Unchosen Champion

Coop doubled over, face contorted in a silent agonized cry. No sound escaped from his throat because his breath was trapped in his lungs while all of his muscles seized. The possession caused by Inheritance of the Mists was not gentle. It felt as though his brain was being kneaded like dough and he wanted nothing more than to tear through his scalp with his fingers to remove the defilement.

He squeezed his eyes shut, desperately fighting the sudden harrowing pain that made death seem like a desirable escape. It was useless. He was completely overwhelmed. Presence of Mind was extinguished like a snuffed out candle and his aura was consumed, twisted, reformed, expanded, and hijacked.

Everything happened in an instant, but Coop went through the entire gamut of emotions. His curiosity quickly transformed into terror before he was filled with regret. A lifetime of torture took place all at once. His perception of time folded in on itself. He wavered, losing what remained of his confidence as his body spasmed and his spirit tore. The only feeling that lingered was the disappointment with how his adventure was ending. A simple misstep was all it took to drop his responsibilities at the feet of his companions. He hoped he had done enough to give them a chance at success.

From the depths of his despair, as his spirit weakened, a rumbling whisper arose, generated from throughout his reformed essence. It communicated without words, hinting at untold power just waiting for him to grasp. It teased authority beyond comprehension from an entity that could shatter the Lich just as easily as it could shatter its vessel. He just needed to reach out, and he unconsciously did so, stretching his fingers as he raised his hand, unwilling to give up even when he fiercely wished for sweet release.

[The Apparition of the Deep Dweller Hungers]

Coop recoiled. He was horrified by what had touched his mind. In the moment, he didn’t fear death any longer. Instead, he feared madness. He spoke in an effort to ward it away, ready to plead for it to spare him, but his lips formed forbidden words that his mind didn’t understand. The utterances he vocalized were syllables of nonsense, ironically inhuman when he had originally sought to explore the limits of humanity itself. The bubbling, guttural phrases reassured him for some reason, even while the Lich’s expression grew perplexed. Coop hung on, clinging to the scraps of his sanity while his brain buzzed with turmoil.

He remembered his purpose above all else, thinking of Ghost Reef, of the Lighthouse, and his mind finally settled, passing through the insanity like a ship through a storm. He opened his eyes, lifting his face up and stared forward, taking his first breath since casting the spell a mere fraction of a second before. His immediate task was to kill the Lich.

[The Apparition of the Deep Dweller Approves]

[The Apparition of the Deep Dweller Grants You The Touch of the Abyss]

[You have acquired a new title!]

With his silent grimace transforming into a barely suppressed guttural roar, Coop invoked something terrible. The world trembled around him, sending a shockwave that repelled the smoke and the rain, forming a ring in the overcast clouds that revealed the dusky evening sky high above Central America.

The pain expanded from his brain throughout his body as a tendril of blackness erupted from the remnants of his aura, wrapping his skin before sinking into his chest without creating wounds. Coop felt an icy chill course through his veins as the process repeated countless times. Inky tendrils sprouted from his form, then sank into his body like a mass of squirming horrors had entered the world using his mana as a gateway.

His vision warped as darkness filled his eyes, rising from the bottom until they were black orbs of crushing pressure. Tears cascaded down his face as his sight transformed and he was finally granted providence. Swirling galaxies of infinite stars, enormous tentacles, and overwhelming crushing gravity filled his senses. A single eye watched him from the cosmos, unblinking, with a curving W-shaped pupil. For another moment, he gazed into the abyss. It gazed back.

Finally, his agony ceased, unbeknownst to him. Only his heavy breathing broke the uncomfortable silence that briefly engulfed the temple. He blinked, finding that he was capable of doing so by his own free will. He stared at his hand, articulating his fingers experimentally. His body no longer felt like his own. It was stronger, denser, and braced with horrible alien tentacles that were slow to retract into nothingness, but he had control.

He wiped his tears away from his cheek and found his knuckles streaked with thick blood instead. It dripped from his eyes and onto his ethereal armor, dribbling to the floor while hissing with energy, sending individual wisps of mana into the air.

As he stared at his blood covered fingers he tried to remember that this was merely the system representing some horrible creation from the depths of human mythos, but it didn’t matter. Mana made the experience all too real. It was a living nightmare and he felt like an ant caught in the treads of a boot. Whether the boot belonged to an actual eldritch god or the totality of human experience was totally irrelevant to his mind’s perception of reality. The pain was genuine, but so was the power.

