Unchosen Champion-Chapter 361: Abyssal Mending
The Primal Constructs beyond Cape Town were meticulously destroyed by Coop. He aggressively cleared out every monster domain he could dig up, starting from the base of Table Mountain before he escaped into the untamed wilds. The ruins of the city hadn’t known such peace, but the monsters would inevitably return. At least, for some time, they would have their levels reset to a manageable level. The locals would have a second chance to establish themselves, assuming they could get it together.
Coop didn’t speak with anyone as he got on one with his business, naturally preferring to solve the more straightforward problems caused by alien invaders instead of steeping himself into onerous local politics as an outsider. It may have been unavoidable sometimes, but there were many more qualified people supporting his efforts. They took those burdens on his behalf, and did so with the light touch that he lacked. If his allies were tackling such onerous issues, then the least Coop could do was defeat every Primal Construct that would interfere.
His hunting grounds rapidly expanded as he lost himself in the hunt, spreading across South Africa. He defeated millions of enemies with various levels of development. He was tireless when it came to the grind, but the individual enemies were limitless. It was the perfect combination for someone like him.
The invaders collected mana to renew themselves and Coop harvested them, claiming a portion of the mana for himself. His share was transformed into experience, both practical and magical. No matter how inefficient the transfer, he would repeat it infinitely. He embraced the responsibility that came with representing his companions in Ghost Reef and the hope they represented, manifesting it into the catalyst for continued growth. Every bit of progression reinforced his resolve.
Coop diligently applied his newest ability, still repeatedly failing to actually land the skill, but practicing with the activation all the same. It was never a waste, so long as Practical Application existed in his repertoire. Plus, he knew that so long as he trained, he would eventually forge the muscle memory necessary to use the ability even without following the patterns the system provided. That type of expertise was critical in battle, where any advantage could prove invaluable. The mists were as much a part of him as his own flesh and blood. He hoped for that same fusion with the abyss.
Someone encountering Coop for the first time might have assumed he exclusively wielded blunt weapons in a fight. While he practiced with his oversized morning star that had become his default heavy weapon by virtue of circumstance, he also experimented with every configuration of mace, hammer, and mallet he could envision. He tested the differences while he sought to find the right balance for every situation.
From cartoonishly oversized hammers, made to be extraordinarily heavy to match the surface area of the smasher, to sleeker double-sided mallets with bottle-sized striking faces and elongated shafts that he could use to hold back a crowd, he went through them all. Not all of the blunt weapons were particularly dull, best exemplified by the spikes on his morning star. Others manifested as brutal jagged mauls, or rough stone clubs, or included a jutting pike from the top, the back, around the head like a collar, or even facing him from the handle to transform them into double-sided threats.
He crushed aliens with weapons shaped like the bottom of a spoon, or following the curve of giant shells, and ones that imitated a boulder on a stick. For such a simple concept devised solely to help humans smash things, their designs were incredibly diverse. Coop had the impression that he represented the end of a long line of cavemen, but whatever worked, worked.
As he lost himself in the experimentation, he encountered prides of lions and armies of baboons who seemed to be having no issues cooperating among themselves. It was obvious that their only enemies were the alien invaders that encroached on their territory. He thought it was a devastating indictment on humanity as a whole, but he had faith that people were becoming better. He needed only to look at Ghost Reef and the Lighthouse for proof.
When he was in the presence of the different animals, further and further away from any settlements, many of whom had not seen a human since the assimilation began, he cooled it with the unnecessary explosions brought by the Depth Charges. Instead, he just quietly went about his business, flashing from Primal Construct to Primal Construct with the efficiency brought by the mists. He piled the miles on, and the days quietly passed, but he was much happier when clearing invaders and exploring what mother nature had to offer.
He missed Ghost Reef and the community that they had carved out for themselves. The more he was away, the more special it seemed, but that didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of other wonders for him to appreciate. The rest of the planet was just as amazing.
Coop’s bender of a grind took him as far east as Kruger National Park, where he ultimately napped in the branches of a lone acacia tree in the middle of hundreds of miles of grassland. The tree had a canopy shaped like a flat disk from giraffes chewing on its lower branches while tiny birds occupied each of the upper tips. A family of leopards lazed in the opposite portion of the tree, and together they watched a sea of blue wildebeests slowly meandering across the savanna, easily one million strong. Every once in a while an ability would ignite as a member of the herd identified a Primal Construct and destroyed it.
