Unchosen Champion

Coop left the fort behind. Instead of waiting for the slow-moving boss to trek across the island and challenge the defenders while flattening the fort, he would meet it in the field directly. It wasn’t like the fort’s walls would do anything to protect them. The giant Construct was large enough to step across the moat and on top of the outer walls as if they were nothing more than a small ledge. Coop reasoned that it would be best to fight this monster in the open, where he could maximize his mobility and minimize collateral damage.

After he threw his spear, letting it fly halfway across the island, he steadied his nerves. Coop tended to just go with the flow and put his head down to take things as they came, but that didn’t stop him from getting anxious. Instead of letting his unease grip him, he looked at the positives. The big monster must be worth big experience, and surely, it was the last challenge they would have to deal with before they went back to hanging out on the beach and casually grinding easy monsters. The thoughts of gaining experience and tropical relaxation was enough to motivate Coop to do nearly anything, including attempting to solo a titan.

As he mistjumped into the monochromatic version of the world, he noted that the boss was essentially frozen while everything else moved in slow motion, it certainly didn’t invest in Agility. Though the boss was huge, Coop would have the speed advantage. Hopefully, his speed would make up for the fact that the boss had such an extreme size advantage.

A second mistjump put him within a hundred yards of the creature, which had only managed half a step onto the shore of the island since Coop left the fort. He stopped and prepared with an activation of Fog of War.

He let the skill establish a thin layer in every direction, coating the southern half of Rock Key, just hoping to use the mists to help enhance his reactions and improve the precision of his attacks. The thin fog would gradually dissipate without further input in the ocean breeze and midday sun, but at least it would magnify Presence of Mind and give him an advantage for the duration of the fight. He inspected the creature’s aura while the fog grew.

[Siege Boss: Prime Construct (Level 75)]

[Alpha XIV (Intelligence)]

[Manifestation of the Primal Constructs]

“Perfect.” Coop mumbled as if he was disgruntled, but a significant part of him undeniably meant it. The part that had him hungry for more progress, however he could get it.

If they had to fight another boss, he preferred for it to be a Siege Boss. He’d do whatever was necessary to collect a trophy from defeating it. Having an opportunity to complete the optional objective for the next settlement upgrade was a convenience he was genuinely happy to receive. The previous reward had been absolutely worth it, granting them the phantoms, and this way he wouldn’t be hunting bosses around the world until he found one with the appropriate title.

Compared to his first meeting with a Field Boss, he was positively overprepared. He had nearly 20 levels on this boss, but when he fought his first Field Boss they were practically even. Plus, defeating that first Field Boss had given him the Dauntless title, which doubled his damage against bosses, pushing his readiness for this one even further. This particular boss had Intelligence as its primary stat, which was another advantage for Coop, since Revenant was, at the most fundamental level, a magic tank.

Coop considered that another title would be up for grabs with this Siege Boss. This wave might even have them competing with all of the other remaining settlements in a race to defeat the boss first. He wasn’t sure if this final wave was guaranteed or if it had been the culmination of the previous waves building up to a grand finale. Ghost Reef could also have been singled out by the challenge assessment. The last two waves were suspicious in that respect, confronting them with actual Primal Constructs rather than their monsters. Either way, there was only one path forward, and it was through defeating his first Siege Boss.

The Prime Construct started another slow step forward, and from the closer distance, Coop really recognized how sluggish this Siege Boss was moving. It may cover a huge distance with each movement, but Coop thought he’d win in a foot race, even one where he had to take dozens of steps to match each individual motion of the boss. He took a moment to express sincere gratitude to the system for applying limits to the invaders during the assimilation. It was thanks to those limitations that Coop and Ghost Reef had any chance at all. The system wouldn’t give them an impossible enemy now.

Coop stared at the boss’s diamond head, tilting toward the sky and feeling the sun on his face as he looked up. He took a running start to throw his spear in the practiced motion of hundreds of thousands of repetitions. He put all the Strength he could muster into launching his spear like a rocket heading into space. He felt his muscles flex and tried pushing beyond his mental blocks that subconsciously fought for him to hold back.

A burst of sand emanated from his planted foot, and loose grains joined his mist in chasing his spear before gravity brought them back down, leaving a slight tail climbing into the sky, streaming particles back toward the ground. The difference in his travel throws and his attacks was all about the trajectory. When he attacked, the spear shot like a laser, with no arc at all.

