Unchosen Champion-Chapter 362: Aloneness

Nyiragongo was a massive, sprawling development, loosely formed along one side of a volcano. It expanded all the way down to a massive lake, covering an area easily multiple times the size of Ghost Reef’s landmass, where it merged with a pre-mana city called Goma. A huge population of people had congregated beneath the shadow of the mountain, apparently unworried about the black smoke that billowed from its broken peak and giant glowing caldera.

The whole territory was in constant shade, but bright rivers of lava actually flowed side by side with shelters, terminating with steaming pools beneath mana-infused trees growing from stilt-like fireproof roots. The lava illuminated the darkness in an unusual way, transforming the forest into an alien environment that was easily comparable to the mana wells Coop had explored. Shadows and embers played with the light while the sky yielded none.

The relentless smoke provided a steady stream of black clouds directly above the entire region, giving the whole settlement territory an otherworldly ceiling that took a bit to get used to. It was almost like the open sky was more restrictive than the actual Underlayer that existed deep below the surface. Coop felt like he was approaching some primordial underground city as he followed the edge of Lake Kivu toward the settlement, collecting a layer of soot that stuck to his sweat-slicked skin. It was the kind of place that, by game-logic, should have been a manufacturing hub full of forges and the hammering of anvils.

However, the people were like any other he had come across, just doing what it took to survive. The leaders hadn’t invested in services so much as they had focused on expanding their shelters. Compared to some of the previous examples, Coop thought that was wise, but with so many residents, housing was an ongoing struggle that never gave them an opportunity to diversify construction.

The residents had migrated from all across Africa, crossing unbelievable distances and turning the territory into the de facto capital for the Assembly of Settlements by virtue of population alone. The reason for the confluence of people was primarily attributed to having access to the most convenient transportation through otherwise impassible, untamed lands. Though that was only if everyone made decisions on purely logistical grounds.

At least a little bit of the appeal of living in Nyiragongo was also because Imara, the champion of champions, was the local guardian. Being represented by the most powerful individual in the continent and a contender on the world’s stage was an appealing feature for any settlement. At this point of the assimilation, having a powerhouse nearby was just as valuable as any specific amenities when shopping for new real estate.

To his surprise, even before he arrived, the well-developed settlement had been connected to his faction by Ghost Reef’s navy. Despite the interior location, deep in the heart of Africa, the pirates had managed to navigate to the local ports. The nearby network of rivers and lakes flowed all the way to the west coast and into the Sahara Sea.

Many of the locals in the Congo River Basin were already recruited by the pirates that explored the complicated woodland river routes under the banner of the Tempest Fleet. The networking had begun basically as soon as the Ghost Reef-based phantoms managed to cross the Atlantic with their more specialized ships.

With the advice of the locals, they continued to adapt to new environments. Giant wooden floating fortresses, some as long as a football field and shaped more like castles than ocean-faring vessels, were being crewed by phantoms and Ghost Reef residents as members of the Assembly of Settlements joined the Lighthouse and added their riverboats to the broader navy. They defended the transport ships from any aggressive Primal Construct threats, converting a massive portion of the continent into a series of safe, water-based highways. A cultural victory was taking place even while the diplomats struggled to craft reasonable treaties with the individual settlement leaders as their residents actively found purpose by joining the Lighthouse.

Coop caught up with some of the pirates, getting nothing but good news when it came to their progress conquering the seas. The Tempest Fleet had reached just about every corner of the world, with the coast of eastern Africa their final frontier. Meanwhile, as they conquered the world’s coasts, the Lighthouse spread to nearly every settlement on the planet. Just over 200 settlements remained, and almost 150 were either in the process of joining or already had.

After spending some time with the phantoms, he was invited to have dinner with the diplomats that were collaborating with the different leaders within the Assembly. They continued to arrive at most locations through the Underlayer, but Nyiragongo was a rare location that had excellent access to both the underground and the waterways. Coop went, though it was really an excuse for him to play with the various champions that escorted the politicians between settlements while his diplomats did their work.

It was just a small break from the grind before he continued on, especially because elsewhere, the highest rank elite champions were chasing his levels and were unavailable to join in the festivities. The local sentries showed him maps and highlighted danger areas that normally they would have advised people to avoid, but since it was Coop, the problem zones might be the places he found the most interesting. They sent him through Uganda, along the coast of the fathomless Lake Victoria, into the Kenyan Highlands, through mountains in Ethiopia, and all the way to the coast of the Arabian Sea in Somalia.

On the way, he met with the permanent bodyguards of the last northern white rhino in Kenya, who even after the assimilation began, refused to leave her side. The two human guards were impressively leveled, having conquered the frenzied monsters for the duration of each event, but the rhino was nearly as high as Coop due to an apparent reversal of the group’s pre-mana roles. The rhino was particularly protective of her guards.

