Unchosen Champion

The Primal Construct army had abandoned their orderly march once they met the phantom defenders, preferring to fight in structured parties of five rather than a full battalion. It was the doctrine that all the factions followed: parties that consisted of classic archetypes seeking to engage other similar parties. While it was far more organized than the simple wave tactics of the invasion monsters, it still lacked the proper coordination that a proper command structure would provide. The greater formation only lasted while they lobbed attacks at the fort’s walls from the safety of their shields.

Unfortunately for the Constructs, the phantoms of Ghost Reef had a completely different set of tactics, forged in the crucible of the siege, that embraced flexibility and spontaneous cooperation. Coop dodged an uncontrolled mana bolt and lunged into action, ambushing a party of Constructs while he observed how his allies were handling the assault.

The phantoms hadn’t had more than a few days to properly train together under the tutelage of Ledwidge, but they had already gained an immense quantity of practical experience during the settlement event. From the start, when they were selecting their classes, they had been encouraged to be more independent and adaptable than what rigid five man parties would have demanded. The few days of training wouldn’t have been enough to establish proper teamwork, but the chaotic siege defense as they responded to waves and Field Bosses had tempered them into versatile combatants.

Faced with foes that presented a greater power level than their own, the phantoms had formed large squads similar to the tactic they implemented to stifle Gaol the Unveiled Blade and his reinforcements of Crazed Serpents. They wisely identified that they wouldn’t be able to match up against the Constructs on even footing, since the monsters were elites of a higher level than they were, and they embraced disorder to seek out advantages where they could. The phantoms had made extraordinary gains, but they were still around level 60 with only the top performers beyond 70. Their adaptability was paying dividends, allowing them to hang in there against stronger opponents.

Instead of trying to match the Constructs with party based combat, the phantoms were concentrating their forces in specific locations, then relying on their superior mobility to relocate in large numbers, converging on new locations where they could slice individual parties of Constructs away from the rest. Even though they were outnumbered over all, they only fought smaller groups of enemies at any given time, as long as they moved fast enough. It was a strategy that required perfect execution, but the phantoms were willing to risk their second lives if only to buy the residents and the settlement more time, none of whom would have the opportunity to return if Ghost Reef failed the siege.

Coop watched a group of over 50 phantoms, led by Gideon himself, run through the sand while pursued by several parties of Constructs. The monsters lobbed ranged attacks and spells into the crowd while maintaining their tight five man formations, but the phantoms dodged or countered while staying mobile, avoiding a direct clash. It looked like a school of baitfish being pursued by individual predators.

Gideon shouted, “Quick south!” and, with a rush of air, Gideon teleported away, into the center of a Construct party that was facing the wrong direction while pursuing a different squad. Surrounded by the higher level elites, the Rear Admiral brought his cavalry saber down into the shoulder of the party’s ranged attacker and a phantom blade manifested by mana followed his strike, rending a deep cut into the monster. He yelled “Bomb here!” and before any of the other Constructs reacted, the rest of the phantoms were on them like piranhas. The phantoms savagely ripped the monsters apart employing quick skills and wild attacks to deal damage. They weren’t able to destroy them in one or two skills, but with more than 50 attacking just five enemies at once, it was a slaughter.

The support Construct was the last to fall, as its barrier protected it for an extra second. Gideon yelled, “Long north!” and led the way by teleporting behind the pursuing parties, repeating the maneuver on another unsuspecting group that had lagged slightly behind the rest.

By avoiding a direct engagement and leveraging the phantoms’ superior mobility they were able to fight with favorable conditions, then retreat before the Constructs could consolidate their superior forces. It wasn’t a perfect strategy. They were losing phantoms with every maneuver, but they were at least delaying the Constructs from getting into the courtyard of the fort while simultaneously diminishing the invading force. The question was whether or not they could sustain their own losses. To Coop, it seemed like they were breaking even at best.

Coop was doing his best to turn the tables, diving into the nearest Primal Construct parties with his mistjumps and giving the enemy parties another foe to worry about. Unlike the phantoms, his individual attacks were extremely dangerous to the Constructs and he cycled through his weapons as he splintered their formations. He had the impression that the factions weren’t used to fighting so many enemies with high mobility skills.

A different squad of phantoms teleported into a group and their leader shouted, “Hammer down!” and Coop witnessed a dozen oversized spectral weapons form in the air and slam into the surprised Constructs, stunning them for the rest of the phantoms to pick apart.