Coop recognized that the possession granted by Inheritance of the Mists had resulted in yet another configuration. The Lightning Lord had taken control, the Battlemaiden had offered strict guidance, and the Deep Dweller granted him a morsel of extraordinary power.

[The Apparition of the Deep Dweller Hungers]

Coop understood. With each passing moment, the connection with the Deep Dweller became more clear. Whispers of whispers echoed in his mind, speaking forbidden incomprehensible words, promising authority in exchange for servitude.

Coop declined. He already had his purpose.

[The Apparition of the Deep Dweller Hungers]

Coop locked eyes of ink upon the Lich’s pale form. He was filled with the horrifying sense of an alien hunger gnawing at him. He embraced the sensation for it was a feeling he mirrored. The Lich had to die. He would become a sacrifice to the Abyss.

Eldritch power crackled at Coop’s fingertips. He shifted his ultra dense morning star off of his shoulder, reaffirming his grip with both hands, and the weapon mutated. Viscous dark mana splattered on the ground with a wet slap as the ethereal mace expelled waste and was remade. The spikes transformed into rusted prongs, melting and condensing, and his previously familiar weapon stretched and curled until it metamorphosed into an enormous anchor wrapped with fleshy, swaying tentacles. The wet burst of growth was equally disgusting as it was threatening. The tentacles squirmed as Coop let the weapon crash to the ground, preparing to drag it as he took a single ponderous step forward.

A metal boot banged into the stone as his foot landed, equally dense as the anchor. When he glanced down, his armor thickened, transforming into rusted algal infused metals with more bursts of wet darkness. A fully sealed helmet clanked into position, completing the fit while entirely obscuring Coop’s head in an orb of windowless bolted steel. His entire body was fastened tight by similar additions.

He hesitated in the claustrophobic darkness, his hot breath stifling in the enclosed helmet, as he grew accustomed to the aura sense that replaced his vision. It wasn’t dissimilar to the effect of Presence of Mind, but it expanded beyond his normal limits so that the entire region was painted with mana, more like when he entered Vaporform than a simple sense that bypassed his physical perception. The civilization shard was a beacon of clear, pure, universal mana while the Lich burned with death directly in front of Coop.

Coop lifted his off hand and confirmed that he could see in real time, in a manner of speaking. He found a dense metal gauntlet with barely articulating fingers, moving as he intended while he waved it in front of his face. It seemed like he was inside of an old school deep sea diving suit, or else it was an alien spacesuit designed for exploring the absolute extremes of gravity.

His body was heavy like the anchor, but he felt unbelievably strong. His step left an indentation in the stone of the temple, pulverizing a foot sized area with the unbelievable pressure of the Abyss. Coop pressed forward as an Abyssal Revenant.

The Lich had ultimately cleared the squad of phantasms, and he had a moment to look aghast at Coop’s transformation while it happened. After witnessing the split second experience of Coop being possessed by the apparition, he shared a small portion of Coop’s terror. The Revenant thought it was a good start.

Coop took another step and felt the agonizing hunger. The Lich had doubt painted on his pale countenance. The security of his perceived superiority had taken structural damage with Coop’s transformation. In a competition regarding the limits and potential of humanity, Coop thought it was amusing that they would be including the extent of humanity’s imagination for horror, of all things. Was there a limit to human fantasy?

The Apparition was content to observe, but Coop felt its presence growing from his position, expanding throughout the area around the settlement. A monstrous, fearsome god whose aura dwarfed the aspect of death that had claimed the region. Tentacles visible only to himself rested across the edges of the horizon, like fallen skyscrapers, or lingered in the air from space, piercing the ground and dangling part way down with their toothed suckers pulsating in a steady rhythm. The W-shaped pupil twitched as it fully engulfed the sky, peeking through the gap in the clouds created by Coop’s power up, but extending well-beyond the cloud cover.

“What-” The Lich began, actually shivering beneath the ponderous aura of the Deep Dweller, but before he could finish his question, Coop tested his new Strength.

Coop had looked down upon the Lich’s choice of weapon, finding the scythe to be far more intimidating than it was practical. The farming implement had weaknesses that were easily exploited in an actual duel. However, Coop now wielded an enormous anchor that could have been used to secure the cruise ship that sank off the coast of Ghost Reef. As a weapon, it was arguably even worse than the scythe. He frowned from within his helmet, recognizing the impracticality of the mutation, but he slammed it into the ground all the same, using the first ability granted by the transformation: Phantasmal Depths. Coop felt himself effectively tearing at the seams as he wielded power far too potent for his current form, just like when he embraced the Battlemaiden’s technique, but this time the power was intoxicating rather than horrifying.

