Chapter 161: High Ground (Patreon)

Guard Captain Alaric led the 300 phantoms in holding the shallow water against the Sapphire Armada’s ground assault. The channel of water proved to be a valuable obstacle that burdened their enemies far more than the phantoms. Beyond Coop’s contribution with Fog of War, he didn’t actually need to participate in the initial defense. The phantoms had spread themselves along shallows, challenging any of the Armada’s troops who crossed into the deepest parts of the channel. Each phantom incorporated well-drilled techniques unique to their classes, but they always leaned heavily on their ethereal nature. The effortless teleports were a constant, no matter their individual archetype, and in this setting, the extraordinary mobility by itself was devastating to their enemies.

On the other side, the Sapphire Armada’s assault was broken up into independently operating squads which cooperated amongst each other. Within the squads they still fell into the typical party format that the factions promoted, but Coop approved of at least partially eschewing the standard formula. Even if it didn’t do them much good when they challenged Ghost Reef, the additional organization had been enough to clearly elevate their settlement over the Endless Empire’s undisciplined tactics.

Each of the Armada’s squads had some form of specialization, usually tied to secondary weapons that had been distributed to each soldier. Some of them fell back onto range tactics, but there were some that leaned on tankiness or had a higher concentration of casters and even a few that were designed to support other large groups. None of them matched up favorably with the phantoms, no matter what the individuals of each squad focused on, since the phantoms had been forced to adapt to combat with a wide variety of enemies. Between the Elite Primal Construct variants and the different Field Bosses, they had already seen most of the tactics that the squads displayed.

The phantoms were equipped with the Ghost Reef Standard Issue gear which was giving them an overwhelming advantage in perception over the enemy combatants while inside the Fog of War. Where the Sapphire Armada’s troops were partially blind, deafened, and isolated by Coop’s slowly drifting, misty domain, the phantom shock troops had completely uninhibited senses. The more expensive features of the armor were working perfectly, proving the additional material cost to be absolutely worth the expense. The night’s efficacy tests had revealed the limitations of the features within the helmets and Coop was able to hit just the right density to hinder their enemies while letting his allies have free rein on the battlefield. Obviously, he could make the Fog of War significantly thicker, putting them all into a world that seemed to collapse into a sensory deprivation chamber, but even as it was, the domain was still dense enough to limit perception to a bubble that only extended a maximum of 10 yards around anyone trapped inside. It was enough to prevent the Armada from properly appreciating the threat hidden within, even if some of them had their initial suspicions.

The advantage given by the phantoms’ perception was only multiplied by the exceptional stats of the equipment itself. Garod had promised that what they crafted would be among the best, if not the actual top of the line of gear on the entire planet, and the contracted residents of Ghost Reef had delivered. The phantoms had an extraordinary gear advantage over the invaders on top of the environmental high ground being intensified by Coop’s Fog of War. The Armada’s troops were equipped in faction gear, but as explained by the master smith, mass produced gear was typically made cheaply with less potent materials. Relative to the phantoms’ opponents, the defenders of Ghost Reef were significantly better off.

Then, on top of material advantages, the phantoms were also around 20 levels higher than the invaders at a minimum. Unlike the Endless Empire’s Chosen, who had a handful of extremely high performers relative to the rest, thanks to constant battles with Jackson and Fabiana’s revolutionary army and their own variable enthusiasm, the Sapphire Armada’s Chosen were much more uniform in terms of levels. They had also been skirmishing with the Endless Empire to maintain their territorial control, but the Empire hadn’t been sending fighters to do their scouting, so the Armada lacked individual standouts. Instead they revealed the development that a structured and organized settlement might have retained while battling constant sources of Primal Constructs.

It was clear that most of the levels that the Sapphire Armada enjoyed had come from engaging with monsters and consistently rotating their soldiers in their effort to isolate the Empire. Given the information that had been provided by Camila’s family, Coop suspected that the dangerous untamed areas north of the Orlando settlement had been a source of valuable experience. He had to wonder if part of their desperate ploy to commit so single-mindedly to taking over Ghost Reef was a reaction to the escalating dangers of the wilderness at their border and their inability to keep it under control. If the region was challenging enough that the spillover pushed them to level faster, they might have at least some of the advantages that Ghost Reef had enjoyed when it came to monster zones. Alternatively, every settlement might have had similar advantages, but not every settlement was in a position to leverage them, even being pushed out if they couldn’t keep up with the ambient development of the monsters as seemed to be the case with the Armada.

