Unchosen Champion

“Zero levels.” Coop huffed with agitation.

He had lost count of how many of Chakyum’s Cultists he and his phantasms had defeated, but there had been no signs that the enemies provided any experience at all. After an extended battle where he and his ghostly summons waded through untold numbers of Oathsworn, he had received zero levels.

It seemed like the only thing that changed throughout the battle was the mass of the stone monument that he drove toward. The cultists were limitless and the settlement was enormous, but the monument in the center loomed higher and higher the more he approached the centerpiece of the city.

The pyramids of the region were relatively uniform in size, whether they were ancient constructions swallowed up by jungle or the fresh and partially dismantled buildings that dotted the settlement’s streets. They were short, squat ziggurats, wider than they were tall, but still reaching several floors above the ground. However, the one that rose from the center of the lake was far larger than the rest. It exceeded the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and was even wider than the Great Pyramid of Cholula in Mexico. It was more of a mountain than a building. Its flat top approached the clouds in the sky and its wide base threatened to consume the lake that it was built within.

Coop imagined that Chakyum’s Pyramid was rising with the death of every Oathsworn. He knew it was just the tricks of perspective as he drew closer to the monumental structure. It wasn’t actually growing, but all of the experience was going somewhere, and the times that he caught sight of a cloud of mana zipping toward the structure fed his imagination. The more he neared the giant ominous stone temple in the middle of the Yucatan settlement, the less he gained, and the bigger it seemed.

When he defeated Chakyum’s Envoy all the way back on Ghost Reef, a thousand miles away, there hadn’t been anything overly problematic with only receiving a single level. The Envoy had been a lower level opponent when compared to Coop. The cultist’s boost hadn’t been able to catch up with the gains Coop made while he was grinding inside the Mana Well, so even one level felt appropriate due to Coop’s advantage.

It wasn’t until he reached the shores of Belize and fought High Priests merely hundreds of miles from the focal point of their territory that his suspicions were roused. The experience he should have been gaining from much higher leveled opponents was clearly diminished, but he waved it away as simple oddities presented by the Cult or even limitations placed by the System itself. However, by the time he entered the Yucatan settlement’s territory, and was therefore in even closer proximity to the temple, the Oathsworn gave no experience at all.

Coop shook his head in a combination of disappointment and disgust. Looking at his progression in isolation, he was better off leisurely grinding Ancient Defenders on the beach back home, rather than fighting the Cult of Chakyum. Instead, he was in the humid rainforests of Guatemala, enduring the brutal task of killing countless vicious people, a task he was loath to do in the first place, no matter the justification. Previously, he had tried to find solace when he crossed the line necessary to preserve the sanctuary he protected by concentrating on his own progression, but even that minimal relief was absent in his current situation.

His last ditch effort to gain another advantage in one final skill choice before he sought out Chakyum had been an abject failure, though no one could claim he shirked his assumed duties to the Jaguar Sun. He had joined his silent ghostly companions as they engaged in extraordinary feats to defeat their innumerable enemies, but his reward was only a growing agitation and further delay to his confrontation with the leaders of the Cult.

He diverted his attention from his frustration to acknowledge his phantasms. The mass summon of 99 ghostly companions was the lone bright spot in an otherwise dark day. Instead of individual fighters that Coop mentally appointed to simple tasks as he summoned them, the company of ancient Greek warriors were coordinated combatants that required minimal direction. Previously, the coordination had always been facilitated by his own initial, if basic, orders, but the current iterations of Legacy of the Mists proved to understand tactics beyond his expectations.

Coop had evolved his instructions from extremely simple one-word thoughts, like ‘attack,’ to slightly more detailed behaviors that included targeting and goals to work toward. The additional imperatives combined with the simultaneous summon gave his individual phantasms a level of coordination that would easily be confused with telepathy, but that was entirely due to their skill rather than an actual psychic link. They were experienced enough to match Coop’s own effort and create combination attacks that overwhelmed his opponents, but he had never provided tactical instructions.

In contrast to his already impressive individual summons, the united front of hoplites that engaged with the Acolytes of Chakyum were coordinated with each other on a completely different level. Coop imagined the group of 99 had trained together for an entire lifetime, then continued even in death for another series of lifetimes. Coop thought it would take 2,500 years of practice, drills, and experience to develop the level of coordinated discipline they maintained on the battlefield, and they did it all in silence. It only took a specific movement from one phantasm, a shift in feet, an angle of a spear, or an adjustment of a shield, and the rest fell into formations, completely trusting the judgment of whichever ghost shifted their overall stance.

