could be the Champion of Ghost Reef, the timing of his appearance would be hilarious. Ever since they had topped the event leaderboards, he had been hearing whispers about the settlement along with the fact that it was potentially nearby. He could only hope the rumors would come true.

“Follow me!” He ordered, and his first legion roused themselves. The second legion regrouped behind, joining the tail. Jerry suddenly saw a chance to leap ahead in his plans.

“If you want something done right…” He told himself. It wasn’t like he would allow someone else to become Champion unless he personally selected them, so he would be the one to kill this man.

He stepped forward, ready to claim his bounty. Jerry wasn’t concerned about high magic defense because his main opener, Cosmic Journey, was completely irresistible. At best, high defense would lower the duration of its effect, but they would still have to travel the cosmos to return their consciousness to their body, and he only needed a second to send a void spark through a heart.

He would send this upstart on a Cosmic Journey, defeat him, then have his army finish off the rebel stronghold. That would put himself in the absolute ideal position as he negotiated his way up the Sapphire Armada’s ranks. He would certainly gain significant leverage with two shards under his control. He might even demand they become his subordinate instead. Why shouldn’t he?

He strode forward, confident in the cheat-like abilities that had dominated everyone around him. Not even the most highly invested Chosen had been able to withstand his crowd control, special equipment included, and the rest of his assault was devastating if undefended.

Ever since he started applying his personal touch, things had escalated in his favor. When he relied too much on others, it seemed like there was a constant slide into more and more problems. The Endless Empire, Rod, the system services, his advisors, his Viceroys, even his own family; they had all inevitably let him down, both in his previous life and this one. Now his fate was in his own hands. Thanks to mana, he was in control.

As he moved forward, with his army at his back, maintaining the distance he had established, his opponent did the same. The confidence that this gladiator displayed was misplaced, but amusing. There was no chance of the rebels flanking. There wasn’t enough cover to mask such a maneuver in the ruins of the city district. This was the beginning of the end for them.

Even from the vast distance between them, Jerry could see that the gladiator’s skin was stained with blood, though his armor was untarnished. Jerry suspected that he was delirious with injuries, approaching an army the way he was, all by his lonesome. He obviously didn’t know what he was getting himself into, and before he knew it, he would be in range of Jerry’s combination skills. Jerry would show him the difference between a Chosen Champion and whatever dregs he came from.

Jerry had risen to the top 100 of the global rankings. Killing rebels was a lucrative experience farm. He was sure that even those that stayed ahead of him would fall beneath the pressure of his Void skills if it came to a duel. He relished the thought.

The gladiator was cocking his spear back, with his gleaming round shield held out in front. Jerry wondered why? Some kind of attempt at intimidation? Jerry’s army was still almost half a mile away from the exit ramps, far enough to have plenty of time to retaliate if the rebels mounted a counter-attack, but much too far to be at risk of being caught by surprise.

A split-second later and Jerry instinctually tried stumbling out of the way as the air rippled around the approaching missile, creating blurred rings that erupted in its trail. The spear shot forward with unbelievable speed as it left the gladiator’s hand, flying like a laser directly at Jerry’s chest. Jerry barely had time to flinch.

But the spear stopped as it was grabbed by an incorporeal fist, with the rest of the gladiator's arm manifesting behind the clenched fist. The gladiator was suddenly standing 10 feet away, bursting out of nothing but mist with no prior warning. Jerry practically choked in surprise as he was blasted by the air that whirled with the spear, deafened by the roaring of a rumbling boom that chased in the missile’s wake, and was confronted by furious, completely bloodshot eyes, focused directly into his own.

An aura hit him like a truck, feeling physically heavy, as the warrior leveled a silent, but unmistakable threat that was enough to freeze his veins. The crushing presence made Jerry feel genuine fear for the first time he could ever remember, as if he wasn’t facing a man at all. This was an amalgamation of nightmares and lethality.