Coop took his time using the hunts to meditate, easing out of the stress he had started with. He started taking breaks whenever it felt right again, giving himself the chance to absorb the sights of areas of the world that he never imagined visiting.
After he claimed his Slayer titles, he veered west, planning on simply zigzagging back and forth to cover as much ground as possible. It seemed like Africa would prove to have many opportunities for him to make gains.
His Scavenging ability made it so that it would be difficult to miss any Primal Construct variants so long as he actually entered their proximity. He had grown beyond that of an expert on the behavior of his most common enemies. With a mere glance, he could identify their weaknesses. They couldn’t hide from him, nor could they surprise him with their tactics, so he followed a simple plan that sent him to as many places as possible.
His increasingly honed instincts had turned him into a shark and the aliens smelled like blood. Coop hunted the alien invaders with what might have been renewed focus if he hadn’t already fully embraced the pursuit of Slayer titles. Instead, it was a return to form, straight from the calm beach of Ghost Reef.
Fighting on his own had become perfectly natural. It rarely crossed his mind that a normal person would struggle with the isolation, but he was thoroughly immersed in the natural world, basically adding to a subconscious list of amazing places to share with his friends when he got back. It didn’t matter if they were famous, vast, or completely unknown and off the beaten path, it seemed like every corner of the world offered something unique and special. He tried to appreciate it all, unsure if such an opportunity would ever arise again. If there ever came a time when he doubted his actions, he needed only remember the places he had seen.
He cleared a handful of Infestations on the way, smashing through swarms of Primal Constructs, and even uncovered a Siege Boss that had anchored itself in a place with the most incredible dunes he had ever seen, deep in the Namib Desert. Unfortunately for it, Coop had arrived before the region could be transformed into a Fallen Zone.
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He was familiar with the sandy formations on Ghost Reef, but the sands around Deadvlei, that would have formed the core of another enemy domain, were wildly different. There were drifting mountains of blown red sand that were hundreds of feet tall and contrasted with the white clay pan at the bottom of the valleys in between. On top of that, the dunes were a hundred miles inland and flowed, uninterrupted, all the way to the coast for what must have been another 500 miles west. The collision of red and blue where the desert met the ocean was indescribable, demanding that Coop pause when he arrived.
After killing the Siege Boss he noted the swarms of unchosen beetles that had popped up out of nowhere. Level 0 desert toktokkie had hidden in the shade of shallow burrows, surviving in spite of the Primal Constructs that had claimed their habitat. They only came out to dance in Coop’s Fog of War, putting their little heads down and facing the gentle wind in an effort to condense water on their backs and have a drink. Coop didn’t leave right away, letting the flightless beetles enjoy his domain and admiring the incredible evolution that allowed them to survive droughts where others would struggle. Life was incredible that way.
It was at the end of the sand dunes that he reencountered more humans, and though he was hesitant, seeing hundreds of different animal species thriving had buoyed his mood so that he was willing to give the strangers a chance. A black and white lighthouse called to him like a mirage of his own home on Ghost Reef such that he couldn’t resist.
He found friendly people surviving with an army of pink pelicans, sea lions, and even a handful of friendly southern right whales that lingered off the coast, keeping the shardless territory relatively safe. They occupied a former hotel, withstanding the assimilation just as he had on Ghost Reef with Jones. The small encounter capped off his reinvigoration after what ended up as more than two weeks of rather contemplative farming with millions of alien manifestations in his wake.
Coop took care of their problems in exchange for a meal, defeating monster nests along the coast that were too low to award him experience and lacked the quests that would make up for it. In terms of his personal progression, it was a waste of a few hours, but unlike his previous encounter with human civilization, it was a worthy trade off. They promised to be on the lookout for his allies after he left them behind.
He gained more Slayer titles in the Okavango Delta of Botswana, hung out with herds of elephants near Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe, and picked up the pace as he encountered more shards that were members of the Assembly of Settlements in Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique.
Many of the local champions wanted to spar, already respecting Coop’s status, but desiring a test to see how they stacked up anyway. They either knew Coop from the Underlayer Event or had heard the stories of him beating their strongest fighters with various handicaps applied to his side. They were excited to share local information and encourage his journey, sometimes joining him in defeating the alien invaders that had embedded themselves in particularly difficult areas in exchange for him defeating them in a move or two. They welcomed his help but were not willing to leave their problems entirely to him.
The deserts and savannas had turned to forest long before the strongholds sent him to Madagascar, where the Zahamena settlement dominated. There, he encountered pristine rainforest with thousands of animals he had never even heard of and a few that he had, like the ring-tailed lemur. They turned out to be excellent hunters of their version of Ruin Nebulas, hardly leaving enough for Coop to claim his Slayer title.
