Chapter 190: Outmatched (Patreon)

Coop rolled onto his side, letting the momentum of his fall carry him over, and forced himself upright as quickly as he could. Slamming his hand onto the solid sand-packed ground, he propelled himself all the way back to his feet and leaned into a combat-ready stance: low and loose with his battle axe held behind his right hip. The sand responded with an uninterrupted audible droning, but the Icon of Mana remained absent from his field of view.

He had fallen a few hundred feet from the top of the pyramid and landed flat on his upper back, so the fact that he was still moving was a good result, all things considered. Sand caked onto the half-dried blood that covered his arm and torso and the floating sand did nothing to help. When Coop tested his injury, he had a moment of regret that he didn’t have both the Infusion skill as well as his newest Vaporform ability. Both skills would have been better than one or the other while he fought against this particular opponent. The Icon of Mana had enough limbs to account for all of Coop’s avoidance, and more importantly, it had an unpredictable speed that seemed to come from manipulating shadows or actually dilating time. The exact mechanism didn’t matter. The end result was that Coop was feeling too slow relative to the Icon. The damage was already stacking up, but it wasn’t to a level that he couldn’t grit his teeth and power through. Not yet.

His ethereal sword and shield manifested in his hands as he dismissed the slower battle axe while he shifted in position, trying to be aware of every direction simultaneously. He retrieved the weapon set that had the greatest success thus far in his bout with the Icon, and in his mind was the speediest of them all, but he knew he would need to make adjustments if he wanted to be able to defeat his enemy this time. Squeezing the familiar armaments in his grip, he swept his eyes across the alien domain, fully rotating as he concentrated on his surroundings, but didn’t immediately detect the Icon of Mana.

Coop tried Vaporform, but his vision was completely ruined by the sandy domain. The Icon’s domain was a blinding screen of energy that compelled him to hastily toggle the skill back off. The strain on his senses was too much, and even when he was back to normal, his eyes watered as if he had stared at the sun for a bit too long.

Blinking away the tears, he found that the inside of the cloud of sand remained calm, still, and almost comforting in its serenity. It was a dream-like experience being surrounded by floating grains of golden particles. The sand left his senses muted but not completely stifled. If anything, it was like standing inside of a massive empty stadium with a single dim light bulb casting enough light to just barely illuminate a small circle around him. He had the impression that there was much more space, but his senses were confined to the smaller area. It was like he had blinders on his eyes and ear plugs in his ears meant to keep him placid.

The sunlight that should have come from above reflected in strange directions, causing the light to emanate from everywhere at once without any direct source becoming apparent. The grains of sand cast shadows on each other, making it difficult to exactly judge direction. The sand established a perpetual haze as the space grew. If it wasn’t for gravity, Coop would have trouble figuring out which way was up, thanks to the tricks the domain was playing on his vision. The complete lack of horizon, single light source, or any real perspective for distance made it seem like he had been teleported to yet another dimension.

The sand was practically motionless, moving slowly enough to seem suspended in the air like gossamer curtains. It could have been worse. Coop was thankful that the domain wasn’t a whirlwind of coarse grains blasting his exposed skin. Instead, it was a serene backdrop.

He squinted into the depths of sand, anticipating the Icon’s return at any moment, destroying the tranquility. Given the monster’s unusual acceleration, he would need to react fast. He was exposed, lacking basic cover or even the awareness of his opponent, so he did his best to find the monster as quickly as possible. The domain hadn’t lulled him into defenselessness.

His diligence was rewarded in short order as the draconic monster’s shadow appeared deeper inside the domain, crossing in the distance from right to left. The monster’s side profile was exposed as it roamed through the sand, making it look like a strange dinosaur lost in a desert storm. Coop’s eyes locked on its form, tracking the Siege Boss like it was the prey that he hunted, regardless of the roles the two currently held.

Coop slowly crept forward, avoiding any unnecessary movements that would alert the monster if it wasn’t already aware of his position. He found it a bit odd that the Icon appeared to be circling him rather than pressing its advantage and assaulting him directly. The monster, for its part, was rotating around Coop’s position as if it was narrowing his location down to smaller and smaller areas, like it was gradually tightening a net.

Coop followed the monster’s circling path, pushing the boundary of the monster’s circuit, sword and shield held firm as he waited for an opportune moment to close the gap and cut the looming shadow down to size. He wanted to attack the flank of the monster, but on the side where it lacked a wing. He just needed the zig zagging circuit to draw it around at the right angle.

He was doing his best not to disturb the sand, assuming that it would work in a similar manner to his Fog of War, but it was ultimately impossible to be completely stealthy within the frozen sandstorm. The Icon had to know where he was. He suspected it was toying with him, or testing him in some way. The Icons were different from regular monsters, though Lyriel had attested to them being more like forces of nature, Coop had the impression they had their own type of alien intelligence. It may have been different and unrelatable, but they all responded to Coop’s actions when he fought them, seemingly making decisions as threats were presented.