The group stuck together in a demonstration of commitment that Coop found encouraging. He suggested, more to the rhino than the guards, that they head to Ghost Reef as well. He wasn’t sure if they would take up his offer, but he was happy to make it.

Africa was so wide, Coop ended up spending nearly as much time moving east to west, from Somalia to Senegal, as he spent in the entirety of South America. On a whim, when he declined to return home from Antarctica, he had put himself on a massive journey. It was exceeding his wildest expectations, adding tens of thousands of miles and tens of millions of monster kills to his résumé, but he wouldn’t stop. A grind left incomplete was always something that would grate at his subconscious.

There were still 30 surviving civilization shards in Africa, but there were hundreds of other communities standing against the Primal Constructs, and every single one of them could use the brief respite brought by a visit of the Unchosen Champion.

In the most dangerous areas, where mana concentrations were the highest, most of the survivors who remained were highly mobile, living almost like nomads. Many of them became auxiliary forces to the more entrenched settlements, maintaining the connections that had allowed the Assembly of Settlements to form while the rest of the people settled in the safer shard territory. For them, a reset of the monsters could be a permanent game changer that allowed them to forever hold an advantage that they never would have been granted otherwise.

On the other hand, many humans preferred to dig in, fortifying their homes with makeshift defenses that dictated their tactics. Of course walls were popular, but natural features seemed to have a greater likelihood of contributing to success. The places that started with a unique advantage simply had better odds to begin with, but he still admired the settlements that appeared within extreme environments, or were isolated in protective three-sided canyons, river islets, and elevated plateaus, for their ability to stay strong. It would be difficult for freshly spawned monsters to make headway or overwhelm such staunch defenses.

Obviously, only needing to actively defend one side, or forcing advantageous combat situations with choke points or down long sightlines tended to lend themselves to better outcomes, but not everyone could maintain the focus necessary to resist the pressure applied by the planetary sponsor outside of civilization shard territory. Ultimately, few were actually able to seize the way forward. For every surviving village, town, or city, Coop passed through the ruins of 100 others.

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On a broader scale, once again, the native fauna proved to be the biggest threat to the alien invaders. Coop still found himself in awe at the raw development of individual animals. Where he had been forced to work around diminishing returns, seeking the Slayer titles as a sort of class level alternative, much of the wildlife just powered through. It wasn’t a matter of strategic thinking or deliberate progress, it was their simple act of existing in a permanent state of competition. Survival of the fittest was the law of the wilds and the Primal Constructs were unprepared for the experience that billions of years of natural selection brought to the table.

Rather than actively seek out levels, it seemed like the animals simply let nature drive their growth. If the Primal Constructs were particularly empowered, due to the intrinsic concentrations of mana in an area, the animals that hunted them grew proportionally faster. Since mana was never evenly distributed, this led to situations where specific animals that coincidentally inhabited potent locations were progressing far beyond expectations. The Amazon rainforest had been an extreme example, covering a massive area, but there were countless smaller habitats that provided similar results, especially throughout Africa.

It was like the individual animals had discovered the premier grind zones and camped them without rest. Ironically, wild animals behaved more like bots than the metallic invaders. To them it was a basic drive to survive. Meanwhile, Coop was out there sweating and pulling his hair out, overthinking his strategic acquisition of experience with long term goals in mind, and twisting his built to offer every advantage possible.

Maybe he wasn’t as simple as he thought. The success of various animals made him want to refine his habits even further. Or maybe that was the blunt weapons that had accompanied him across tens of thousands of miles in Africa speaking for him.

At least he wasn’t crippled by indecision anymore. It was an honest problem he had when the assimilation began. He might have forced himself to put one foot forward back then, but he had grown enough to not have to fight with himself before pressing on. An earlier version of himself would have experienced a significant amount of guilt for not broadening his horizons sooner, in order to save more of the struggling settlements, but his current self understood he was already doing more than any could expect.

By the time he started to cross the Sahara Sea, island hopping along tiny deserted islands that were only months old, sometimes amounting to nothing more than a thin strip of golden sand breaking the surface of shining aquamarine water, he was fully immersed in the mindset that had taken him during the Underlayer Event. Instead of control points, he pursued Infestations, and instead of Ghost Reef’s settlement score, he sought stats. More monsters, more kills, more experience, more skills. This was his mantra.

It was on one of the tiny islands, shaped a bit like a snake as it followed the contour of what he imagined was once a particularly large dune that had been swallowed by the expanding waters, that Coop completed the Path of the Abyss. He was surrounded by the extraordinarily shallow sea with a bottom of golden sand that made it all seem like an attractive sandbar that extended for thousands of miles when he had the opportunity to choose his next path. It was a critical juncture in the middle of nowhere, and he chose decisively.