A split second after the spear left the gladiator’s hand at the start of its flight, Jerry finally coughed from his initial shock of the weapon shooting like a missile along the highway, but for some reason, blood escaped his throat, splattering on the pavement. He looked down and saw the same spear that the gladiator was still holding, the one that had caused him to shrink into his own mind, except the tip was mirrored, extending two feet through his chest, impaling him from the back. As he watched the spear drip with his own blood, it burst into mists, like he was living a bad dream haunted by the gladiator.

He collapsed, feebly struggling in his last moments to make sense of what was happening, wondering if his spell had even activated.

—

Coop felt a moment of vertigo that made his stomach flip, but otherwise only caused a slight hitch in his step. He immediately blamed all of the unbridled violence and the fact that he had over done it with his opener.

The way the man had stepped forward, ahead of the army with confidence that resonated between himself and the rest of the troops, left Coop with the impression that he was some kind of serious elite. Coop had employed some of his trickiness in the initial engagement, anticipating a challenge. Using himself as a decoy, he applied a full pressure wave of his aura with Presence of Mind as a distraction, while getting close enough to go for the kill with Legacy of the Mists without waiting for Fog of War to increase his phantasm summon range.

He was too far away to inspect his opponent's aura before Coop initiated the fight, so he went with a full package of skills, fully prepared to follow up with a combination of quickswaps and phantasms. The result of the leadoff had been overwhelming, with barely anyone in the Empire’s army even reacting in the time that it took Coop to defeat the first.

Coop looked up at the legions of Chosen. They hadn’t lost the will to fight, but at least a few looked appropriately terrified, thanks to Presence of Mind washing over them as well. Witnessing the phantasm easily dispatch the guy they had sent out first had doused some of their bloodthirst. A few of those who had already retreated from Coop’s Fog of War slowly backed away, but most were emboldened by their superior numbers, and felt confident in their chances.

The truth was that thousands of people situated on both sides of a highway forced them into long columns that obstructed their views. A majority of them had no idea what was happening in front. They wanted to kill the rebels and were confused at the hold up. Coop had no chance of intimidating them into surrender.

The ones who did only see a single enemy weren’t overly discouraged. They shouted provocations at each other while cursing Coop, the rebels, and the Nomad, and all of that fed the columns, reigniting their bloodlust. It wasn’t training or camaraderie that kept them cohesive, but something more base. They had a murderous mob mentality. Their ire was temporarily directed solely at Coop, though he doubted his death would be enough to satiate them.

Despite being an undisciplined force, they still had enough coordination to mostly fall into their party roles, with heavily armored tanks making up the front line and glass cannon ranged attackers in the interior. He wished they would just run away, but when a wall of shields started pressing forward, encroaching on his position while he shifted to avoid slow moving projectiles, he clenched his teeth and wound up another spear throw, stepping over his first victim’s body.

His spear crashed through three adjacent tower shield carrying warriors, and he mistjumped into their midst. Thrusting his spear into the first downed tank, and twirling with his war fork to cleave the other two newly exposed fighters. He made rapid progress beyond their frontline, using their own mass to shield himself from more than a dozen opponents at a time. They fought between burned out cars, barely more than engine blocks and frames, next to toppled truck trailers that had been dragged into the median, stepping over charred tires and along broken billboards with scraps of colorful advertising left between scorch marks.

Quickswapping between his weapons exploited his flexibility when compared to any of the individual opponents who found themselves facing him down in brief duels that never ended well, for them, anyway. Even their highest levels, farmed from defeating humans, were no match for Coop’s accumulated battle experience.

Bones snapped when his whirling bo staff smacked against exposed limbs, too slow to maneuver out of the way. Armor was crushed when his morning star’s meteoric slams shook the highway, treating heavy tower shields as if they were made of aluminum. Blood rained on the pavement when his glaive sliced the air, leaving gruesome trails through the crowd.

