Chapter 162: Hold the Line (Patreon)

The defenders of Ghost Reef had finally revealed themselves to the Sapphire Armada’s troops with a devastating counter assault. The quick maneuver from the edge of the mists had been as much for intimidation as it was reducing the Sapphire Armada’s troops. Between the formidable appearance of the phantoms, fully equipped in dark armor like space age shock troops, and their inexplicable movement enabled by their ethereal nature, they hoped to discourage the assault. The fog was obvious, but what lurked inside had been more of a mystery than a threat. The phantoms themselves flipped the dynamic, showing what a menace they would represent if the invasion continued.

Depending on how the enemies reacted, the phantoms had several different contingencies planned. In the ideal scenario, the invaders would turn around and leave, but it was clear that had never really been an option. Once they burned their own ships they had sealed their fates. There would be no retreat.

The phantoms, on the other hand, still had plenty of alternatives. They could maintain the current battlefield in an effort to continue utilizing the advantages granted by the channel running between the islands, they could retreat further into the mists and continue to harass the enemy as they ceded ground while relying on the strengths of Fog of War to maintain their concealment, or they could return to the fort and regroup with the rest of the residents, buckling down for a final showdown in a practiced formation with more support from the settlement. Ultimately, it was a decision being left to the Guard Captain, who would yield to Coop should he seek a specific approach.

There was also the decision for when Coop would join the fight, which would naturally be up to his own discretion. He might still lack the area coverage of someone like Charlie when it came to his damaging abilities, but he was still a proven force when it came to skirmishing, even against large numbers like those presented by the Sapphire Armada. They might be the largest individual force anyone had witnessed, but their numbers paled in comparison to the waves of the siege. It had been a considerable concession for Coop to not lead the charge in the beginning, but judging by the current state of the battle, Coop thought it was about time he provided more than some support for the phantoms through Fog of War.

The Sapphire Armada responded to the phantom counter assault by abandoning what organization their parade had maintained. Squad leaders encouraged a pursuit of the phantoms, believing their retreat to have been a necessity based on ability limitations. They rushed forward, over the bodies of their defeated comrades littered across the shoreline as they chased after the first visible appearance of their enemies. The initial groups had obviously been soundly defeated, but they remained convinced in their superiority. They were finally realizing just how devastating the defense had been since the squads that were now engaged in the fighting hadn’t been destined to lead the assault. They expected their overwhelming numbers to be able to crush the few guerilla fighters leveraging the mists.

At most, the defenders of Ghost Reef had only reduced the Armada’s numbers by 10% with the initial ploy, passively swallowing up the invaders with the fog as they crossed the channel, but from the perspective of the Armada, that represented 20 times what they expected the entire population of the settlement would be. While their calculations were dated, it had still been an even smaller number of defenders holding them off. Unfortunately for them, underestimating their enemy was a mistake they wouldn’t be allowed to continue making.

“I’m going to get involved.” Coop informed Alaric with his ethereal spear and shield already equipped.

“Yes, Champion. As you wish.” The Guard Captain responded in his echoing metallic voice, recalculating what his orders would be based on Coop’s actions.

Alaric had been directed to lead the phantoms with the goal of zero friendly casualties and was therefore making sure they remained in position to retreat or aid anyone who was injured. Their posture was largely passive, primarily focused on seizing every advantage at once to minimize their own risk. It had been effective while the Sapphire Armada’s army inched forward, but Coop wanted to relieve some of the pressure as the invaders pushed forward with more specific intent.

As the Armada’s troops rushed into the water, the frontrunner held a sword above his head when he entered the mists. He high-stepped through the water, scowl clearly etched into his face as readied himself to bring the edge down on any phantom that appeared in his range. He wanted to kill, but his fervor wasn’t enough to see the spear coming. It launched him backwards, off his feet, and carried his body into the crowd behind, back toward the shore line. The spear continued until it was deep in the coconut palm grove’s interior, a hundred yards inland, introducing the middle of the army to the fighting while they continued to approach. The missile would have continued if not for its hasty resummoning. Instead of tearing a line all the way to the third island in the chain, the ethereal spear melted away, transforming to mists as it returned to the foggy domain and into Coop’s waiting grip.

Coop only threw the missile once more before he swapped to another weapon. Wielding his glaive, he remained behind the phantoms while Guard Captain Alaric shifted from his side, claiming his own avenue for combat. They had moved back onto the dry sand on the main island, letting the Armada’s troops cover the channel between islands and begin approaching the shore. As the frontline shifted, Coop finally started bringing chaos.

Phantasmal Glaiviers erupted from their own pockets of mists, splashing into the shallow water on the opposite side of the channel. A new frontline was suddenly established as they cut through unsuspecting soldiers who believed they were far from the first wave. With the enemy appearing within their ranks and the additional disorientation from the Fog of War, the invaders were turned around, finding themselves charging into their allies before being cut down by the ruthless ghosts who haunted the mists. The rest of the Sapphire Armada’s column hesitated as the fighting erupted at their side, anticipating that the same could happen to them at any second and writing off their allies that had rushed ahead, into the fog as if they had already been killed.