His experimental blow resulted in a massive cascade of destruction with the skill’s activation. A slow march of depth charges chained forward. The first exploded directly in front of the anchor, cracking the temple and revealing a dark pool hidden within. When it seemed like it was done, it was followed by another explosion a few yards further along, expanding the mana-induced chasm. Stone and black water blasted along the path, and they gradually carved a canyon into the temple, revealing the coldest, darkest waters of the fathomless abyss.

Each excavating explosion moved toward the Lich with dramatic showers of churning debris. The Lich made an effort to dodge for the first time since they began fighting, but the depth charges shifted in his direction, chasing him. He only managed to stumble to the edge of the newly formed chasm as it widened to swallow him. His shouts were drowned out by the blasts of stone and water.

The Lich teetered over the edge and began to fall. Rather than sink into the abyss, never to be seen again, hundreds of shadowy hands caught him, cradling him above the churning basin for a moment.

The top of the temple housed an impossible fissure that defied conventional logic, but one thing was for certain; it was dangerous. It gave off its own threatening aura, like the water itself was infused with the Deep Dweller’s hostile hunger.

Coop lifted the anchor as the Lich stabilized, yanking the squirming weapon from the ground and raising it above his head as he instinctively understood the skills granted by the Deep Dweller. His resources were evaporating, and his body struggled to maintain, but his hunger masked the pain. He activated the next ability, Crushing Grip, bleeding his mana dry without remorse.

An enormous sea weed covered chain clanked as rusted metal links rose from the unfathomable depths. It smashed into the Lich’s shield from below, blanketing his body after dispelling most of the shadowy hands and taking control. His target shrieked and struggled against the ponderous weight of the rusted links, squirming like a worm on a hook. Despite his efforts, the chain slowly dragged him down, retracting one giant link at a time as if it was on an enormous crank. The scythe was torn away and his limbs were trapped as the cold water drowned the remaining shadow claws and his legs were submerged.

Coop clenched his gauntleted fist, snapping the metal fingers against the rusted palm, and the chains grew taut, applying crushing force to the shield. The death shield cracked, but held, even as the Lich screamed in horror. Water rose to his chest, but he fought with all the strength of a severely overleveled opponent. Then, with one final gurgle, the black water swallowed him.

The water stilled for a moment before it churned some more. Coop stomped forward, seeking to confirm the kill. When he reached the edge of the abyssal depths, the fight had still not ended. The water bubbled and hissed where the Lich struggled, undefeated even when contained. Coop was drawn to the water, inherently understanding that it was where they all belonged in the end. He wanted to experience its cold embrace on an unconscious, primordial level.

He stepped over the edge and let himself fall in.

The incredible cold pierced the metal suit, but Coop let himself be wrapped in it even as he sank like a stone. The Lich had only dropped a few dozen feet, but the pressure of the water was squeezing his shield while the chain struggled to pull him further below.

Coop’s anchor smashed into the shield, pushing the Lich further down with flailing tentacles, increasing the crushing force of the domain. The Lich screamed, bubbles rising from his throat as he unleashed all of his spells at once. The chain cracked and he shot back to the surface, proving that his 5,000 levels weren’t entirely for show. A mere level 200 had a lot of ground to make up, even if it was Coop empowered by a possession.

Gravity reversed for Coop within the abyss, and he smoothly floated back to the surface. The tension broke and water splashed as Coop’s fully encased body escaped the domain and he rocketed forward, slamming onto the surface of the temple. The abyss evaporated, revealing the relatively shallow craters that had formed in the stone, demonstrating that the lingering effect of the depth charges had been Mind-based. Coop and the Deep Dweller were counterparts in that way.

He stomped toward the Lich, who had scorched the ground as he fled toward the civilization shard, seeking the discarded scythe after it returned to its form as a subdued metal staff.

The Lich grabbed the inert staff and spun back toward Coop’s fully-armored form. Black lightning, miasmic void spheres, dark flames, bone spikes, and grasping shadows bombarded Coop’s armor, but he just kept stomping forward. His magical defense was truly absurd. The Abyssal Revenant was inescapable.

