Unchosen Champion

When Coop’s debilitating Soul Rot debuff expired, he ran after the fleeing field boss. If there was one constant tactic that he had employed, it was pressing his advantages when he had them, but Felrog the Soul Snatcher had evaded him.

Coop had no idea which tunnel the monster had escaped into, and there were way too many passages to try guessing. They covered the walls, angled up and down and split and forked in a maze that Coop was glad he hadn’t been lost in when he followed the first tunnel. Coop couldn’t even carefully track the monster’s steps, searching for leaking oil, as now that the fog was gone, he was once again the target of the streaming surge of Frenzied Excavators.

Infuriatingly, he could hear the air blasts that Felrog emanated from its tail to launch itself through the tunnels. Coop did his best to follow the sound, smashing Excavators the whole way, as it led him further beneath the center of the settlement and toward the edge of the hive chamber.

On the bright side, his health was completely filled despite taking damage in the first encounter with Felrog, thanks to his Reaper title and the constant flow of event monsters. His mana was in a precarious state after his initial investment into Fog of War, a mistjump with Soul Degradation, and health protection from Mind over Matter. Hopefully, it would recover quickly enough as he only had enough for one more mistjump until his Soul Degradation debuffs expired.

The illuminated chamber that Coop had occupied turned out to be one of four open areas, arranged around a central feature in each cardinal direction. Coop was inside the east chamber. Each of the others had similar glowing columns and smooth pearlescent surfaces. There was a deep cavern in between the four chambers that led down so far Coop felt like his ears popped when he looked over the edge. The pure darkness below yielded nothing.

Looking up, following the flow of the breeze with his eyes. He could see the flashing of spells in the distant darkness and realized this was the sinkhole in the courtyard. It seemed like the residents had successfully moved up to the edges while he was fighting down there. Apparently, he had been holding up enough of the Excavators to give an advantage to the midrange skirmishers up top.

Another pneumatic air blast drew his attention back down. Felrog had positioned itself directly underneath Coop, but the monster wasn’t in the sinkhole. Coop suspiciously shifted, trying to find the source of the sound while fighting more Frenzied Excavators. Every swing of his morning star smashed another monster into the ground.

The ground erupted as he fought and searched. Felrog shot out at its full speed, entering the upper cavern like a missile launching from a silo while managing to successfully target Coop. Felrog was the Ruin Excavator Field Boss after all. They thrived on ambushes.

Coop had the ground underneath him completely removed and he was slammed by the extended claws of the Field Boss, launching them both up the sinkhole.

The sudden acceleration completely disoriented Coop, stymying any smashing attack he had planned, and the collision applied ten more full stacks of Soul Degradation. His mana costs and cooldowns would make his skills unreliable, if not completely unusable.

When his watering eyes finally refocused, he was weightless. He rotated until his head was down and his feet were up and he realized that he was soaring through the air, above the fortress courtyard, in the late night sky. He hadn’t been this high looking down at the fort outside of a previous nightmare that left him feeling alone after Jones was cursed, facing a world of challenges. Judging by all the spells flashing around the fort, from the southern wall to the northern courtyard, he obviously wasn’t facing anything by himself. That just motivated him to contribute more and make sure he was pulling his weight.

He rotated a bit more and realized that Felrog was also in the air, deftly angling its claws so that it could plunge into the battlefield like an olympic diver executing a perfect dive.

Coop couldn’t afford to swap weapons and mistjump, and he wasn’t sure if he could survive a fall from that high in the air. He also felt like he needed to interrupt Felrog’s attack pattern. The people fighting down below would have a hard time getting out of the blast zone if the Field Boss was allowed to rocket back down.

Coop decided on a desperate move. He resummoned his lost morning star, using the free function to have it returned to his hand, and chucked it as hard as he could at the Field Boss, letting it fly through the night sky. Without having his feet planted, he lost a lot of leverage, but he still put all the power into the throw that he could, twisting his torso and leaning on the strength of his shoulder while his legs kicked.

Both of them were already falling as the morning star flew end over end and collided with the carapace of Felrog. The cracking sound indicated a solid hit, and Felrog was redirected enough to prevent the claws from aiming straight down, now slightly angled as it rocketed toward the ground with its many remaining legs flailing as it tried to right itself.

Coop spent the rest of his mana, depleting himself well beyond his normal limit of 50%, in order to mistjump to his weapon and position himself on the same trajectory as the boss. He wouldn’t be able to use any more skills until he regenerated some mana and got rid of the Soul Degradation stacks.