The floating sands obscured everything but the silhouettes of both of their figures as they hunted each other. The simple dance ended soon after it began. Coop’s sword flashed as he finally committed to the first attack after spotting the opening he had hoped for. Launching himself forward with a strike aimed at the monster’s center mass, he blasted through the sand. If his strike landed true, he would carve a massive chunk out of the scaled monster’s torso and he would reclaim the momentum of the fight. He wouldn’t let himself lose the advantage once he grabbed it. The blade howled as it tore through the air, dragging the gritty dust along its path and sparkling in the inconsistent light.

Coop leapt into the assault, and when the moment of impact arrived, the edge of his blade found nothing, whooshing through the sand with no resistance. The shadow that he had been following was nothing more than a mirage, disappearing from existence as his senses, and the sands, played tricks on him. It would be better if he had just been mistaken, but it seemed like the sands were conspiring to sabotage his chances, managing to subtly manipulate him despite his extraordinary magic resistance. He whirled around, afraid that he had left himself completely exposed to the Icon’s actual plan of attack after taking the apparent bait. Nothing but curtains of sand saluted his freshly reignited wariness.

He could just barely hear his heavy breathing as the adrenaline coursed through his veins. The ambient sound of tiny grains of sand colliding with each other or grazing against the ground was just loud enough to wash away anything more, like the sand was humming to distract him even further.

“Where did you go?” He whispered through clenched teeth, spinning as he searched with his physical senses and his aura detection.

The monster’s response came right on cue in the form of another blitzing attack. The Icon rushed through the sand almost as if it was flying through the loose substrate, undulating its tail as it blinked forward while all four legs folded underneath its body. The attack had the same form as its first diving, multi-pronged tackle that had properly initiated the fight, but it came from a direction that Coop wasn’t watching.

The single wing was held rigid, extending out from its side. It used the barbed spikes that framed the wing to stab at Coop as it shot past. Presence of Mind provided just enough warning to initiate a dodge that allowed him to avoid a direct hit, but the monster’s intention wasn’t a critical blow. It was clearly meant to pick his defense apart and leave him weakened.

The Icon continued beyond Coop’s senses, disappearing back into the sands without so much as looking back, then splitting into multiple shadows, none of which seemed real enough to chase. Coop quickly assessed the new wound he had earned to the back of his leg, growing more concerned with the situation with every second. The monster seemed content to let him stew. Shadows shuffled in and out of his peripheral vision, but another attack didn’t come for what felt like minutes.

When an attack did come, it was another sideswipe on Coop’s flank. The Icon was not fully committing to a direct confrontation, preferring to slowly debilitate him with careful strikes instead. Despite Coop’s increased vigilance, he was unable to respond, even when anticipating the style of attack. The Icon was like a shark, hunting its prey while he flailed like the injured fish that would soon become a meal. As he stumbled forward, bleeding from his forearm from another new wound, he made up his mind. The sneak attacks were enough for him to flip the table and change the plan.

Coop swapped to his spear, abandoning this particular duel in favor of resetting the fight elsewhere. He threw the spear straight up, intending to escape the cloud of sand and re-engage under more favorable conditions, namely ones outside of the sands.

Coop left the sands behind with an enormous mistjump, reappearing from the monochromatic world of mists high above the valley and in the clear sky. He twirled in the air, adjusting so that he could chain another mistjump to open ground. However, as he spun, he realized the Icon had already closed the gap.

The monster was like a stop motion missile, rocketing out of the cloud of sand with such speed, it must have launched itself even before Coop manifested in the air. It had predicted the transfer of his mists in the split second he dissipated and relocated to his spear. Whatever locomotion it used was unusual, to say the least, with the way it jolted forward.

Coop quickswapped to his ethereal morning star, and had just enough time to squeeze the handle with his hands as he brought it down from over his head, enhancing his intended smash with the help of gravity. Mindbender initiated his stat transfer immediately, increasing his Strength in a blur of numbers as he squeezed his fingers and flexed his forearms before the swing.

The Icon blinked upwards and nearly beat Coop’s ethereal manifestation. It was seemingly faster than he was, but it wasn’t so much that it could outmaneuver Coop’s mists. The weighty spiked ball of the morning star smashed into the monster’s snout with a bang that could have been mistaken for a cannonball crashing into a metal plate.

The monster hadn’t expected Coop to transition from flight to fight so rapidly, and had finally committed to an attack that was more than a simple sideswipe. Instead, it caught a mouth full of a weapon backed by Coop’s frustration and Mindbending Strength.

With its momentum reversed, the Icon tumbled back down toward its sand cloud, falling in a much more normal way than its lurching attack. Coop trailed behind, abandoning his retreat as he snatched a chance to steal the momentum of the fight. He swapped his morning star for a heavy spear, and aimed to have the missile chase the monster back to the ground. He put everything he had into sending the projectile straight down, feeling his muscles strain, burning with protest as his abs, obliques, and lower back struggled to form a base, compensating without his legs planted on firm ground. He lacked the proper footing that he normally derived so much of the power for his heavy spear throws. His shoulders and rotator cuffs screamed as his triceps and forearms sent the extremely heavy rod down with vengeance.