Coop used the next ability, Deep Caller, and the tentacles that only he could see multiplied. Tentacles rose from the water around the temple, shooting straight up, eclipsing the thousand steps before they curled and fell down toward the Lich. The toothed suckers were large enough to crush a house, but the Undead Chosen wrapped himself in shadowy hands and barely prevented himself from being pulverized. He barely held on, cowering beneath the eldritch horror until the assault faded. The Lich was hobbled, one arm broken, and face bloodied.

The Lich tried another magical assault, as if the pair were taking turns demonstrating their power, but the black napalm he summoned fizzled before it even reached its target.

“I knew you were a liar!” The Lich shouted accusingly, giving up on his offensive as Coop crossed the halfway mark without a scratch on his rusted armor. Coop crushed stone beneath his boots while the Lich slunk further backwards. “What are you?”

“I’m just human.” Coop responded, voice muffled and echoing from inside the dive suit as he drew closer, anchor squirming in anticipation of being used again. Even as he said it, he knew it sounded dubious, given his last power up.

“Baha!” The Lich laughed, a crazed look in his glowing green eyes. “Claim whatever you want. It doesn’t matter.” He leveled his staff toward the civilization shard and angled his head toward Coop to smile insidiously while recoiling the weapon. “Death is nothing to me, but it will be the end for you!”

The staff held by the Lich ignited with death magic, activating some dormant power, crackling with enough energy to halt Coop’s pursuit, lest he walk into an overwhelming last attack. However, rather than being directed at him, the Lich jabbed the large glowing gemstone on the end of his metal staff into the civilization shard with all of his thousands of levels of strength.

The red color drained from the system’s formation, sending sparks shooting in all directions, before a beam of energy fired from its uppermost corner into the sky. The light flew beyond the atmosphere, passing through the superimposed pupil of the Deep Dweller, until it collided with a flat, invisible shield that encompassed the entire planet. The shield absorbed the light for a moment, drinking it up before sending it back down tinged with a different color.

The shard vibrated as blue light flooded its crystalline form. The light grew, escalating until it bled across the entire territory of the settlement, blinding Coop even from within his bolted-on metal helmet. The Lich laughed as his flesh melted off, his skeletal form still articulating furiously as his true form was revealed and mana from across the region poured into the shard. His bones finally evaporated as the energy was released.

The rushing mana drowned all of Coop’s senses, forming a sensational avalanche of energy from all directions. Coop activated the fourth empowering skill granted by the Deep Dweller, Great Old One’s Resilience, and defensively raised his arms, anticipating an annihilation blast from the destruction of a civilization shard. The world turned white.

The shard defied his expectations and imploded, first sending a single clear pulse of energy outwards, beyond the speed of light, before it recoiled, rushing back into the crystal. Seemingly all of the air in the atmosphere was sucked in as mana was absorbed into the inverted blast. The Deep Dweller disappeared and Coop’s armor was ripped from his body, one piece at a time, sending rusted metal plates to turn to dust before disappearing as they were sucked into the shard. Coop growled as the shielding armor was dragged off, bit by bit, lingering long enough to protect him from the initial shockwave, but that was all they could protect him from.

He barely hung on after all of his apparition’s abilities deactivated. He was pummeled by the mana storm that churned the world and a sudden absence was refilled. The gusts tore a layer of stone off the temple toward the center, snapping the black obelisks and crumbling them into dust as they vibrated in the center around the epicenter of the implosion. The entire pyramid seemed to be rising in the air piece by piece, dislodged from its foundation by the gap at the top.

Tidal waves formed in the lake as the water was pulled inwards, crushing the bridges and rising part way up the staircases of the enormous pyramid. Blocks upon blocks of stone pyramids within the settlement were flattened as the civilization shard disappeared.

The destruction of a civilization shard was like someone pulled a plug that held the world together. All of the debris was dragged toward the interior. Despite the massive impact of the implosion, only a small area on the top of the pyramid was directly affected by the initial blast. All the rest of the destruction was due to mana rushing to fill the vacuum created by the removal of the shard.

The shard had simply ceased to exist. Only the physical demarcations of a powerful blast remained once it settled.

Coop raised his bloody head above the lip of the crater he ended up smushed into, naked as the day he was born, eyes widened with fear and trauma. A single puff of black smoke floated away from the implosion, drifting into the fractured interior of the temple.