Not all of the Primal Constructs were simply chasing the more mobile phantoms around. The parties of Constructs each worked independently, and some saw the opportunity to rush through the loose, mobile defenders on the battlefield. A significant portion of them just continued beyond the dunes, ignoring the larger squads. They crossed the moat with running leaps, and attempted to scale the walls or make their way through the breaches in the fort. The residents of Ghost Reef were desperately fighting to keep them out.

Shane’s own party was fighting intensely on top of the battlements, in a proper five versus five, just the way the factions intended. The Dragon Knight’s flames burst as she slammed into the opposing ranged fighters, spilling over the edges of the ramparts, while the Tomb Blade’s chomping skulls stymied the melee by attacking their exposed ankles from the floor. Three identical Shanes channeled different buffs creating golden, crystal red, and flowing blue domes, at least two of which were illusions, and Arthur chipped away at their opponents, sliding back and forth along the concourse with smooth flowing attacks that danced between short stabs and quick bow shots.

Gibson’s party was similarly engaged, though they were inside the courtyard beyond the eastern breach nearly to the herbalist’s hut, fighting in the open, undeveloped fields. The Construct party they fought was entangled in glowing verdant whips, spiked with thorns, while chaotic black and purple spells slammed into the armless support and ricocheted into the sky like pinballs in an arcade machine. Gibson slammed against the heater shield wielded by the Ruin Construct while the Argent’s party went head to head with the aliens.

Neither side in either of the engagements looked to be able to completely dominate the other, but the residents received spontaneous support from allies that could help turn the tide. Gibson’s party finally tilted the battle in their favor after the Construct’s support was frozen in a block of ice by a random passerby that was rushing toward the open breach and Shane’s party took the upper hand after the enemy backline was blasted by gouts of flame from the sky.

The Primal Constructs quickly abandoned the idea of infiltrating the shadowy corridors of the fort. Coop witnessed more than one party diced into pieces as they found a more dangerous opponent waiting in the dark. The rest of the Constructs that scaled the walls tried for the roof instead, even though most of the residents had prepared to meet them on the ramparts.

Coop was forced to duck beneath a Spite Construct that had flown 200 yards across the battlefield before it suddenly dropped straight into the ground. It seemed to have gone from being as light as a feather, gliding through the air, to having a mass of several tons. The crater it formed was empty aside from the mana smoke that escaped the rim. At the start of the monster's trajectory it had made the mistake of targeting Madison while Emmanuel escorted her across the ramparts as she diligently healed the injured with wings and halo alight.

Only one of the newest western breaches held against the Constructs. The Cleary brothers stood dead center, fully armored up, absolutely blasting the Ruin Constructs with their clenched fists. The Constructs tried to force their way through, but the melee monsters crowded in on each other, squeezing against the destroyed stones and limiting their own mobility. Sunny stood behind the trio of brothers, teeth bared, with his flame orb burning intensely as it suppressed the ranged fighters of the parties that attempted to get in.

The parties of Constructs that rushed toward the shard through the other breaches met Kayla, Sharkbait, Charon, and the rest of the crews of The Eye of the Storm, Windchaser, and Sea Burial, manning the earthen barriers constructed around the town circle. Shadowy eldritch tentacles lifted monsters in the air where beams of gray energy riddled them with attacks, slowly depleting their health. The other parties of Constructs kept their distance, spreading throughout the courtyard, biding their time until they found a suitable target to engage. They almost seemed disappointed there weren’t more five man parties to battle after they reached the courtyard, their tactics were so rigid. Coop scowled as he suspected they were treating the situation like a game, where each party wanted to accumulate its own contribution points, believing the objective was already in hand.

Coop fought his way across the dunes, toward the beach where a mass of Constructs was forming. They were attempting to make it through the broken western side of the fort’s wall, but had been attacked by the remaining salvaged pirate sailboats. Not all of them had been fully repaired, but they remained in the makeshift port. The pirates on the ships sent volleys of spells into the Construct army, but the alien barriers prevented the shots from landing, flickering in and out of existence to catch individual attacks as they came. Coop thought he could take advantage of the distracted and grouped enemies, potentially turning the tide of the battle.

When Coop swapped to his spear and prepared to mistjump across the battlefield, he hesitated when one of the phantom squads made an ill-advised initiation. The leader was cut down by the Constructs before the rest of his squad joined him, leading to the entire squad falling apart, being routed by the pursuing Constructs and scattering as the phantoms immediately shifted to reinforce different squads or return to the fort.

Coop changed his target to save those that he could, blasting his spear into a Scourge Construct before it could complete a spell. The Construct’s torso exploded and Coop stepped through the mists as if he had climbed out of the monster itself. Coop found himself engaging party after party of the invaders as he tried to relieve the pressure on the phantoms. For their part, none of them gave up.