Coop’s phantasms were equally varied, leaping through the mists all around him, crashing down from impossible angles, ignoring waist-high obstacles as they appeared further up in the air with leaping thrusts and crashing attacks. He spent his mana as fast as it was recovered, and his opponents yielded much more mana than his typical grind targets. Ancient warriors hammered unwitting Chosen from their flanks and the gleaming ghosts of knights chopped through bodies before dissipating back into mists.

By the time Coop was ready to cast another Fog of War it was clear that it wouldn’t be necessary, so he stuck with spending his mana on phantasms. Compared to the encounter with the Primal Construct’s elite squads, the humans were far, far behind. The chaos compounded on itself. Coop’s phantasms and his own mobility resulted in the Chosen of the Endless Empire killing themselves at a rate that rivaled or even exceeded Coop’s potency. Friendly fire had been almost non-existent when the Primal Constructs took shots at the evasive Champion, as they always seemed to angle their shots high or low, but the humans paid no heed to the trajectory of their projectiles, or even their bladed weapons.

When Coop utilized his ethereal swordsmanship, turning himself into an ephemeral target wasn’t the only result. Wild sword swings sliced into the backs of their allies, cutting each other down as they whiffed Coop, before being burned by uncontrolled spells peppering the general vicinity of Coop, failing to account for his mobility. Even the phantasms inspired overreactions, as ranged attackers slammed the dissipated mists with area skills, only catching their allies in deadly spells as they literally chased ghosts.

Coop imagined he was an unfeeling specter as he killed them, wishing it were true as he stifled the sinking feeling in his chest. He was constantly moving forward where his opponents extended along the highway, killing as he went. Each Chosen’s death made him angrier and angrier until he could barely hear his ragged breathing over the high-pitched ringing that gritting his teeth was causing in his ears.

The ringing only stopped when a short spike and a hook clattered against the pavement as a Chosen threw his weapons on the ground, putting his hands up. Coop ignored him and continued with the slaughter around him instead. A roar came from behind, as the rebels rushed onto the highway, still some distance away, but making their presence known with desperate battlecries.

Once the first guy surrendered, others started to do the same, sometimes silently, but most of the time begging him for mercy. Those who still hadn’t witnessed their opponent at least heeded the sight of their allies giving up, and the presence of the incoming army led to more and more throwing down their weapons with nothing more than a look. Coop let them, but when a few broke off to run toward the airport, Coop was quick to mistjump all the way in front of them, changing the battlefield so that he was corralling the vestiges of what had once been an army and was now being reduced to a confused crowd. Coop didn’t spare them any words, but the message was clear enough. They wouldn’t escape. A few continued to fight, but it was clear that the tide had completely turned against those that had been enthusiastic about the slaughter.

The melee simply petered out. There was no grand finale, the fighting just slowed down until the only ones left on the highway were Coop, rebels, or surrendered Chosen of the Empire. Everyone still looking for a fight had been cut down by Coop and his phantasms. The rest had lost the will to fight with shocking speed. The Endless Empire’s Chosen had been completely defeated.

By the time Coop was back at the front of the Empire’s columns, searching for any challenger and finding none willing. Coop found himself face-to-face with an even more ragtag group of blood-soaked and exhausted combatants. They all backed away from him as he assessed them with the same aggressive appraisal as he did the Empire’s soldiers. Some of them had Empire equipment on, but most were dressed in pre-mana clothes, torn and dirtied after months of apocalyptic living, with equally unimpressive, improvised weapons.

A vaguely familiar face broke through the crowd, ready to engage Coop in what he assumed was a friendly reunion. “The Nomad!” He raised his voice, drawing the attention of anyone within earshot, making sure everyone associated the whispered stories with Coop’s timely appearance.

Coop closed the distance with a few steady steps and the man who Coop had released from prison walked forward with both of his arms out, like he was meeting an old friend. His eyes bugged out when they got close enough for Coop to grab him by the throat with a blood covered hand and lift him off his feet, dangling him in the air.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Coop demanded, feeling his veins burn as the smoldering rage that had been building within him with every kill reached a crescendo.