Unchosen Champion

The color of Neon Park’s final control point was transitioning away from the sinister red that represented the Primal Construct invasion, gradually softening as swirls of soothing blue mixed into the glowing illumination.

Rather than a blend of colors, the blue and red each cast a weak haze along the rings on their own, like two separate flashlights of cosmetic light powered independently of each other. The red glimmer was fading while the blue was energized. If the lights were more prominent, it would make an interesting spectacle, but outside of the moments when control was claimed by one or the other, they were a bit too subtle to invite anyone to sit down and enjoy the show.

Once the objective was in the process officially being claimed by team humanity, Coop was ready to move on to the nearest subordinate settlement. He was riding a wave of incitement, and he had no reason to let it fade.

Days of combat were par for the course for the Revenant of Ghost Reef. He didn’t need rest after so little. As long as there were more enemies out there, just waiting for him to come and defeat them, he couldn’t bring himself to linger anywhere in particular. The opportunities to grind were too nice to pass up, even before considering all the other reasons to keep moving.

The assault on Neon Park was certainly on the extreme end of the Underlayer Event, but he outleveled the enemies by far too much to let mere numbers deter him. The settlement was in the top four of the world’s challenge assessments, but the tremendous army of invaders had merely whet Coop’s appetite. The effective use of his evolved skills was immensely satisfying, and the enemies were sufficient to continue feeding his constant desire for more progression.

Elsewhere, millions more of the non-respawning Primal Constructs were tucked away in their cute little castles among the dirt plains, just waiting for him to pay them a visit. The greedy giggles the thought elicited from Coop only added to the inevitable notoriety his actions were establishing in Neon Park.

Fortunately for his human colleagues, it wasn't a selfish desire that motivated him, at least not entirely. The Underlayer Event was also a real opportunity for the Champion of Ghost Reef to conduct the style of diplomacy that he would be most effective at performing, and in what was probably a rare moment of recognition, he knew it.

Marcus and the people who had been trained to become diplomats for their tiny island nation behaved like proper ambassadors, concentrating on persuasive arguments and peaceful treaty negotiations, but Coop represented the other side of the diplomatic coin. He was the ultimate manifestation of Ghost Reef’s hard power, and he was demonstrating their effectiveness, not just on a global scale, but on an intergalactic one.

He didn’t suppress his bloodthirst, openly letting it add to his image. The Champion of Ghost Reef was a force to be reckoned with, possessing serious combat capability, and maybe he was a little unhinged when it came to how much he delighted in exercising his proficiency. The image he was establishing was perfectly appropriate for his role.

The combination of The Lighthouse’s friendly approach backed by its verifiable strength would certainly be more compelling whenever it came to encouraging open dialogue. But it wasn’t like his people were asking for too much from their human compatriots in the assimilation. They were primarily declaring their sovereignty to the rest of the world, stating clearly that they shouldn’t be messed with, just as any other independent settlement would.

However, they were also forecasting more dangers and presenting themselves as the remedy. The Eradication Protocol was coming, but it was a dubious prediction without further proof. Unfortunately, Icons of Mana were rarely available to provide as a reference.

Notably, they hadn’t appeared in the Underlayer at all, though Coop wasn’t sure if that was due to increasing requirements to have them show up, or if the Underlayer itself provided some sort of deterrent with its flow of pure mana. It seemed like prime real estate for the mana monsters, but he supposed that if the underground didn’t have some way to discourage the Icons it would have been the first place they established themselves. The Icons themselves might avoid it for the reason that it was distinctly separate from the subjects of their interest.

No matter the case, Coop understood it would require a certain amount of credibility to heed Ghost Reef’s warning without their enemies making a convenient appearance. His actions would contribute in a small way. It demonstrated that he was driven by purpose beyond simple competition because he recognized further threats in their future. At the very least, Ghost Reef believed what they were saying to be true and were taking sincere actions based on their convictions. That would add integrity to their arguments.