The phantoms marched forward from their side of the channel, engaging with the first few waves of invaders that had taken the lead in the shallow water at the edge of the beach. The enemy soldiers were cut off in the channel as the frontline abruptly jumped behind them where the Phantasmal Glaiviers fought, but thanks to the fog, they had no idea that their reinforcements had already stopped. Coop stepped forward and added his own presence with Guard Captain Alaric sliding further toward one of the wings. As the invaders finally approached the dry sand of Ghost Reef’s main island, they were challenged by Coop and the overleveled phantoms, waiting with their weapons held ready.

Not discouraged, the Armada’s troops shouted battlecries as they charged with their weapons at the ready only to find themselves completely mismatched. Coop swept away three soldiers at once with a single horizontal swing of his reliable glaive, then he thrust forward, catching the next small group unprepared as they were still watching the backs of the soldiers in front of them. The whirling edge of the blade at the end of Coop’s polearm left trails of mist in the slightly less dense domain, transforming his appearance to be as ghostly as the phantoms themselves. He flipped his grip and sliced up in a rapid vertical swing that undercut a shield’s guard, then flipped it again, chopping straight down, finishing the first parties before they could react. The shallow water parted as the blade of the ethereal glaive reached the surface. The wet sand was revealed for a moment before fog and water rushed to fill the gap.

The soldiers could see that he was just a single individual, and it would take more than a surprise attack to discourage their charge, especially since they believed they had a whole army at their backs. They wouldn’t get the chance to come to the realization that they had been cut off by the three dozen phantasms on the other side of the channel.

From ten yards away, one of the soldiers tried to pierce Coop with a quickly fired arrow, in an effort to catch him off guard, but she couldn’t have expected Coop’s connection with the fog. There was no way he would be caught unaware with the interplay between Fog of War and Presence of Mind. Instead of being pierced through the heart by the jagged head of the arrow as it zipped through the thin mists, Coop sliced the shaft in half with a smooth flick of his glaive. The two halves bounce off of his ethereal armor. The graceful defensive motion hardly interrupted his flurry of swings as he parried a two-handed axe and let his blade slide down the shaft before darting the edge to the side and dropping yet another invader.

He backhanded a soldier at his side without turning his head, then spun with his glaive at water level, defeating another before the first had splashed into the water. Coop swapped to his trident while still spinning and continued the rotation to throw the summoned weapon at the archer before they had even retrieved a second arrow.

In 30 seconds Coop had defeated three parties, but he made a new discovery in the process. Swapping weapons had come so naturally to him, he hadn’t even considered if it would have other ramifications with the evolution of his build, but when he dismissed his glaive to bring out the trident, all of the phantasms had immediately disappeared in bursts of mists. They were bound to the specific weapon he used while he summoned them, not to just any weapon he had. He would need to balance the utility of his quick swaps with the support of the phantasms, but it wouldn’t discourage him from using them as temporary spells just like he had when their duration was mere seconds anyway. It just added to the reasons to try and get their mana cost down as much as possible.

He frowned as the trident solidified back into his hands. The phantasms had done their job despite being dismissed early, causing havoc and hesitation in the middle of the army while the forward groups were sliced from the rest and left to fend for themselves. He and the phantoms still had to finish them off or risk ceding ground too soon, but their tactics had succeeded thus far.

When the next party engaged with Coop, he employed the superior range of the trident, snatching a sword in between the prongs before twisting with all the strength his forearms could muster, tearing the weapon out of his opponents hands. He stepped forward to finish his disarmed enemy off before throwing the trident into a caster who had settled at the edge of what he thought would be Coop’s vision in the fog, not recognizing that Coop saw them all from the moment they stepped into the edge of his domain.

Coop bent his knees as if to pounce while he stood in the wet sand with the waves barely up to his ankles. His left forearm was elevated in front of his chin and he aimed his closed right fist above even before his ethereal sword and shield solidified from the mists into his waiting grip. At this point Retribution and Salvation came instinctively with barely a thought toward what he was doing.

He caught a pair of the invaders exchanging a glance at the summoned weapons and used the momentary lapse as a starter pistol for his leap forward. He crossed a dozen feet in an instant, leaving a burst of wet sand flying into the fog with his movement. The sword whipped through the air just far enough for the sharp tip to barely reach his target's neck before even his eyes flicked back at Coop’s rush forward. Coop released the sword as the blunt edge of his shield caught the other in the chin as the Chosen soldiers barely recognized the danger they had put themselves in by taking their eyes off their opponent.