There was no way Coop could miss his massive target. A fraction of a second after the spear left his hand, it crashed into one of the obvious, glowing weak points.

Of course, Coop went for the head. The Prime Construct’s forehead erupted in a crashing explosion like a glass bottle being shot by a rifle. A glimmering purplish shield belatedly flickered in the air, too slow to even attempt to block his spear. The oversized diamond shaped head whipped backwards from the force of the collision. For a moment, Coop thought the entire boss might fall backwards, but it braced itself with a half step backwards while lifting its arms forward to regain its balance.

By the time it recovered, Coop had already resummoned his spear to throw it again, not giving it a chance to have a turn, this time at the sternum, beneath the bottom of the diamond. He had no intention of letting it retaliate if his attacks left it reeling.

Seeing the clear damage his first throw had caused, he didn’t hold back with the second, feeling his battle-lust building as he gained momentum with the opening engagement. A rumbling roar escaped his lungs as he stepped into the throw. The spear tore through the air with a shockingly loud sonic boom that blasted his mists in a ring as it left his hand, the booming sound reverberating across the entire mana dome like an abrupt thunderclap. A split second later the blurring spear smashed the red crystal weak point in the monster’s chest, crossing a hundred yards in an instant. The metal around the edges crumpled as his weapon continued all the way through the gigantic boss and burst out, through its back.

The boss’s torso bent as if it had the wind knocked out of it and Coop felt a surge of adrenaline as he quickly sought a way to press the advantage even further. This boss was slow and not nearly fortified enough to leave its weak spots completely exposed. At least, not when it was facing someone as far ahead of the power curve as Coop, with an increasingly lethal ranged attack.

Coop lined up one of the shoulder weak points, but as he stepped into the throw he aborted the attack, realizing that the octagonal cannon in the center of the boss’s stomach was internally rotating with a low, ominous rumbling sound that could have been the grinding of ungreased gears. The spin was escalating and purple and white light started to emanate from deep within. Coop quickly called an audible and threw his spear at the cannon instead, hoping to disrupt whatever attack was ramping up.

The ethereal spear ripped through the air, trailing mists and sand before it disappeared into the cannon. Nothing happened for a moment as Coop watched the barrel’s movement and the growing light building up deep within. The cannon’s spin didn’t cease and the glow continued to brighten while the rumbling smoothed out until it was like an enormous engine at full throttle. The spear had been destroyed. It was the first time he could remember one of his weapons breaking.

Quickly casting Retribution, Coop aimed to persist in his assault, regardless of the boss’s actions, but orbs started rushing out of the cannon in an unceasing stream of flashing light that demanded his attention. The orbs were transparent, four feet in diameter, and each contained a solid black bead in the center. The black bead arced purple plasma that bounced against the inside of the transparent outer shell as if it wished to escape its container.

The plasma orbs shot up into the air between Coop and the boss. They floated in the sky for a moment, like a cloud of drones that continued to increase in numbers, crowding each other. The first to arrive seemed to arm, glowing even brighter with purple plasma touching the entire outer shell, and shot down to the ground in an instant, 20 yards wide of Coop, sending a small splash of sizzling sand into the air, but even more smoke. The first impact was followed by a dozen more, and they kept coming in a cascade of sandy explosions that inched toward Coop with each strike.

Coop shifted backwards, watching their progression as they seemed to hone in on him; they were picking up speed as they pinpointed his position. He started moving away, then was forced to break into a run, away from the first impacts, as he realized they were closing in at an escalating pace.

He was chased by a magical bombardment of plasma orbs, and they were catching up. He sprinted and tried turning, but the barrage followed him while the octagonal cannon continued spewing more orbs into the air. The explosions and the cannon itself combined to form a solid wall of rumbling sound as he zigzagged across the scrubland. A desperate mistjump with his shield didn’t bring him more than half a second of relief as the orbs tracked him from above.

Coop sacrificed a moment to throw his freshly summoned spear between the legs of the boss. His logic being that if he got behind the monster, its attacks would have to pass through its own body in order to keep tracking him. The boss would become his cover if he positioned himself correctly.

The tiny pause in his retreat was costly. An orb clipped the greave of one of his legs, hissing and sparking when it burst against his armor. As a magical attack, Coop was well-defended from any damage, but it still tripped him up and it was followed by countless more orbs.