The people of Neon Park were celebrating their survival in a way that reminded him of Ghost Reef’s relief after their own successes during the Siege Event. It didn’t matter how dire the situation really was when lives were put on the line. The alleviation was substantial. Of course, Coop’s contribution to their victory had been considerable, so he was given plenty of credit. They were happy to rely on him, seeing his drive as dependable instead of what he imagined should have been alarming.

Despite his apparently monstrous aura, random people approached him without any reluctance, slapping his back and inviting him to come visit their homes whenever he wished, like he was part of the family. They wanted him to share their meals, or come meet their parents, or even joked about letting them introduce him to their daughters. He did his best to gracefully decline, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck as he reminded them that the event wasn’t over until the last Primal Construct was defeated but somehow that made them even more insistent.

They made it as clear as possible that he’d have a hero’s welcome whenever he took the time to stop by, and in turn, he invited them to visit Ghost Reef and consider it a safe haven should they ever desire it. Whether or not they really understood the Eradication Protocol, they could at least associate Ghost Reef with security.

Platinum had straightforwardly pointed out how the contradictory impressions his aura and presence caused were actually rather charming, and he supposed it must have been true, given his reception by the people of Neon Park. No matter how much he controlled his aura with Presence of Mind, the difference in levels was subconsciously recognized by everyone he encountered thanks to the system. During his adventures, he had met enough enemies with question marks for levels to understand the feeling. Even The Lich had put the fear of god in him, but it was a very human thing to put those notions aside and apply their own assessments.

On the surface, Coop was simple, strong, and good-natured. In general, he never felt like he made a particularly good first impression due to his own internal doubts, but it still seemed relatively easy to make friends. As soon as the power differential shifted from danger to assurance, it became an asset that worked in his favor.

Looking back, he wondered if the contrast had helped him recruit for Ghost Reef when he first ventured to the mainland. At the time, he had been surprised by the willingness to take a chance on him and his island, but maybe even back then he had been projecting a certain dynamic image that revealed greater potential. People like Laurie and Greg saw him defeating a few monsters and after briefly meeting him, decided that was enough. He supposed his impression didn’t need to be that amazing when the alternative was staying put with the growing monsters and the Endless Empire, but still, he had done something right.

It was ancient history at this point, but Coop’s self-confidence had been steadily improving since those days. With the Underlayer Event, he was finally ready to actively fill a role instead of simply letting the leaderboards do the talking, and frankly, it seemed like it might be effective. He had landed a critical hit on the consciousness of Neon Park, that much was certain.

Coop casually declined the invitations to spend any time celebrating Neon Park’s liberation, already looking for the next fight and more opportunities to progress. He didn’t need to put on an act either, he really just wanted to grind, which made his insistence all the more authentic.

After he finally found one of Camila’s cousins and got him to confirm the order of the distant objective spotlights, Coop escaped the escalating celebration. As usual, it seemed easier to let his actions demonstrate his priorities. Of course, the man of the hour refusing to rest wouldn’t go unnoticed.

Neon Park was in a similarly centralized location within the Underlayer when compared to Ghost Reef, but its control points had been spread across a much wider area and its subordinate settlements were much closer. Those two factors combined to make the trip surprisingly brief. Rather than travel down the tunnel, Coop only needed to angle toward the edges to reach the smaller allied shards on a direct path.

The first settlement Coop reached after leaving Neon Park was a place he immediately felt a special kind of kinship for. The brief description was enough for him to want to secure the settlement with all the strength available to him. It only took a handful of mistjumps before he was there, in a place called Lordship, prepared to engage the Primal Constructs with all the power of various pantheons inspiring individual attacks.

The Lordship settlement had been established in what he understood was previously a neighborhood in Stratford, Connecticut. The civilization shard only boasted a limited amount of territory with a relatively small population compared to its two nearest neighbors, but what Coop felt an affinity toward was the fact that the settlement had been founded on a tract of land shared by a lighthouse.