In any case, fighting monsters had been the source of the Sapphire Armada’s more consistent levels, leaving many of them in the high 50s and low 60s at this point of the assimilation. The fact that it had been two months since the start meant that they were doing a decent job keeping up with the expected leveling curve, at least the one that the factions had been so confident in. Unfortunately for them, Ghost Reef’s defenders had already achieved that level of progress practically a month prior, while the siege was ongoing. In half the time, the siege event had catapulted every resident of the settlement to what the Sapphire Armada achieved, and then continued for what Coop assumed were about seven extra waves, sending them to new heights that even the diligent progress of a relatively successful settlement hadn’t caught up with just yet.

Even worse for their would-be conquerors was that they weren’t facing just anyone from Ghost Reef. The 300 hand-picked phantom soldiers were essentially the elites of an already elite group. Everyone in Coop’s settlement had been forced into hard-won progression, embracing the challenge and riding the momentum even afterwards, but the ones engaging with the Sapphire Armada were the few that had survived the entire siege event, from start to end, including facing off against the much more organized and potent Primal Construct battalion and helping finish off the world’s first Icon of Mana. They were all level 75 before the event had ended, and now that their level cap had been extended even further, they were at a minimum in the 80s or 90s, and they were still climbing rapidly with all the experience gained as they cut down their enemies in their duty to defend the settlement.

Actively participating in the defense was a much faster experience farm when compared to the training they underwent with Ledwidge. For the phantoms, the difference was between hands-on practical experience and learning something in theory, unlike their human counterparts who had to accumulate mana rather than concentrate on refinement. The phantoms would level up while defending the fort even if their opponents were level one, but that also meant they couldn’t grind the same way Coop did, forced instead to undergo training to progress.

Beyond the gear, perception, battle experience, and raw level advantages, the defenders had also selected the absolute best possible battleground to leverage their position. The individual Chosen of the Sapphire Armada were stuck wading through water that reached their thighs or even all the way up to their waists, restricting their movement completely as they navigated the foggy world of Coop’s domain. The phantom soldiers had a teleport that prevented their movements from being hampered by the sea whatsoever. Only the Guard Captain physically pushed through the water, lacking his own teleport but making up for it with unbridled power and his extreme size.

Coop observed from nearly a hundred yards up the beach as the phantoms cut down scores of the hapless invaders in the water, letting the current carry the bodies out of the way for the next set of challengers. The phantoms were periodically leveling up as they fought, providing a burst of light from within the fog each time one of them reached a new threshold. Coop was also receiving experience just for providing Fog of War, but his leveling had tapered off quite a bit, even when it came to human enemies. He hated to look at the invasion like an experience farm, but even in that sense it was disappointing. He couldn’t even look towards the ancillary benefits of conflict with other settlements.

Guard Captain Alaric was the only one who wouldn’t gain any experience at all, but he was already level 500. Coop may have felt a bit redundant given the overwhelming success the phantom soldiers were sustaining, but he had a sneaking suspicion that Guard Captain’s presence alone would have been a significant hindrance on the success of an invasion. He didn’t appear to have the kind of abilities that would support his defeat of an army by himself, but his durability would transform him into a capable guardian that slowed a shard’s claim for some time regardless. Given that a challenger would need to maintain control of the civilization shard for an extended period of time if they didn’t defeat the Champion, they would be forced to deal with the overleveled protector in the meantime. Alaric would make a perfect sentry if Coop was away from the settlement for long periods of time. It would take a particularly high level of coordination, in addition to experience, to properly deal with him. In the chaos of battle, Coop couldn’t imagine any of the groups he had encountered pulling it off.

However, the security provided by the unreasonably high level guardian wasn’t completely reassuring. Coop had two reasons to be concerned. First was that the system thought it was reasonable to award a settlement with such a ridiculous defender at this point in the assimilation. He had to ask himself what that meant for the challenges going forward. The second was when he put himself in the shoes of someone taking a settlement rather than defending one. For example, what if the Endless Empire had a level 500 waiting for him when he entered the inner ring of Empress City’s airport?

It had been a while since Coop considered what his stats would look like if he had been stuck accumulating them without the benefit of his Revenant passive skills, but given that he was pushing 8,000 total attributes, he wasn’t sure if he should be that concerned. Between his passive skills, his Slayer titles, his profession, and his equipment, he had to be getting to the point where he was a force to be reckoned with, even compared to the aliens. Of course, the contracted residents weren’t restricted to just their class level either, but still, Coop had to acknowledge his advancement was getting extreme. The snowballing would continue.