Coop rolled so that he could cower behind his shield and avoid the persistent volley of plasma explosions. The orbs kept coming, and now that they had him pinned, they were able to pile on the damage, no matter what his defenses looked like. His ethereal shield hissed and shuddered until it started to melt under the barrage, warping under the repeated pressure. The shield was shrouded in smoke and heat as the plasma orbs refused to let up, digging a trench in the sand with the chained attacks.

After hundreds more orbs struck the shield, it finally dissipated into mist, completely out of durability after blocking so many attacks. The rest of the orbs continued to pile on, hammering the crater until the cannon’s projectiles were exhausted and the sky was clear. The trench that Coop had shrunk into was empty aside from sizzling sand and smoke.

Coop was 50 yards behind the boss, standing in the wet sand of the beach, and aiming his spear at one of the shoulders after mistjumping away when the first few attacks connected with his abandoned shield. That plasma gatling cannon wasn’t meant for single targets, that much was clear. Coop thought each of the orbs would have targeted an individual challenger if the boss was facing off with a proper army. He imagined the Primal Constructs, lined up with their parties, and how they would have been able to overlap thousands of mana shields to defend against the attack. It was too much firepower for an individual to withstand, even for Coop, as overleveled and defensive as his build was, but he was glad it was aimed at him and not any of the residents.

He heaved his ethereal spear, with a quick shuffle forward, and mistjumped onto the gargantuan boss, initiating a counter attack while the Prime Construct was distracted by his apparent demise.

The boss had initiated a scan on the dunes and a grid of semi transparent blue mana slid across the sand, searching for Coop’s remains, but before it got any results, Coop slammed his morning star into the weak point on its left shoulder. The red crystal cover cracked before fragmenting into tiny shards under the pressure, like a frozen pond’s icy surface cracking after being struck by a sledgehammer. Up close, Coop witnessed red mana smoke escape from the wound in a rush.

The response was swift, and completely unexpected. Coop thought he would be thrown off, or maybe some kind of self-defense would kick in, but instead, the outer layer of the boss’s smooth metal skin started to warp and mold into the arms or torsos of normal sized constructs. They waved various weapons at him, forcing him to jump, dodge, and counter, as he suddenly found himself surrounded by a small army of half monsters fluidly molding themselves on the metal surface.

He ended up leaping off the boss’s shoulder himself, landing with a thud in the sand, to get away from the onslaught. He had braced to withstand a magical attack and had been caught by surprise when he was suddenly thrust into a melee battle with malleable foes.

Back in the sand, Coop strafed around the boss, doing his best to avoid putting himself back in the line of fire of the plasma orb gatling cannon, sprinting through the sand, while swapping back to his spear and shield set. While he selected his next target, he observed arms and torsos of the smaller constructs fidgeting at the edges of the destroyed left shoulder. They were desperately reconstructing the destroyed weak point. Interestingly, they weren’t making the same effort on the destroyed sternum and forehead weak points. Meanwhile, the right shoulder weak point was glowing brighter than any of the others as if the matching pairs energized each other.

Evidently, this wasn’t going to be a good match for a battle of attrition, with the Prime Construct’s ability to self-repair, so he committed to even more aggression. He continued to stay behind the large boss. It barely made any effort to actually face him, and Coop suspected it would have more magical attacks that weren’t a strictly frontal barrage. There was no reason to wait and find out what other abilities it had when he had enough power to steer the battle himself.

Reaching the boss’s back again, Coop threw another missile, stepping into the motion at the end of a run, and blasted the back of the monster’s leg joint. The ethereal spear exploded out of the weak point on the front, penetrating the knee all the way through and dragging a trail of escaped red mana along its path. His goal was to collapse the huge monster and pick it apart using the same strategy he always applied when he needed to take control of a fight. Immobilize if possible, and bash it to death. He saw no reason to value elegance as he pursued victory.

The monster didn’t go down willingly, slamming its right arm into the ground to stabilize itself, but it was the wrong shape for proper steadiness. The massive spiked end dug deep, and this time Coop was sure it caused the island to shudder.

Coop repeated his attack from behind, but he aimed for the right elbow weak point as the arm held the weight of the monster. The result was even more destructive. His spear tore through the metal, leaving it misshapen and causing it to crumple in on itself as it struggled to bear the mass of the monster. The arm tore at the elbow as the boss’s bulk shifted and it began to fall on its side.

Coop backed away as the monster toppled over, avoiding the uncontrolled giant. It was like witnessing the failed demolition of a building. He raised his hand and squinted to protect his eyes as a cloud of dust and sand blew across the island and a wave of surging water ran offshore of the eastern beach.