Of course Coop, an admittedly novice Lighthouse Keeper, but also the founder of a faction called the Lighthouse, would want to secure another lighthouse settlement. It was only natural.

Coop enthusiastically cleared the enemies seeking to conquer the small settlement’s control points, making sure the residents on the surface wouldn’t have any problems in the future. Lordship only had a Challenge Assessment of x1, so it didn’t take the newly empowered Coop long. Only the Apparition of the Ferryman made an appearance, providing a single devastating attack that cleared the first control point in its entirety, adding a creeping wave of shadows and dark water to an already destructive opening assault from the Champion of Ghost Reef.

Still, despite Coop’s speed, by the time he was done with the monsters, more people from the alliance were catching up, ready to capture the points on his behalf, and freeing him to keep it rolling. Coop didn’t need to be told twice.

Next, a bit further north and east, was a larger settlement representing Boston’s apocalyptic efforts at civilization. The armies of metallic enemies were so large he couldn’t really tell the difference between their numbers, Cherry Hill’s, and Neon Park’s. Basically, once the monsters exceeded a million, Coop’s eyes just glazed over. How was a regular person supposed to gauge such massive quantities at a glance?

“Take more than a glance?” Coop mumbled as he dove in, ignoring the obvious solution. Knowing wouldn’t make that much of a difference on what he needed to do.

With Inheritance of the Mists bolstering his finishing attacks from the start, he made much quicker time than when he challenged Cherry Hill, not spending multiple additional days grinding through enemies as they tried to maintain the objectives that he challenged. It wasn’t until afterwards that Coop realized the amount of Primal Constructs had been approximately double what he fought in Cherry Hill, despite how much speedier they were to defeat.

The control points of the Boston settlement were right at the edge of the Underlayer tunnel as it swept northward, but the closer proximity of settlements gave him a better idea of the distance that the Underlayer was covering. Coop found it easier to ignore that the local underground was a tunnel at all, and consider Neon Park’s territory its own region, where it was surrounded by subordinate civilization shards. The fact that the wide open plains were, in fact, tunnels was easy to forget, due to their scale. They were literally hundreds of miles across and the vertical distance was comparable to their width, best measured in miles.

In order to reach the last two settlements within the Northeastern Alliance, it was necessary to double back and head almost straight west, crossing to the opposite side of the vaguely north-south tunnel. Maybe an hour after he left Boston, he was already destroying the Primal Construct armies responsible for claiming Niagara and Toronto.

They were a pair of settlements that were basically on top of each other when compared to the rest. In fact, as Coop cleared the control points, letting the density of enemies guide his path, he inadvertently started fighting the second set of strongholds before he was done with the first. Niagara’s population happened to be much smaller and the objectives naturally acted as stepping stones to the larger groups of opponents.

His continued efforts after leaving the celebratory atmosphere had instigated others to join in. Whether they were from Neon Park or one of the subordinate settlements that he was already liberating didn’t matter so much as they wanted to repel the invaders. At first, they followed his path, but Neon Park’s army was less of a monolith and more of an aggregation of individual tribes that competed with each other within the greater organization. Individual groups anticipated Coop’s movements and spread in different directions to avoid missing the battles and elevate their own contributions relative to the rest while hopefully getting on his good side.

The luxury of having other people capture the control points was something Coop greatly enjoyed. He could have easily grown accustomed to such a convenience. He was almost sad to leave the Alliance behind for that reason alone, but as far as they knew, there weren’t any other settlements nearby after Toronto and Niagara were liberated. Coop sighed as he anticipated his lonely future.

On the bright side, the list of fully cleared settlements had grown substantially. Adding the seven in Neon Park’s alliance to the three in the Lighthouse officially put the number he had completed into double digits. More importantly, the rate that the last five had been cleared gave him hope for the rest of the event. Coop took a deep breath, facing north, as he prepared to simply leave.