Felrog blasted into the courtyard, near the edge of some of the service buildings, thankfully away from the beachhead and the main fighting area around the sinkhole. The monster landed awkwardly on its side as Coop chased after it.

The meteoric impact completely eradicated the Bowyer and caused the Fletcher’s shop to be half destroyed as the coral rock ground exploded around Felrog’s landing zone. The rest of the Fletcher’s building pixelated and disappeared, being recalled by the system. Neither of the new service buildings had sufficient defenses to withstand Felrog’s plunging attack.

Coop followed a split second later, crashing through the cloud of debris and slamming his morning star into the crater that Felrog’s descent had created. Coop had tried to leverage his fall into a devastating blow just like during the opening engagement with this wave. The popping sound of the morning star blasting into Felrog’s carapace and finding purchase was evidence of his success.

However, Felrog recovered almost immediately, shaking off the fall and nearly crushing Coop in the process, smashing him with his armored back. A shattered carapace section, a completely collapsed back plate, a smashed face, and a missing leg barely slowed the Field Boss, such was its durability. It skittered out of the crater and prepared to go wild on the phantoms and residents, just as Coop had done to the Frenzied Excavators at the start.

Adrenaline and frustration kept Coop going, but he had received some injuries in the ambush, the partially reduced fall, and again from grappling with Felrog. A quick self-assessment left him annoyed.

His left arm was useless, he thought his shoulder was dislocated and his collarbone broken from Felrog’s last thrashing, his right leg was numb with pain, unable to take his full weight on his hamstring due to Felrog’s ambush that launched them out of the chamber, and one of his ears was ringing from the fall. His attack had spun him into an indirect landing and saved him from worse injuries, but he was pretty beat up. The pain was just dull background noise as it was overridden by an anxiety that insisted he keep moving for the sake of Ghost Reef. He could win a knockdown dragout rumble, but the rest of the town didn’t have his survivability.

His ethereal armor was missing, shattered in the crash landing, and he didn’t have the mana to cast Salvation again, thanks to the lingering Soul Degradation debuff.

He struggled for a moment to get upright, and eventually propped himself up on the morning star to find himself surrounded by Frenzied Excavators. They were climbing over the edges of the crater and sliding down to get to him. Coop impulsively started swinging his weapon with his one good arm, maintaining balance with his weight on one leg. It was an automatic reaction to being surrounded by the monsters. His instinct was to keep fighting.

This was what it was to be a Revenant. He remembered the description when he selected the class. A relentless combatant, single-mindedly chasing victory with unflinching resolve.

The Frenzied Excavators gifted him with health through his Reaper title. After just a minute, he was back at full, though his physical injuries wouldn’t recover unless he rested for weeks.

Climbing out of the crater was a challenge with only half of his limbs properly working and he had to leave his morning star at the bottom while he fumbled his way to the top. Recalling his weapon with Retribution, he finally got a look outside of the crater that he had landed in.

The battlefield was a disaster. The frontline had collapsed in the short time that the field boss had joined the fight. The skirmishers had been routed, escaping in all directions, back towards the bridge or the walls. Felrog’s disruptive presence was enough to completely flip the momentum and allow the additional Frenzied Excavators to swarm without Coop defeating a quarter of the entire wave. Only the burrowing owl continued to destroy monsters, swooping near the sinkhole and unleashing wind blades while the rest of the defenders retreated and sought to regroup.

He watched as the Field Boss leapt into the air, curled its legs as it did a front flip, then splayed them out to do its bodyslam move. It landed with a crash and the blue wave of energy emanated from the boss that immediately activated Soul Rot on anyone it touched. Dozens were stunned, leaving them vulnerable to the smaller, swarming Excavators.

Coop did his best to rush to the enemy boss, hobbled as he was. He half galloped, relying on his morning star to take the weight from his injured hamstring.

The Field Boss wasn’t done. It slammed the base of its tail and both claws against the ground twice, then screeched as it raised all three appendages toward the air. Blue energy spikes of soul energy started erupting all around the battlefield from underground, as if they were being called forth by the monster. The Soul Spears impaled scores of people and Coop wasn’t spared.

He was vulnerable, unarmored as he was. A blue spike pierced through his back and suddenly appeared from his chest before it evaporated, leaving no physical wound, but burning with an agonizing pain where it had punctured his body. He would have collapsed if he hadn't already braced himself with his morning star, using it like a crutch when his legs gave out.