Coop ended up leading a small squad of phantoms himself, though they were mostly redundant when it came to attacking. At least he was able to safely escort them closer to the fort before they broke off. It wasn’t such an easy task to cross an active and chaotic battlefield on foot, but the longer he took, the more Constructs congregated on the beach, so he didn’t launch his spear and mistjump immediately. The Constructs would be able to overwhelm the makeshift navy with their ranged attacks if they continued to gather, but they also made themselves a juicier target once he was upon them.

Coop rapidly swapped between weapons and destroyed any enemies that came within range, but the phantoms were struggling to maintain their tactical composure. The battle raged on and it was becoming clear that the higher level elites were slowly taking the advantage, but both sides were gradually weakening. To the phantoms’ credit, they were disadvantaged from the start, but they hadn’t let the Constructs walk over them. Coop was feeling pressure to make up the difference.

When another squad of phantoms was whittled down to the point that the leader was left with less than ten followers, Coop mistjumped to their aid, giving them a chance to retreat back toward the fort and join the pirates. Casters on the battlements attempted to launch spells into the mess, but they were harried by Constructs as well, and a single spell wasn’t enough to defeat the elites without any followup.

Coop ended up on the ramparts, chasing enemies up the walls and giving the residents in between two of the western breaches a chance to regroup after being pincered by several parties of Constructs. On the south western corner of the fort, he noted Camila doggedly defending Charlie, using her Agility to prevent the monsters from advancing while the Aeromancer concentrated on the battlefield.

Camila sped past the melee fighters that charged toward the pair and grabbed the leg of a Spite Construct, using her momentum to flip it off of the wall before she returned to the space between the Ruin Construct and Charlie. Camila made it back in time to counter a spear jab with her bare fist, tearing the offending arm off with the returning force. Coop made his way toward them, across the battlements, then he’d go down to the beach.

As he used his sword to literally disarm one of the dual sword melee fighters, a massive flash nearly blinded him. The entire battlefield was washed in searing white light that seemed to keep getting brighter until it was painful to look at. Coop felt his hair standing on end and there was a buzzing that reminded him of high tension power lines coming from all directions. The mass of Constructs that had congregated on the beach, reforming their battle lines, were radiating with dazzling white as if they were the source of light.

Each of the Constructs that had gathered against the pirate ships was vaporized at once. The light from their bodies climbed into the sky in rigid forks until it met with a massive trunk of lightning that violently tore through the air and smashed into the beach. A massive black cloud churned and roiled above. The superheated air around the tremendous lightning strike crackled as it wiped out the stragglers. More than one Construct spontaneously combusted before turning to mana smoke.

When the thunder announced the doom that those Constructs suffered, it flattened thousands of combatants across the battlefield and knocked stones from the fort’s walls. More than one damaged area collapsed in response, but Coop couldn’t hear the crumbling after the deafening explosion of thunder. The sailboats that had engaged the Constructs capsized in the makeshift harbor leaving the sailors wading around the edge of the fort, away from the shockwave’s source to regroup with the rest of the pirates. They’d accomplished more than enough by preventing the invaders from getting into the courtyard with greater numbers and causing the glut of enemies to concentrate on the beach where it could be destroyed. Coop had expected to be the one to do it, but Ghost Reef was filled with developing powerhouses.

The image of the tree of lightning was burned into Coop’s retinas. While his eyes struggled to adjust, Fog of War once again proved its worth. He summoned a gentle mist while concentrating on Presence of Mind which allowed him to block an incoming mana blast and respond with a powerful shield throw while he squeezed his watering eyes shut.

Coop cleared the battlements with the sound of his ears ringing and his eyes closed, just letting his mist spread in front. When he reached the south west corner bastion, where the girls were, his senses had mostly recovered.

The tactical strike of lightning had been a turning point. The remaining phantom squads were swarming the dunes with half a dozen groups of 50, mercilessly hunting down the isolated Construct parties that hadn’t already made it through the breached walls. Coop had cleared the southern battlements himself and he believed the interiors of the fort stayed clear thanks to Jett. That left the courtyard.

There were still at least 200 Construct parties scattered on both halves of the courtyard. It seemed like they knew the fight wasn’t going in their favor and they were reacting in a variety of ways. Some of the parties appeared to be grouping up in order to reform a larger force, others were separating as if they were going to make Coop hunt them down individually, and the rest were aggressively pushing the pirates around the civilization shard in a desperate blitz to stop messing around and pursue the objective.