“Champion Coop!” Neon shouted, gesturing for Coop to wait for a second before he wandered away through the tunnels in search of more Primal Constructs.

As Coop acquiesced, others grouped up, and before he knew it, Neon and a handful of serious seeming people had roped him into a huddle, sharing what they knew of the surface to help guide his choices. All of a sudden, Coop was attending some kind of leadership meeting as it took place in the final shifting control point of Toronto’s settlement.

“While we aren’t aware of any settlements, there’s no way the tunnel just ends, right?” They debated amongst themselves, including him as naturally as anyone else, apparently doing their best to leave a good impression on Coop in their own way. Platinum watched him with an amused look on her face, that made it seem like this sort of thing happened all the time.

“I agree.” Neon stated after one of the others gave her opinion before explaining for Coop’s benefit. “We’ve thoroughly scouted the region all the way to Newfoundland on the surface, and while there were signs of abandoned smaller settlements, we believe any shards that landed up there have already been destroyed.”

“The nearest known settlements to our alliance are the Heartland to the west and your Neptune’s Bridge to the south, both of which would have been a thousand miles away before the assimilation, and now are much further with all sorts of obstacles in between.” Neon continued. “However, we have already made contact with the Heartland and the group of settlements on the west coast of the continent, so we believe we can take responsibility for contacting them and letting them know what you’re doing.” He concluded, Platinum nodded along from behind him, apparently being the volunteer for such a mission.

“I mean, I can’t guarantee I’ll arrive anywhere in particular…” Coop hedged, seeing what they were suggesting. “Especially if I’m deliberately going in a different direction.” He would be gambling with the unknown if he continued north as opposed to heading where settlements were already confirmed.

“We can still offer our own support to them. Hell, our entire army might be able to reach them if the Underlayer has shortened the distances as much as it seems.” Another leader declared, feeling particularly gungho about their completion of the event.

“Being passive during this event is also a viable strategy.” A different woman added. “If they are aware of our offers of support, they can better decide if they need to engage immediately or delay until we can help.”

Neon bobbed his head in agreement. “As long as they know that immediate sacrifice is unnecessary, we will have done our job.”

Coop shrugged, thinking Neon wasn’t wrong. Though he was worried about letting the Constructs establish themselves on the surface, it was certainly better than people unnecessarily throwing their lives away. Getting the word out that Coop was speedrunning the event wasn’t a bad idea, and if the event ended before Coop was done, what was stopping him from using the tunnels to visit all the places he hadn’t reached anyway? Maybe he actually could promise to visit every settlement in the long run.

“Alright, fair enough.” Coop ultimately conceded to their more thought out arguments.

Sending him in one direction while they took the other was as good a plan as any. He was just going to blast his way through the tunnels and let his intuition guide him, so he could go along with their suggestion, giving them their own chance to contribute in a material way. If Coop went ahead of them, they might as well stay home.

It occurred to him that some of them might be trying to get ahead of the big continental meeting that was supposed to occur after the event, preemptively connecting with the West Coast Settlements to form a coalition that could stand in opposition to Coop and Ghost Reef. He had revealed himself to be a bit too much for them to handle on their own, but he wasn’t particularly worried about such an effort.

It wasn’t only because he believed that even combining their forces with others, he doubted they could compare to Ghost Reef, but also because he already understood the distinct competition that played out within Neon Park. They were a giant conglomeration of smaller individual groups, all doing their best. None of them would be able to force the rest to do anything in particular, and he trusted that he had made enough of an impression on the people in general that they wouldn’t ever make him their enemy.

From another perspective, he also thought it was only fair. Ghost Reef had already been networking with major factions within Neon Park long before the Pacific Republic had a chance, not to mention the embedded familial connections. Besides, worrying about those types of politics was Marcus’s job. Coop had a role much more aligned with his personal preferences.

So like with Ghost Reef, the decision was made to split up. Coop went north and he left the rest to prepare themselves and head west.