Coop fought on his own, mostly in the front, but his mistjumps and Vaporform allowed him to drift across the wide street, protecting their flanks or providing a wedge when he felt necessary to sustain their momentum. Presence of Mind provided him advanced warning of the movements conducted by Priests and Acolytes, so he was often best able to respond to spontaneous threats.

Meanwhile the hoplites fought as one shield and one spear. They pressed forward on the wide highway, driving into the heart of the settlement, all the way from the outermost edge. Coop guessed it was nearly 10 miles of solid, wall-to-wall, gray-robed Cultists. The half destroyed stone pyramids, the width of downtown office buildings, lined both sides of the road, making the phantasms seem like a foreign army, deep within enemy territory. The highway was interspersed with narrower streets that were similarly packed with enemies, and even narrower alleyways that were thankfully more full of trees than ambushers.

The air was thick with dust that had been kicked up with their march, the iron tang of fresh blood, and misty mana that drifted in swirls with the wind, competing with the dark mana from the Cultists and their braziers. The sun beat down on the company’s bronze armor, gleaming off the polished golden-hued metals, and disguising the ghosts within. Their limbs were dense with muscle that flexed and rippled beneath scarred skin from countless battles, and their bright red cloaks were torn and frayed. The phantasms didn’t look like any ghosts that Coop had ever seen depicted in media, but when they received injuries they leaked thin streams of ethereal mists rather than red blood, adding to the atmospheric cocktail. Where they went, a miasma of Spectral mana blanketed the road, turning it into a shallow river of ethereal fog.

In contrast, their opponents bled crimson when injured, but disintegrated into clouds of black ash when killed. The Cultists were more monster than person, despite external appearances. Coop wasn’t sure what becoming Oathsworn had done to them, but it had obviously been a major change, something akin to the phantoms of Ghost Reef or even the oil rig’s zombies.

Coop couldn’t help but disassociate from the supernatural battle that he was taking part in. He didn’t even feel entirely human, given his otherworldly powers, but everyone else was three steps beyond himself.

The phantasms were unyielding and weathered. They derived greater strength as a whole, leaning into the unity of their shields, the rhythm of their steps, and the tactical flourishes of their spears. In contrast, the Cultists were like sand petulantly bouncing against solid rocks.If it wasn’t for the timers that the phantasms were limited by, Coop suspected the very first squad had the determination to escort him all the way to the bridge by themselves.

For the most part, the ghosts countered the fury of the Cultists with unwavering resolve, locking their shields and forming impenetrable walls before they planted their feet in unison, thrusting spears forward and clearing wave after wave in rather eerie silence. Only their equipment revealed that they had an actual physical presence, stomping on the woven street, and clanging against enemy gear. On the other hand, the cultists shouted and roared, excited by the prospect of gaining experience and offended by the invasion of outsiders.

The phantasms had countless different tactical formations, but most of the time they pushed forward steadily, like a steamroller smoothing the ground. Other times they would briefly move with such aggression even Coop was surprised. After they broke an initial wave of Cultists, in order to claim ground, the third row in the column could leap forward, flying between the front shields, and thrust forward with their spears to expand the range of the phalanx. They extended the column forward before reforming a solid wall. In this way, the phantasms were constantly gaining ground with machine-like efficiency, rotating their forces, and being unpredictable. They were like a bronze tank and the Cultists were unprepared infantry challenging the formation head-on.

The Cult of Chakyum was pure chaos in comparison. They demonstrated a strange disparity between their discipline and their coordination. Coop eventually understood that individual groups of Cultists behaved like gangs, united by a single powerful figure, but otherwise not exactly harmonious with each other.

The lowest on the totem pole, those who were weak or had only recently joined the Cult, grouped together or joined beneath other more powerful individuals. It seemed as though they preferred to align themselves with someone who had a better chance to succeed rather than undergo the struggle to advance on their own, and in doing so made their belief in the others a self-fulfilling prophecy. While some promising Acolytes had followings in the double digits, almost every Priest had hundreds of their own Acolytes receiving their orders and doing their bidding. The solitary strongholds of Priests were maintained by many underlings at a time, right up until Chakyum ordered them all to gather in the settlement.

On a smaller scale, the Priests were extremely well-coordinated with their Acolytes, and more importantly, their followers were dedicated to the point of willing sacrifice. But on a larger scale, the Priests failed to properly work together, giving Coop’s phantasms ample opportunity to pick the enemy squads apart, one at a time.

They fought wild warrior-priests who fearlessly surged against the impenetrable wall of shields, smashing maces and hammers against the bronze hoplons with a fervor that bled from their eyes, literally. The warrior-priests were hoarse as they roared in the name of their master, faces streaked with blood, but discipline and patience won the day. The shields held until the spears found the openings necessary to crush the assault.