Coop vanished as he relocated to the handle of his flipped sword, up above, in order to bypass a net of flames summoned by a caster who hadn’t lost his focus. From the air, Coop brought the sword down into a stumbling halberd wielder, who had lost track of Coop with the first mistjump, then Coop ended the spellcaster as he splashed back to the ground.

Before there was another lapse in fighting, Coop had defeated ten additional parties in similar fashion. He saw no reason to hold back on his abilities while he fought under the cover of the fog.

Taking note of the edge of his domain, it seemed like the sudden disappearance of the phantasms had been just as confusing as their sudden appearance, if not more so. The area where the phantasms had fought only covered a small sliver of the Sapphire Armada’s width, but the entire bulk of their army had paused as they made an effort to find their opponents while anticipating more ambushes. Meanwhile, another 10% of their army had been lost in the mists.

Guard Captain Alaric returned to Coop’s side and the phantoms took their places along the shoreline as they finished with their battles, watching to see what the army would do next. Other than scattered ranged abilities that were easily sidestepped or blocked, the Armada’s field commanders hadn’t made a decision.

“Kinda like the waves of a siege.” Coop mumbled, getting Alaric’s attention.

“These are waves of a siege.” The metallic voice pointed out.

Coop blew air out of his nose, making tiny swirls in the magical mist. “Nah. A wave should last three days at least.”

Alaric’s helmet faced Coop before facing forward again. “By that metric, the Sapphire Armada’s Chosen army will produce between 10% and 30% of a wave.”

“Seems that way.” Coop agreed with the guardian as the newest addition to the settlement took the Champion just a little too literally.

Coop assessed the phantoms, allowing Presence of Mind to do the observations. None were seriously injured, though a handful of the 300 had taken some hits. The worst was a phantom that had broken a finger in the previous engagement, but she simply grasped her slender staff with the other hand. If not for the tough armored gloves of the standard issue armor she might have lost her whole hand, though he suspected that wouldn’t have been enough to slow her down.

Outside of a few scrapes and minor injuries among the phantoms, the defenders of Ghost Reef were fully prepared to continue. They hadn’t ceded an inch of ground. There wasn’t even a single drop of blood on the dry sand of Rock Key. All of the fighting had been contained to the channel between the islands and the flowing current had reset the battlefield while they waited for the next attempt by the Sapphire Armada. The phantoms were primed for an extended battle, but the Armada had yet to deliver.

They waited, peering into the mists while Coop tracked the invaders, swapping to his spear. The Armada’s troops appeared to be searching for an alternate approach, but why should he give them time to organize? He let a heavy spear fly into the air and waited for it to come crashing down.

Interestingly, the Armada shied away from the side of the beach that was closer to the lighthouse and they tried pushing into the mangrove forest instead, moving quickly to avoid the ethereal mortars that had begun landing in their midst. They continued to maintain their squad based structure, and at first, only a few entered the swamp, testing the area before the rest of the army shifted from the planned channel crossing, erecting shields that turned out to be completely ineffective against Coop’s spears, though they provided some protection from the phantoms’ ranged attacks. Coop targeted the shields specifically.

The mangroves represented the thickest barrier in Ghost Reef, protecting the rest of the island from the effects of wind and wave erosion even more effectively than the fortress walls. After the assimilation, they actually extended beyond the limits of Rock Key, effectively expanding the island’s footprint by reclaiming parts of the submerged area with the crawling mangrove roots.

Coop’s fog had infiltrated part of the mangrove forest, closest to the rest of the beach and the dunes, but if the Armada managed to get to the outside of the trees, they would escape the edges of his domain. While they might round the edge of his mists, they would still need to navigate the mangrove forest from one end to the other. It would require a journey further than even Coop had ever explored.

It didn’t take long for the Sapphire Armada’s soldiers to return to the beach in a rush, already abandoning the idea of traversing the marshy habitat. The Primal Serpents were a formidable enemy in the best of times, utilizing the shallow waters to ambush their prey while being attracted by any disturbance in the water. The thin mists that reached the marsh environment made their limited profiles even more difficult to ascertain and the Armada didn’t want anything to do with a swarm of aggressive monsters while also dealing with the extremely difficult muck that practically cemented them in place. Even without the Serpents, it would take them far too long to make any real progress through the habitat, allowing Ghost Reef’s defenders to adjust their strategy if the invaders fully committed. Coop thought a battle within the mangrove forest would be even more in the phantoms’ favor.

The squads that had entered the mangrove forest were back to the shallows within minutes, admittedly with a dozen fewer members each. The Sapphire Armada was back to square one. Coop’s misty domain had shrunk over time, but without a proper accounting of the volume, no one would be able to notice outside of himself. From the Armada’s perspective, the domain might have even expanded, since he was allowing it to slowly drift into the coconut palm groves of the Pig’s Island. If they didn’t make any adjustments, he would be ramping the assaults up as well.