Unchosen Champion

Coop blinked as the light of Chakyum’s level gains ultimately faded. The heavenly spotlight had come steadily at first, forming a solid beam of light that made his eyes water while the levels overlapped. It could have been a tractor beam for the density. Over time, the experience slowed such that there were full seconds between each level. Coop numbly assumed diminishing returns had kicked in pretty heavily, reducing the rewards granted to the leader of the Cult.

Coop’s mouth was dry as he tried not to think too much about the details of what he had seen. He felt sick to his stomach after witnessing the Cult’s enormous sacrifice. There was something about the impersonal and seemingly voluntary nature of the mass offering that disturbed him to his core. The ghostly howls and haunted distant screams that faintly echoed across the sky implied that it hadn’t been exactly as simple as it first appeared, but the sounds were drowned out by a high pitched ringing in his ears.

Eventually, the sounds ceased altogether as the giant window in the hellish sky diminished, shrinking as the overcast clouds recondensed. The shattered rift diminished until it disappeared and the clouds reclaimed the sky.

Identifying the man in front of him yielded the kind of limited information masked by question marks that was usually reserved for the contracted alien residents. It was clear enough that he had gained a massive quantity of stored experience. Coop checked the leaderboards to better understand what he was dealing with, expecting the worst.

Day 113

The Lich (Level 5,102)

Luc-Hau (Level 437)

Lom-Hau (Level 390)

Coop (Level 197)

Sila Tupua (Level 136)

Toby Jackman (Level 134)

Callagun (Level 134)

Hai Yun (Level 130)

Reina Kitawa (Level 127)

Akari Kitawa (Level 127)

Coop exhaled a held breath as he read the list. A familiar but forgotten name topped the leaderboard, reclaiming its position from the very start of the assimilation. All the regular Priests were gone, along with the sacrificed Acolytes, but the final number of accumulated levels was nowhere near the worst of what he imagined. Admittedly, at some point calculating the level gap between himself and his opponent seemed like an exercise in futility.

Coop cracked a smile at the absurdity. “Heh.” After rereading the levels for a second time, he chuckled senselessly to himself. He was reeling with shock, feeling a bit unhinged, as his own reaction surprised him at least as much as the actual numbers.

The Lich gazed at Coop from a much less gaunt face than before, though his skin was an inhuman gray that went beyond simple paleness. Coop suspected that he was some other kind of human, like Jones after his Bloodstone racial evolution. It seemed as though increased racial levels necessitated unnatural changes as well.

The old man had let his hood fall down as he broke the sky, revealing a powdery bald head and thick tangled eyebrows of white. Black and green energy continued to glow from the sunken sockets on his face, completely hiding his actual eyes. An unmistakable expression of confusion painted his visage. He hadn’t expected his challenger to start laughing, of all possible reactions.

“Did you just sacrifice 20 million people for 5,000 levels?” Coop asked incredulously. “That’s it? Are you stupid?” He exclaimed to the astonishment of The Lich.

Coop was rattled. He was having difficulty parsing his thoughts with what he had witnessed and filing them into his understanding of the new rules of reality. It was easier to view everything from a completely impersonal perspective than to consider the massacre for what it was.

The fact that so many deaths had resulted in such a level boost was catastrophic, and not because it was a tremendous increase that elevated The Lich firmly into the territory of aliens in the galactic community. Coop felt it was a disastrous result because it was just so wasteful.

The inefficiency actually offended something deep within Coop beyond the loss of life. All of that sacrifice only to match the bottom of the aliens that Coop had deduced levels for. He knew for a fact that many of his alien residents back on Ghost Reef had five digit levels, though they had always been cagey when he tried to ascertain exact numbers, like it was just a bit too personal of a thing to ask.

In any case, Coop’s gardener could probably wipe the floor with The Lich. Then again, Coop slowed himself down. He had to give the man in front of him a little bit of credit. The contracted residents had thousands of years to accumulate experience, and The Lich had exploded in levels in a matter of months. Coop could admit that much at least.

Coop’s suspicion that the Cult was operating as a pyramid scheme had been pretty close to the mark. Chakyum stood firmly at the pinnacle, waiting to collect the rewards from his members. However, part of the strength of the Cult itself was in its substantial membership. Coop had already conceded to the impossibility of wiping them out, basically wishing the Jaguar Sun luck while he went after the Cult’s leaders. He had to ask himself if their sacrifice was actually a good thing for himself and his allies.

Only one thing was certain. He was going to need to grind for months to reconcile his feelings toward the situation as a whole. Coop shook his head at the thought.

The elderly man stood tall, completely losing his hunch with the stats gained. Calling him elderly was uncharitable in the first place, considering how much his physical appearance had been masked by his robes, but Coop couldn’t change his initial impression. If anything, he should have called the man sickly.