Then they fought dozens of plasma wielding casters who kept their distance while throwing splashes of mercury-like explosives, shaped like water balloons, that erupted into silvery liquid flame. The golden shields were coated in a thin layer that refused to stop burning and the plumes of the phantasm’s helmets were singed, but the formation held strong. The casters walked backwards and seemed content to concede ground as the shield wall marched forward.

It was the fourth row of warriors who leapt through the miasmic haze of smoke and magic, launching themselves from the lowered shields of the third row in order to close the gap, and stabbed the robed sorcerers through their hearts. They flew like gymnasts launched from trampolines when they attacked, then immediately reestablished the phalanx. As they claimed advanced positions they finally broke the Plasma Priest’s defense.

Later, poison rained from the sky as another particularly nasty Priest attempted to apply decaying skills on the phantasms. The air hissed as corrosive droplets splashed on metallic armor, chewing at the mist-summoned metals, but a phantasmal spear entered his throat before enough damage could be applied to disperse the phantasms.

Unlike Coop, the phantasms had no mechanism of retrieving their weapons, and the thrown spear was a sacrifice that left one of the soldiers wielding only a shield. It wasn’t enough of a handicap to prevent that particular phantasm from refunding the mana cost of his own summon as he used the shield to crush the throats of a dozen other Acolytes before he returned to the mists.

Another Priest sent firing squads of Acolytes who lined up and shot streams of jagged pink and violet energy into the shield wall. The shielded phantasms rushed forward as one with their protective barrier raised diligently against the assault. The bright colored attacks splashed against the barriers like fire hoses of water right until the soldiers and Acolytes collided. Explosions of purple fireworks clashed against the phantasms’ raised defense as the cultists failed to overwhelm the defense. The ghosts simply marched forward, silhouetting themselves against the bright colors, taking more ground one rush at a time.

When they met masses of cloth-wearing swordsmen, the phantasms sent layers forward, breaking their larger formation into smaller groups that coordinated individually. As one ghostly warrior fully extended his body to maximize the range of his spear, impaling a swordsman, a second would leap over him and counter any Cultists who thought they could retaliate while the first was occupied. The phantasms used each other as platforms to conduct additional maneuvers that left Coop feeling a twinge of jealousy at his solitary nature.

The worst of the Priests was one who created balls of explosive icicles beneath the surface of the street, hidden inside the soup of smoke and mists. The enemy traps swelled when stepped on, then sent shards of ice in all directions. More than one phantasm dove onto the icicle traps like they were live grenades when the traps started to expand, sacrificing themselves for the rest of the phalanx. Coop mistjumped to that particular priest and removed his head before he could do more harm to the formation.

The phantasms took plenty of casualties from other Priests as well. In fact, they lost members at a rather steady pace, but every phantasm that was lost was avenged tenfold by his companions. Injuries ignited their fury and they fought harder as they were cut and battered. The phalanx as a whole was unyielding. Coop lost track of how many phantasms he summoned, but they managed to escort him all the way to the end of one of the bridges, through miles of the persistent cultists. Enormous explosions of pure energy erupted on the opposite side of the settlement as Tzultacaj and company made their own way along a different highway.

Coop took three steps onto the bridge and the cultists ceased their efforts to kill him and his phantasms. The sudden calm was too fast for his rapidly beating heart and excited breathing. He swung around, expecting some kind of trap, but the cultists just watched him with disappointed scowls on their faces as they remained shoulder to shoulder on the perimeter road that encompassed the lake. They looked at him like a meal that was just out of reach.

When he turned back to gaze at his opponents, he was surprised to find that he and his phantasms hadn’t diminished the gathering of the Cult of Chakyum to any noticeable degree. He had been concentrating on making sure the phalanx wasn’t surrounded, but he had never gazed upon the path in its entirety. It seemed like Cultists from other roads filled the gap they had made in the arterial highway, refilling the open areas with their gray robes, braced by the black flame braziers all the way to the horizon. Coop imagined that their eyes were tinged with a slight green energy, piercing the otherworldly haze that filled the settlement as they stared into the center.

Coop had half a mind to double back and continue the fight before he wound down, despite his hesitancy to be involved in the clean up of the Cult’s lower level members in the first place. The fact that they had bothered to spread themselves evenly around the temple made him want to throw a wrench in their efforts, but he held himself back. He had wasted enough time trying to get last minute levels before greeting the High Priests of Chakyum. It was about time for him to introduce himself.