The damage wasn’t nearly enough to deter him, though the pain remained. It was magic damage, the type he was by far the most resistant to, unlike most others. He pressed forward, willing himself to close the gap faster.

He was almost there when the night suddenly lit up with pure white light. The illumination was accompanied by the grand chime of a massive golden bell that appeared high in the sky as if it was a celestial body, capable of replacing the sun and the moon.

Madison had been elevated above the beachhead, 40 feet in the air, angel wings fully extended, as solid as if they were real, and with her halo glowing with a searing intensity. She was draped in flowing white silk and wielded a double pronged golden spear that made Coop’s favored weapon look like a primitive stick. Light seemed to be shining on her from the heavens despite night shrouding the sky, thanks to the celestial bell.

With the golden spear hefted above her head in one arm, another burst of white light left an expanding sphere of translucent mana that quickly encompassed most of the retreating defenders between the north side of the bridge and the south side of the sinkhole.

Everyone that the sphere passed through received their own smaller and much dimmer pair of wings as they were bolstered by Madison’s magic. The blue soul spears were deleted when the sphere touched them, and all of the defenders that had been stunned by Felrog’s bodyslam were freed. Though most of them weren’t quick to get up.

Madison had completely taken over the southern half of the courtyard. Within the sphere, Ruin Excavators that had pressed too far were burned with smiting fire and the fighters that were struggling in their retreat had the pressure relieved, but the protective circle didn’t reach the sinkhole. Felrog was even further, and Coop was behind the Field Boss.

Felrog’s screech had ceased, overpowered by the gonging of the bell from the heavens even as the celestial manifestation dissipated. A silence started to spread on the battlefield as the magnificent light from Madison’s spells started to fade and the darkness of night gradually returned.

The silence only lasted a second before Coop fractured it, using all the strength he could muster with his injured body to slam his ethereal morning star into the distracted Field Boss’s tail. Coop tried to collapse it at the base while it was still stationary, before it could be used to summon more soul spears and relieve some of the pressure on the residents. His morning star clanged off the base of the tail, thicker than a tree trunk and far too sturdy to be broken so easily. He used the recoil to pull his weapon back again, and using one hand to slam the two-handed weapon on a new target, crushed another one of Felrog’s back legs.

He’d rip the legs off one at a time if he needed to, just like when the Ancient Defenders were too sturdy for him and Jones to defeat without a struggle. Even if all of Coop’s levels and stats just meant the same struggle had been elevated a few tiers, he would push on.

Felrog abandoned its attack pattern and spun around, smacking Coop with a backhanded claw that sent him back the way he came from. Coop was still unarmored so the blow was severe. With the wind knocked out of him and a crack that only added to his injuries, he bounced on the ground, then rolled to a stop, tearing through the short grass and leaving a trail of sandy dirt.

He climbed back to his feet as quickly as he could. The Field Boss had hit him hard enough to completely drain the rest of his mana through Mind over Matter protecting his health and applied another 10 stacks of Soul Degradation. He spat a mouthful of blood and sought his opponent, still able to swing his recovered weapon, mana or not.

Coop was up in time to see that Felrog had actually run away again, but this time it was to make distance to line him up for another charge, just like its initial attacks when they were underground. This tactic hadn’t gone well for the monster the first time around, so Coop welcomed another round. Despite the Field Boss’s injuries, it still moved as quickly as it had at the start. Coop thought they’d both find out how many destroyed legs it took to slow it down.

He heaved his morning star over his shoulder with his good arm and prepared for another joust as the Field Boss rocketed toward him, claws first, barely skimming the ground as an airblast from its tail propelled its body. Coop was definitely not mobile enough to get out of the way, let alone dodge the claws to land another direct hit, and he didn’t have mana to mistjump. He contented himself with swinging for the first claw that came into range. He was guaranteed to take a direct hit, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt the monster back.

With his morning star primed, he readied himself to punish the monster at least as much as it had him.

A split second before the Champion and the Field Boss collided a blur intervened. Camila appeared in between the claws with her open palm extended into the center of the monster’s face, right next to the ruined portions that Coop had given it previously. When the monster and her palm collided it sounded like an aluminum bat hitting a home run. She had deftly activated her Perfect Counter.

Felrog reversed direction and flew like a line drive with legs flailing and tail whipping in the wind until it crashed into the interior fort wall on the northwestern side. Camila’s hand hadn’t moved at all.