“No-” The Lich started to defend his actions with an air of seriousness that contrasted Coop’s disconnected flippancy.

“Hold on a sec.” Coop requested, interrupting the man’s response while extending one finger from his spear to get the Lord of Death to wait.

[Status]

HP - 17106/18050

MP - 18987/33600

Class - Revenant (Level 197)

Profession - Scavenging (Level 162)

Affinity - Spectral

Race - Human (Rank 1)

Faction - None

Strength - 125 (+3360)

Agility - 125 (+1680)

Body - 125 (+1680)

Mind - 2800 (+560)

Intelligence - 125 (+3360)

Acumen - 125 (+1680)

Unallocated - 0

Titles - Champion IV, Haunted, Ethereal, Reaper, Slayer IX, Dauntless, Stacked, Defiant, Siegebreaker, Mindbender

Skills (Active) - Invocation, Presence of Mind, Fog of War, Vaporform

Skills (Passive) - Mind Over Matter, Adamance, Practical Application, Arcane Comprehension, Clarity of Purpose

Quests - Fortune Seeker (20/50), Upgrade City to Metropolis, Settle the Infestation

Basic Credits - 7,228,402

Coop frowned as he quickly calculated that his total attributes would easily be exceeded by The Lich, even without any of the additional scaling that he was bound to have applied through skills. With just over 14,000 stats, Coop was merely approaching the equivalent of a raw level 3,000. “Merely 3,000.” Coop mumbled.

It wasn’t even close. He could only hope that the diminished returns in bonuses applied by stats would make the difference not quite as substantial as the numbers would imply. He furrowed his brows as he realized the gap was exacerbated by the limited experience rewarded from defeating the Cultists throughout his adventure. The Lich had set him up for a double-whammy of disappointment.

He checked the new quest he had received as well. The objective was quite familiar, reminiscent of his experience with the Zombie Lord down to the exact same branching options.

[Eliminate the Lich 0/1 or Establish an Alliance 0/1]

The rewards for each option were shown. Eliminating the Lich would reward the title Reaper, and add one level. Coop laughed again at the extra level included. It was hard to remember that levels actually scaled as the numbers climbed. One level felt like a drop in the bucket, but that was Coop’s entire strategy summarized. Add a little bit at a time and let it grow into an abundance, whether it was stats or levels. Even if the Lich had put his level to shame, Coop took some solace in the fact that his method of progression was probably more sustainable while they were competing over their individual planet.

Obviously, he already had a Reaper title that had evolved while consuming other titles, so he expected that if he completed the quest, it would grow in a similar way to the Champion and Slayer titles. Throw it onto the pile, Coop thought, happy enough with having the option to eliminate the Lich, with or without further rewards.

Establishing an Alliance would grant the racial evolution Elite Oathsworn Human, having him take the place of the Elite High Priestess. An alliance would also bolster the strength of Ghost Reef with the Unspeakable, eliminating the unformed Lighthouse faction. All residents current and future would join the Unspeakable faction of the Undead, and contribute levels to their masters upon their destruction. Coop spared a thought to consider if that was how the Yucatan Settlement had ended up so firmly under the Cult’s control; maybe the Elite High Priestess had struck a deal when confronted by the Lich.

“What a joke.” Coop muttered as he considered the second option. Even when he knew less about the forces he was dealing with, all the way back when he was struggling to fight zombies on the oil rig, the choice had been pretty easy to make. As much as he wanted to bolster Ghost Reef, he didn’t think making a unilateral decision that would personally affect each of his residents would be the right move back then, and he really didn’t think it would be a good move now.

“How dare you!” The Lich shouted, tired of Coop disrespecting his presence and taking offense to his last utterance.

“Me?” Coop asked, matching his agitated energy. “After all that you’ve done?”

“You should be on your knees, banging your forehead against the stones as you beg for my grace.” The Lich advised. “It is I who will lead Earth into the galactic community.”

Coop scrunched his face with distaste. “Seems like you’d lead us into a grave instead.” He observed, extending his arm toward the scattered robes that stretched for miles beyond the temple, filling the empty roads like a patterned gray carpet.

The Lich shook his head vigorously. “You continue to misunderstand everything. They follow me out of their graves.” He stated adamantly. “I am the Lord of Death.”

He tapped his staff against the temple and the ground shimmered nearby. A black and green haze formed a latticed gateway around the Lich, rotating around him as he concentrated on his staff. The haze melted into a circular portal with the diameter of a manhole cover at his side.