While he traveled, his build slowly developed. After selecting Depth Charge, he chose another skill that he believed would compliment the delayed strike. Sunken Grasp was a crowd control ability that formed a whirlpool of abyssal waters where he struck. The strike pulled enemies into the vortex, with a preliminary action that Coop affectionately called the ‘yoink.’ Then, anything that was pulled was ensnared by the whirlpool. It was almost as if they were tethered to the point that he attacked, beneath the center of the whirlpool, but just for a few seconds, with its hold weakening as they escaped the central point.
The actual effectiveness of the yoink was determined by the power of the initial strike, so even though it was an ability that could be used by all of his weapons, or even without a weapon, he thought it fit best with his heaviest blunt weapons that he was already using with Depth Charge. It was designed to force a face-off, but Coop’s mobility already did that, and he had other plans for the skill as a partner for the delayed damage.
The only way it might have been better would be if he could apply both skills to the same strike, but that was impossible. When he tried, it felt like he was trying to direct the flow of mana in two different directions at once, and one inevitably ruined the balance of the other. Maybe someone with a lighter touch could do it, but Coop was as blunt a force as the weapons he wielded for the skills. There was no elegance in his mana, just massive tidal waves of momentum and muscle that defied his physical form.
Still, he was finally able to catch monsters in the explosive portion of Depth Charge, so long as he paired it with a massive yoink from Sunken Grasp. It only took a few tries to get the timing right, applying Depth Charge first, then reloading his weapon and yoinking dozens of monsters into the whirlpool with an enormous second strike where the charge was ticking away.
When it was timed correctly the victims exploded as soon as they were pulled. It was an extremely satisfying combination of abilities, but more than that, the damage was ridiculous. A direct hit from the explosion might result in a bonus as enormous as a 10x multiplier to his Strength, combining the mana expenditure with his natural power.
It felt great. When it went right, he was like a child smashing his fist in a swimming pool, admiring the splashing destruction he could cause. He almost wanted to find an Icon of Mana just to have a skill measuring contest and see what it was really like.
Then, after the success of his first two abilities, with his next choice he switched it up a bit. He chose Call of the Void as his third new skill. It was actually a ridiculous defensive utility, easily overpowered just by itself. When Call of the Void was activated, for a brief window of time, all damage that he took was converted to healing of equivalent value. True to the affinity, he was literally finding comfort in the abyss.
Coop had been shocked to discover Call of the Void was a pure damage absorption with virtually no strings attached. If timed well, it wasn’t just a matter of recovering health, but also could be a tool of negating damage and anything else that might come with being hit. While there had to be a limit, with it being based on his stats, it appeared to be astronomical.
While the skill was active, Coop was physically wrapped in a cloak of abyssal waters that actually absorbed blows, literally drowning the energy in the dark depths. It was meant to be an extremely brief power, but that was before Coop got his hands on it.
Call of the Void had split scaling based off of his Strength and Mind, and at his base level it was already a solid five seconds of virtual immortality. He was sure it was designed to be an ability with extreme demands on precision and timing, lasting for a fraction of a second with normal scaling, but his foundation of attributes transformed it into another ‘I win’ button.
If an opponent couldn’t survive five seconds of Coop’s damage, he couldn’t imagine them ever beating him. Of course in a situation where he was challenged in such a way that it was a question whether or not five seconds was enough, he would probably avoid wasting such a powerful defensive utility for such an aggressive gambit. Saving it for the right moment would make it so that they would have to defeat Coop twice, in addition to completely draining his mana so that the mists weren’t available to him, for him to be truly defeated. Good luck with that, Coop thought.
As his journey continued, he brushed upon the southern reaches of the expanded Serengeti. The incorporation of his new skills transformed his attack patterns, transforming him into a different beast. His audience of giraffes and gazelles seemed impressed enough, though they observed his destruction of the Primal Constructs from a generous distance.
When he moved back toward the interior of the continent, the forests had become rainforests. He was drawn to the concentrations of mana, following red dirt paths that outlined massive ocean-sized lakes and long weaving rivers where people continued to survive. He passed through dozens of shoreline communities in Tanzania, Burundi, and Rwanda before reaching the largest settlement of them all.
By the time he reached Nyiragongo, he was fully on board with the Path of the Abyss, feeling like, after only three skills and the initial passive, it had already elevated his potency to another echelon.