More importantly, in order to receive the Guard Captain, the Champion of a settlement needed to defeat a Siege Boss before they upgraded to the Town level. How many Siege Bosses had been killed, or rather, how many had even spawned at this point in the assimilation? It took the special circumstances of Ghost Reef’s extended Siege Event to spawn the first. Coop suspected that none of the other frontrunners, in terms of settlements, had the opportunity to complete the bonus objective before upgrading. The Guard Captain was meant to be a reward for the settlements that were slower to level, like a catch up mechanic for those hanging on while the assimilation developed further. If a settlement was struggling to advance to the point that Siege Bosses were more frequent while they tried to evolve from a Village to a Town, they probably deserved the bonus defender. Presumably, the Chosen fighting in that assimilation’s timeline would also be higher level to match. Coop had to wonder whether they could gauge their assimilation’s progress based on the system’s standard rewards. Perhaps they weren’t expected to see Siege Bosses for 500 days and therefore the first settlement Guard Captains wouldn’t come until they weren’t unreasonably leveled.

“Lucky us.” Coop mumbled under his breath, as he let Presence of Mind sweep his senses. He could only conclude that Earth’s assimilation was a bit accelerated compared to what was anticipated. In any case, as long as they could survive, they would benefit from later rewards coming early.

Alaric was wielding a heavy, twin, spike ball flail. The second spike ball made the weapon exponentially more unwieldy, but the new Guardian of Ghost Reef had no trouble bringing both of them to bear, whirling them like a pair of helicopter blades, rotating in opposite directions through the mists before crushing his targets as he loomed over them. The haunted armor applied the weapon with a proficiency that Coop would only be comfortable comparing with his own limbs. It made him just a little bit self-conscious of his own limited experimentation with a flail, but also more sure that he shouldn’t bother with the particular weapon variant.

As the morning waned, the initial groups of the Sapphire Armada’s troops had been wiped out, but the rest of the army continued to trudge forward, seeming to be almost infinite. In the light of day, Coop’s Fog of War was suspicious enough for the bulk of the army to call a halt to its advancement and reconsider their approach. It took the Sapphire Armada a long time, but they eventually realized that entering the fog was a deadly mistake that they shouldn’t repeat.

When the Armada set up with ranged squads along the opposite shore of the channel and started throwing explosive magics blindly into the depths of Coop’s domain, the phantoms prepared for the second phase of their defense. The fog was the thinnest at the edges, but it had drifted all the way to the palm grove on the opposite shore of the channel by the time the fighting evolved to the next stage.

Still within the mists, the phantoms spread themselves evenly, claiming sections of the domain that they would be responsible for keeping clear. The phantoms each had their own classes and abilities, with preferred weapon sets crafted by Garod, but by this point it was obvious that they were all dangerously potent. Swords were the most common choice, but there was a range from small gleaming daggers all the way to heavy two-handed hammers for the melee fighters, and some interesting foci for the casters who had unanimously opted to evolve their builds into something more akin to battlemages. Where the human resident casters of Ghost Reef had adapted to maximize their range to the fullest in order to better utilize the fort, the phantoms had embraced their role as frontline skirmishers. In a way, they were inadvertently following in Coop’s footsteps.

With a single metallic order from Guard Captain Alaric initiating their counter assault, the phantoms steadily marched forward, pushing through the water while still hidden in the fog, holding back on their teleports until they revealed themselves to the Armada.

From the Armada’s perspective, the swirling fog first began revealing blobs of denser shadows that gradually took the form of silhouettes. Then, at the edge of Coop’s domain, the phantoms all emerged in unison, seeming more like special operatives in their black leathers and charcoal gray matte armors, trailing wisps of foggy smoke from their sealed masks and wielded weapons. They could have been mistaken for space-age bounty hunters breaching an airlock if not for the tropical setting and medieval weapons.

It was the first look that the invading troops received of their opponents. A volley of magic flew across the remaining gap in response as the Armada’s troops finally found visible targets, but the phantoms had already closed the distance. The phantoms teleported as one, with a series of thumps when the air was displaced by their movement. They cut down the ranged casters that had drifted into the front in their efforts to blast the misty domain. Few in the Armada had the reactions necessary to respond to the sudden gap close, and the phantoms took advantage of their unreadiness.

The assault only lasted seconds, but sharp blades and heavy blunted weapons made quick work of those within range. Explosions of magic left craters beneath the coconut palms, wiping out groups of the would-be conquerors and leaving single phantoms in the freshly emptied space. After the entire frontline of more than a thousand troops were wiped out, leaving those at the edge of the treeline as witnesses, the phantoms teleported back into the fog, disappearing even more rapidly than they had appeared.