A skeletal version of the Herald of Cosmos rose from the ground as if riding a hidden elevator. It was the same mechanism that the Icon of Mana, Monolithic Destiny, had utilized when it formed after the ritual to remove Jones’s blood curse was completed, but much faster. Coop assumed the difference was in having sufficient mana present. He identified the skeletal figure, frown still embedded on his face.

[Elite Void Queen (Level 505)]

[Minion of the Unspeakable]

“You see?” The Lich continued excitedly. “They died months ago, when they took their Oaths, binding their souls to me so that I could give them a second chance at life as evolved humans. I named them as if they were my own children and gave them every opportunity to grow for our mutual benefit.” He grew indignant. “Now they will always be with me.”

“You’re messed up.” Coop remarked, making a face as the Lich revealed his scheme.

After witnessing some of the man’s power, Coop understood why people could be tricked into following him. Taken in isolation, if what he said was true, the Lich actually seemed like he had impressive powers over life and death. If he presented himself as a deity, it would be hard to argue without more knowledge of the system. However, with mana, literally everyone could demonstrate unexplainable feats, so it wasn’t all that special in the grand scheme of things. Coop suspected that the Lich simply took advantage of the early guidance provided by his faction and established himself quickly enough to be difficult to question afterwards. He had spent quite a bit of time as the highest level on the leaderboards in the beginning of the assimilation, after all. That would have been a good opportunity to establish a foothold and leverage his position further.

“Join me, son.” The Lich directed imperiously. “Make an Oath to me and you will be reborn.”

Coop’s spear smashed into the green shield a second time, sending ripples of energy along the surface as the magical structure struggled to repel his assault. A cloud of dark green mana exploded outward from the collision, and the Lich simply turned away, tapping his staff as he went, completely trusting the protection offered by his skill.

“Fine.” The sickly man muttered. “I will look forward to embracing you once you have been properly subdued.” He added, letting the shadowy hands lift him off the ground so that he could hover above the surface of the temple and gaze upon the empty settlement, generating another hazy lattice of death mana as he went.

Coop made to pursue the man, not so easily dismissed, but a blinding orb of white cut across his path, passing just before him. He turned to the Void Queen as she summoned a second projectile at the tip of a protruding finger bone like a basketball player spinning a ball on their fingertip. Her hollowed out eyes glowed with the black and green energy of the Lich.

She may have taken her second death rather smoothly, but she was much worse for the wear. The former Elite High Priestess was a mere skeleton, rattling as she moved, bound by an aura of thick mana that spun around her ivory form. She had completely lost whatever remained of her humanity when she became a minion of the Lich and fulfilled her Oath.

Coop sidearmed his shield, aiming to destroy her unprotected knees before mistjumping into melee range and eliminating her with his spear so he could finish his business with her Master. He twisted to the side to avoid her second projectile, watching as the first rotated around her and swung back for a second swipe at him.

Their fight was essentially picking up where it left off, except she appeared to lack the nullification ability that had torn his summons to shreds. Instead, she was reestablishing the orbital projectiles she utilized from within her domain. She hadn’t been limited to a single sphere when inside of her domain, but now she wasn’t limited at all, even outside the Mind-based Void manifestation. Coop supposed she had taken on the same role as the Zombie Captain: a powerful lieutenant formed from a particularly potent human bound to protect their masters.

She gave up her humanity in a deal made long before he arrived in Central America, and now she wasn’t much more than a simple monster. Coop had a bit of experience fighting simple violent creatures. He assessed this one as a basic spellcaster, powerful, but plain.

When his shield reached her kneecap it was unexpectedly repelled. Her eyes lit up with the pure green energy that matched the Lich’s shield as she surrounded herself with the shell of a void sphere. The shield pushed the light from her form to the edge and shrouded her bones in shadow as she successfully blocked his attack. A miniature imitation of her Event Horizon made of death mana protected her person. Coop frowned, reconsidering his assessment of the fight. He should treat it as a new encounter rather than a continuation. The Void Queen had lost her specific affinities and now utilized mana that more closely resembled the Lich’s affinities. She was his minion after all. When he glanced at the Lich to gauge how much he was actively participating his frown deepened even further.

The sickly man was raising the dead in waves. The sacrificed Acolytes were reanimating across the settlement. Skeletal arms climbed from dark portals that filled the streets beneath the temple. An army of chattering dead was replacing the devoted cultists.

Coop had prematurely assumed that the Lich had consolidated his power into himself alone. That wasn’t exactly what happened. The Lich had consolidated the experience of the Cult into himself, but the advantage that Coop had feared in the Cult’s numbers remained. This was the threat that he had identified on the zombie oil rig, where the Undead would be able to effectively spread their influence. With the Zombie Lord it had been through an infectious debuff, but with the Lich it was with a covenant.