The monster disappeared into the sand first, vanishing without so much as disturbing a grain. The ethereal spear followed shortly after with a blast of wind that forced a massive concave dent into the sandstorm. A moment later, the obscured collision exploded with enough force to create a plume of sand and mist shards that rushed upwards while Coop fell into it.

Coop’s senses were smothered again as he was engulfed in the chaotic debris. First the calm curtains of sand were forced outwards by the shockwave of an explosion, then they were sucked back in as air returned to the core of the mana blast, churning the stagnant sandstorm into havoc. Coop crashed through the turbulence, manifesting his sword and shield as he fell.

He fell, and then he fell some more, much further than he anticipated. He emerged from the bottom of the sand cloud into clear air and braced himself as well as he could. The ground finally met his feet, and he smashed into solid rock floor, cracking it with his heels before somersaulting forward and raising his shield.

In front of him, the Icon of Mana was rising back onto its own feet, extending its legs beneath a bloodied torso. Its wing was torn, losing the leathery flaps, leaving just the exposed ribs and spiked ends. Its tail was mangled but held together by a solid bone core, and its snout was cracked, sitting lopsided on its reptilian face. A gaping wound oozed viscous brown blood in its side, from within a crater of cracked scales, revealing where the spear had connected.

It stared at Coop with slitted black eyes and roared loud enough to vibrate the air. Despite its ruined appearance, it showed no signs of backing down. Its wing bones stretched as it prepared to charge in their new arena.

They were on much more even footing now that they weren’t in the monster’s sandy domain. The monster and the spear crashed into an underground cavern that had run along the length of the valley. The ceiling had caved in all the way down the valley, meandering between the hills. Giant columns of sand were streaming down the edges of the gap, like dry waterfalls, forming golden piles on the black bedrock. Coop’s feet were warmed by the ground.

The air was energized with mana, and Coop had a small epiphany that Huracan really had been the one to cause the Icon to manifest. The High Priest had been using the temple and its spires as a focal point while somehow concentrating significant amounts of mana underground. The Icon of Mana had been born from the accumulation below. There had been enough mana that it was seeping into the entire region, detectable even by someone as unsophisticated as Coop.

Coop planted a foot and charged forward, seeking to finish this fight once and for all. He summoned a pair of phantasms as he went, but the monster responded with more surprises, sliding sideways as it seemingly blinked in and out of existence. Rather than teleporting, it appeared that for a moment, someone had pressed the fast forward button on the monster’s movement. It sped up as if it had disconnected from the regular flow of time, but only for a fleeting moment before returning to normal speed, giving it a stop motion-like incremental teleport.

It took a circuitous route to meet the Champion, one filled with disappearances. One of the phantasms was destroyed before getting a chance to strike, smothered by an extension of the wing as it leapt into reality, and the second tore a strip down the opposite flank of the monster before the tail flicked it away, blasting the ancient ghost back into a burst of mists.

The Icon wasn’t even close to diminished, unhesitating as it continued its counter attack on Coop. Basically ignoring his phantasms, aside from flicking its limbs to destroy them, it forced Coop into a defensive posture with their first collision, one that had been initiated by Coop himself.

Coop barely dodged the angled bite attack as the monster abruptly sped up and came at him from a 45 degree turn. He blocked the wing spikes with his shield, then narrowly prevented himself from accumulating more injuries from the vicious spikes at the end of the mangled tail by countering with his sword and spinning away, casting Vaporform as the thumb spikes sought to impale him with one last jab.

Another phantasm leapt into existence, dragging a gleaming longsword out of the mists as Coop sought to sever the tail. The monster continued forward, and articulated the bony core so that it tore through the ghost’s arm and sent it back to the mists before it could deal any damage.

The Icon continued forward, bounding to the opposite side of the rocky cavern. It smashed through columns of sand that fell along the edge of the gap in the ceiling, spraying golden grains across its cracked scales before it settled into slowly pacing along the darkened edge of the wall. It clearly sought another angle to swipe at Coop. Even after all of that, Coop hadn’t been able to take any real advantage in the fight. The monster rumbled with a guttural growl and Coop scowled back, frustrated, bleeding, with his mind racing for another tactic.

This monster wasn’t just powerful due to the stats granted to siege level bosses. Its actual build was an equally difficult problem. Coop assessed the challenges already presented: shadowy mirages in the sand, an abnormal number of potential natural weapons, possibly manipulating time itself to overwhelm Coop’s speed. Coop clenched his jaw and decided on his path forward.

Coop raised his sword toward the obscured sky above the rift in the valley and cast Inheritance of the Mists. Enough was enough. He was sure if he tried to retreat again, the monster would pursue him. At the rate he was burning his mana with ineffective phantasms, and Mind Over Matter, he would run out of resources before the phantasms could even weaken the monster, and every time he took damage his resources were further diminished.

Instead, he reserved 50% of his mana and summoned an apparition of humanity’s collective experience.