The Path of Aloneness appropriately came when he was upwards of 2,000 miles from any other person. It left him with a simple message, “True Strength Lies Within.”

Coop chuckled to himself as he concluded it was the right choice. “If you say so.” He responded to the message as the red sun slowly sank toward the horizon.

He paused, just watching the setting sun. He couldn’t help but wonder if it had always been so red or if that was entirely due to mana. It transformed the shallow sea into a ruby sheet, highlighted by golden filigree created by former desert sand barely poking beyond the surface. Shaking his head, he refocused on the decisions he made.

He had selected the Path of Aloneness primarily because it appeared to be a swordsman specific route, continuing with his idea of establishing entire specialized builds within his broader Revenant framework. It seemed to be a sort of samurai themed path, but he would see soon enough. Despite its name, it wasn’t so much about being alone as it was about internalized discipline. The Path of Aloneness promised to reveal the technical skills that could take another of his weapons to a new level so long as he could establish proper control over himself.

He shrugged, sure that he would figure things out as he went. He reviewed his previous path, feeling confident about his choice thanks to the success of building a tactical mace tree into his build. The other skills he had claimed from the abyss had ended up either evolving or being absorbed by some of his previous skills, leaving the main core as the simple juggernaut-like Call of the Void and the two smashing attacks in Sunken Grasp and Depth Charge, but that didn’t mean they could be ignored.

Fathomless Chains was absorbed by his Acumen passive skill, Clarity of Purpose, enhancing the stacking armor penetration bonus with an additional pressure-based debuff that hindered his targets, reducing both their Agility and Acumen based on the number of applications. It was a simple expansion of an already useful passive ability and had the added bonus of visually indicating the stacks in the form of a growing mass of actual chains wrapping any enemies that could survive more than one blow. Each stack added another restraint for his target to contend with.

Ghost Tide added drowned variants of his phantasms to Legacy of the Mists, who were less technically proficient but far more durable than his normal manifestations. Coop could imagine where they would be situationally useful, but for the most part, strategic use of Retribution already enabled him to work around the frailty of his manifestations.

While Ghost Tide hadn’t been a homerun in of itself, revealing the possibility of alternative forms for Legacy of the Mists was the more interesting development in his mind. Phantasms were strictly weapon specialists before, but there were a lot of people in history that had other virtues aside from mastering specific armaments. He might not find any on the Path of Aloneness, but he imagined all sorts of possibilities where phantasms became more than mirrors of his weapons.

Awakened Depths was a field ability that synergized with Fog of War, forcing his opponents to slosh through frigid waters that added the same ensnaring effect as Sunken Grasp. His domain skill was already such a major part of his combat strategies that any bonus was genuinely welcome. Even if an enemy could resist the disorienting impact of being wrapped in layers of fog, like many of the Primal Constructs, they would still be debilitated by the Awakened Depths. That meant his Fog of War would always have some value, no longer being a waste against specific opponents.

Finally, Drowning Darkness was an aura skill that gave Presence of Mind an even more tangible effect, enabling him to burn mana in order to deal damage. It applied to anyone within yet another personal domain, this one defined by the area covered by his aura, increasing and decreasing with his own control of mana concentrations. It was at its most potent when it was kept in a tight space and rapidly lost its efficacy as it expanded its coverage. Of all his abilities, he actually thought Drowning Darkness might have been the most ridiculous, but only if he had established his build with it in mind.

In a world where Drowning Darkness was among his first choices at the very start of the assimilation, he absolutely could have adhered to a strategy that leaned into a point blank mana burn. If he focused on constant regeneration so that he could keep it burning indefinitely and use it as his primary means of damage, it could have been a real game changer, turning him into a walking disaster.

Unfortunately, he had already invested an unbelievable amount of effort and time into building up his own martial prowess, so at most it was only immediately useful for temporarily wiping out weak swarms of enemies that would have wasted his time with sheer numbers. The expenditure of mana was too intense otherwise. He relied on mana for too many other aspects of his build, especially when it came to his layered defenses.

Still, he imagined how drastically different his grinds would have looked with a steady aura as the source of his damage. Even his movement abilities would have needed to be different, focusing on smooth speed instead of teleportation to maintain a steady damage profile, but it was fun to think about and something to keep in mind as he continued to progress. He might find some synergistic skills in the future that afforded a new avenue of development.

Overall, he was satisfied with how his skills had developed. Depth Charge and Sunken Grasp alone would have been worth the investment, but Call of the Void, as an individual skill, could easily win any fight by itself. The rest were a lot better than simple bonuses. The Path of the Abyss had delivered a solid lineup, but Coop couldn’t help but feel excited to see what he gained next. Another path was already on the horizon. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