Sharkbait was using a shielded Ruin Construct as a makeshift weapon, swinging the alien like a hammer and smashing it into its compatriots to keep them at bay. Charon had at least 50 gray orbs rotating like a vortex around himself as he calmly strode through enemies, applying crowd control for the rest of the pirates to use to their advantage. Kayla was in the back, surrounded by purple tentacles while Derek played his guitar from the ground next to the shard itself. Every few seconds a Construct would desperately struggle after being wrapped by a tentacle that dragged it underground into the ‘depths’.

Coop looked to create some havoc in the gathering squad of Constructs forming off on their own. They seemed to be the most organized, but first he checked in with Charlie and Camila. Charlie was sitting down against a parapet with her eyes shut while Camila stroked her hair. She looked more exhausted than ever before. Coop, not wanting to disturb the Aeromancer, addressed Camila instead. “Is she alright?”

Camila was quick to explain, “She got a new skill, she said it put her on a new path.”

Coop felt his eyebrows go up and looked at the black sand on the beach. “That was her?” Camila just nodded. He thought it could have been, but it was such an awesome display of power, he wasn’t sure. Charlie was becoming a force of nature if she could wield such ridiculous lightning. Not only did she have incredible area coverage, but she was also able to commit such a devastating attack, though it appeared to completely drain her mana. He inspected her.

[Human (Level 76)]

[Aeromancer (Intelligence)]

[Legendary]

Legendary indeed, Coop thought. He honestly didn’t think many people would ever reach the levels of power she was tapping into.

“Is she gonna be alright?” Coop asked just to confirm. Charlie had carefully managed her exhaustion for ten waves, but looking at her now, he suspected she’d pushed herself beyond her limit.

“Of course.” Camila nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

“Alright. I’m gonna go clean that up.” Coop gestured with his thumb toward the surplus of Constructs that were forming on the eastern side of the courtyard, near the fortified library.

“Go get ‘em.” Camila sent him off with a smile as he aimed his spear.

Coop took a few running steps and heaved the ethereal weapon. It was easier when he wasn’t worried about accidentally injuring any of his allies, and in this case, he was hoping to injure some enemies.

The spear soared through the air, crossing the courtyard, until it crashed into the rows of Primal Constructs that were establishing a new frontline adjacent to the library. They had been caught completely unaware that they were being targeted from such a distance and the spear immediately broke their organization down.

The Constructs returned to their party formations rather than try and hold their lines against such a long ranged attack. Coop recalled his spear and threw it again, satisfied by the panic it brought on the monsters. The second time, they noticed the missile coming and erected barriers to try and absorb it.

The spear shattered multiple barriers like brittle glass, one after another, before it impaled one of the support Constructs into the ground. The Ancient Construct stood like an effigy, propped up by the ethereal spear leaking ghostly fumes, until the monster dissipated into mist. The monsters were hyper focused on Coop’s position on the ramparts, but Coop mistjumped to the spear and swapped to his glaive, suddenly among them. He swept the legs from an entire party of five while he developed a light misty domain with Fog of War to maximize Presence of Mind.

Coop quickswapped between weapons always seeking to snatch the advantage from his opponents. It was like playing rock, paper, scissors, but Coop could see what they would choose and adjust accordingly. He abused his mistjumps to prevent their party teamwork from ever becoming a factor, relocating among the ranged attackers or flanking the melee when they attempted to control the spacing between them. Presence of Mind combined with Fog of War to eliminate his blind spots and elevate his skirmishing to a ridiculous level. The air was clear, but every time he swung his weapons the mist condensed in a trail behind his weapon amplifying the ghostly wisps into aquamarine vapor trails.

They fought in the shadow of the library as the sun went down and Coop noticed the librarians peeping through slits in the stone that surrounded the building. A gleaming red brooch gave them away. He was putting on a good show.

Coop was the last to finish with the Constructs. When the sandy battlefield out front cleared out, the phantoms took to hunting the invaders that had scattered around the courtyard and along the walls. The burrowing owl made a major contribution to clearing the northern walls, forcing the cornered Construct parties to focus on an entirely new angle of attack. The pirates defended the shard along with the residents who didn’t need to remain in the chokepoints or on the battlements any longer.

That left Coop and hundreds of elite invaders. After the residents cleaned up the rest of the wave, they encircled Coop’s domain and blocked any opportunity for the Constructs to retreat, creating shielded barriers that trapped the Constructs with the Champion. Ghost Reef’s enemies couldn’t take their focus away from Coop as he picked the monsters apart, always selecting the best ethereal tool for the job, in an arena formed by his allies, like a makeshift fight club.