When the dust settled, the still intact arm of the Siege Boss was raised toward the sky. The spike on the end had split into four, opening up like a flower, to reveal another cannon. This one only fired a single miniscule black bead that slowly rose into the air, sending tiny, uncontained, spasmodic arcs of purple as it went. It climbed into the sky, until it was lost against the backdrop of the red mana dome.

The monster’s good arm closed back into a spike and it stabbed into the ground to prop its bulk back up as it tried to return to its feet. The smaller Construct torsos were frantically repairing the damaged knee, reconstructing the limb from the inside out, and Coop noted that the left shoulder weak point had already been fully repaired. The glowing red crystal looked as good as new.

The Prime Construct managed to reposition so that it was leaning on its one good knee and kneeling on the other wrecked limb as the lower leg began to reform. Coop circled the boss, trying to situate himself in order to continue destroying the matching weak points. The boss lifted both of its arms to the air, one fully intact and the other a mangled stump at the elbow. A beam connected from the space in front of one end to the other before shooting into the air. Coop blasted the shoulder a second time, this time utilizing his spear to smash the weak point, but the boss maintained its attack pattern. Countless black portals, rimmed with deep purple, expanded in the sky, as if they had been there the entire time, waiting to be opened. They blocked out any light from the sun and cast the scrubland in black light that made Coop’s ethereal equipment glow with bright turquoise light.

The black orbs spat out tiny purple flares that, once again, attempted to hone in on Coop’s position. However, these flares were different from the plasma orbs, in that they simply landed on top of the sand, marking their positions with sparking, purple, pin prick-sized lights, and they were extremely fast. Coop dodged them all the same, unwilling to risk receiving the cumulative force of any attack meant for an entire army.

He wasn’t able to simply get behind the boss as these flares were raining down from the sky, so he kept moving. The flares’ ability to track him was less effective than the gatling plasma orbs, as they moved too quickly to turn more than a few degrees off their initial trajectory, but there seemed to be no end to them. Coop was careful not to retreat over any flares that had already landed, but was quickly spiraling away from the boss as he ran out of room near the beach, heading inland into the scrubland again.

The boss let its arms drop and Coop was finally able to stop his mad scramble. A moment later every flare on the ground was targeted by a narrow, needle-like beam of lavender light that zapped down from the portals. A galactic bombardment crashed down on the island that forced Coop to squint after his eyes had adjusted to the black light, but enough Fog of War remained for him to make up for his lost senses.

Coop marched forward, through the cloud of sand and dust, after the beams ceased, allowing Presence of Mind to guide him back into range of the boss. However, the boss hadn’t been idle while Coop dodged its attacks. It was back on its feet, with its mangled knee partially repaired and shoulder also getting attention from the smaller constructs. As soon as Coop moved forward, it also lunged closer, with an explosion at its feet that destroyed the bottoms of both limbs, but allowed it to slide forward across the sand, creating a rooster tail of grains as it rushed forward. The Primal Construct thrust its good arm, point first, directly at Coop, with more speed than it had displayed with any action before.

Still, Coop was able to switch directions and leap out of the way, thanks to Presence of Mind and his far superior Agility, but when the gigantic arm extended as far as it could go, an explosion of plasma appeared from the terminal point at the apex of the strike. A wave of mana emanated from the point, gliding across the ground, and Coop had to let it wash over him with his shield raised up protectively.

The wave did minimal damage, but it was immediately followed up by a beam of energy as the Primal Construct’s arm had opened up to reveal the barrel hidden inside, aimed while Coop was blocking, and blasted him with a direct shot. The beam of bright purple continued for a few seconds as the construct’s gambit to line up an attack worked. Coop cowered behind his shield and growled in resistance, feeling the shield soften and begin to warp under the pressure. When it finally ceased, Coop stood up straight, smoke drifting off his bent shield and unblemished armor, and prepared to resume his assault.

The boss seemed to accept that it wouldn’t be able to rid itself of the tiny challenger after a direct hit failed to put him down. It raised both arms and an incredible amount of mana warped the air as it flew from the boss toward the sky. From Coop’s perspective, it looked like the heat of a desert rising to a single point near the top of the mana dome, and at that point a tiny black bead started to grow.

The bead expanded rapidly, quickly taking on the appearance of a deep purple star, burning with energy that pulsed along its surface in rolling waves.

Coop had the distinct impression that he needed to interrupt this attack before it fully charged.