The interior rooms of the first two floors were exposed by the collapsed stone, pulverized by the bus-sized boss crashing through. Thankfully the outer wall remained intact. Coop breathed a sigh of relief.

“I got your back.” Camila stated, watching the dust for the monster’s return.

“I had him right where I wanted him.” Coop boasted as he wiped some blood out of his eye with his palm.

“Chalk it up to another race you lost to me.” Camila suggested with a smirk. “You okay?”

“Just a whole bunch of afflictions and debuffs.” Coop admitted.

“I’ll let Madison know.” Camila chugged a mana potion and left, deftly navigating through the chaotic battlefield while liberally applying her skills despite their cooldowns.

Coop started making his way to the crashed section of the fort, knowing the Field Boss wasn’t defeated. They hadn’t received the notifications. Defeating Frenzied Excavators on the way allowed him to recoup his partially diminished health back to full once again, though he still couldn’t cast Salvation to get his armor back with his limited mana and Soul Degradation debuffs elevating the cost too much.

Ghost Reef’s defenders had been able to stabilize the battlefield, though they had pulled all the way back to the bridge again. The full numbers of the Ruin Excavators were enough to hold them to a stalemate, even without the presence of the Soul Snatcher, and now the defender’s forces were diminished. Coop was worried about them.

Coop was further dismayed when Felrog shook itself out of the piles of rubble that it had been buried under. He had expected to smash it to bits while it was incapacitated, but it was barely phased by the force of its own charge being redirected into its face, though it was more mangled than before. There was no way it didn’t have extensive internal injuries, a bit like Coop, but it still glared back across the empty fields with more than a dozen red crystal eyes remaining. Coop was halfway across the courtyard from the monster, so it had plenty of runway to come for him. Coop had a twinge of worry it would veer in some other direction and retreat again.

While he was considering how to make sure he got the monster’s attention, a streak of light shot across the courtyard like a shooting star running along the ground.

Sunny stopped in front of the Field Boss, ending his linear sprint, and howled at the night sky. A miniature sun appeared above him, but it kept growing and rising until the courtyard was lit in magical light for the second time that night. Sunny’s spell burned bright red and golden yellow expanding until it seemed ready to explode, taking the entire fort with it.

The sun orb blasted Felrog with a blinding beam of flames that were hot enough for Coop to feel, even at his distance. It seemed like the temperature of the entire island was rising. The Field Boss huddled against the ground, taking up a defensive position just like the regular Excavators did when Coop tried to slice them with his blades. It was a powerful guard that Coop had given up defeating, preferring to change tactics and try his blunt weapons, but Felrog seemed to be suffering.

Sunny kept blasting the Field Boss with flames, putting everything he had into the sun orb as he howled, but it wasn’t enough. It was a monumental effort from the dog that had only been leveling for around a week, pinning the level 40 Field Boss with his attack. The sun’s color started to fade, losing the red, and ceasing the flame beam, but remaining a golden yellow orb that cast long shadows all across the entire fort. Charlie and the defenders on the southern wall, still fighting the Marauding Prowlers, had a view that would have seemed like dawn was rising in the northwest.

Once the flame beam ceased, Felrog returned to its feet, smoke emanating from its carapace, but seeming unharmed otherwise on its exterior. Its metal armor shimmered in the golden light, heat billowing off the surface and blurring its scorched form. Surely, its interior was absolutely cooked.

A shadow spread across the courtyard until it engulfed the entire fortress, from the southern entrance, to northern town hall and everything in between. The light from Sunny’s orb was completely snuffed out even though the orb was still in the air. Shadows that light couldn’t penetrate had taken control of the night. Everything seemed to stop, from the Frenzied Excavators, to the phantoms, to Felrog itself, all anticipating something ominous as the blackness blanketed them.

Then the yellow light from the edges of the orb gradually returned with the steady pace of a solar eclipse, until the shadow only covered an almond shape slit down the center of the orb, though everything else in the fortress remained in total darkness.

The orb blinked.

It had become the eye of an absolutely enormous black panther that gazed down at the Field Boss with what Coop imagined as an expression of utter disdain. The panther lifted one massive paw that seemed to move in slow motion due to the size, then brought it down on top of the bus-sized Soul Snatcher with an earth shaking stomp. The panther dissipated into black smoke as soon as it smashed the Field Boss like a bug, taking the orb and the shadows with it.

The Field Boss was completely annihilated.

The fort was once again illuminated by flashing light, this time because every single person present received multiple levels simultaneously.