Dawn was breaking as Coop’s party sailed toward the mainland. The sun was casting bright streaks of light across the ocean that glittered at the peak of each consecutive wave. Coop did his best to appreciate the serene scene, though his focus was on what would follow.
Captain Kayla had taken over Charon’s Sea Burial instead of taking her flagship, valuing the speed of the corvette over the power of the galleon for this particular mission. They weren’t seeking a naval battle even if there was a possibility of encountering enemy ships. Sharkbait remained at the fort, taking charge of the Eye of the Storm in Kayla’s absence. Marcus, Charlie, and Camila were the only other additions to the regular crew of phantom pirates accompanying Coop on the trip.
Charlie was fully concentrating on weaving her abilities, like she was building an entire storm, but she was siphoning the wind out from in front of them and cycling it back into place from behind. The result was Sea Burial practically skipping across the sparkling waves as they shot along the ocean. An unbroken chain of repeated powerful gusts filled the sails as Charlie displayed her growing mastery. The combined speed of the faster ship along with Charlie’s contribution meant that the short distance to the mainland would be crossed in no time at all compared to the cruise ship's multi-day journey.
A few hours at sea and they could already see the mainland on the horizon. They slowed their approach by having Charlie take a break and recover, not wanting to stumble into an enemy fleet unprepared. They tacked so that they could make an escape if necessary, but there were no signs of any other ships in the water. Only Sea Burial occupied the coastal seas. They made their way along the coast, heading toward the main port of Empress City as the last remnants of night were lost in the face of the rising sun, turning the sky a deep ominous red marred by scattered orange bands.
They didn’t bother with stealth, but Kayla did call for a full stop once they got close enough to see that Empress City’s port was a hive of activity. While there was no blockade and no sign of the Sapphire Armada in the waters, there was clearly significant fighting on the largest man-made islands that made up the shipping section of the port. Smoke was rising into the air, obstructing their view of the sunrise with towering clouds of black and gray as fires raged. The billowing silhouettes danced against the rapidly brightening backdrop, contrasting the glowing sun with their sinister forms that magnified the red sunrise.
“We’ll set up at the end of the same pier as last time.” Kayla announced, taking responsibility for the ship. “If this other fleet arrives, we’ll retreat to the open ocean and wait at Crane Point once we’re clear. I’ll leave it up to you when to meet us there, but that will be our rendezvous point once again.”
Coop agreed with a nod, squeezing his spear as he resolved himself to do what needed to be done. Ending the Endless Empire would certainly have him kill on a scale that hadn’t been necessary before. If they were still fighting on behalf of the Empire at this stage, he wouldn’t have any real opportunity to go easy on them. If they wanted him to spare them, they would need to make that choice on their own.
“Good luck, Coop.” Charlie spoke quickly, sounding at least as anxious as he was, if not moreso.
“We’ll make contact with Jackson as soon as we can.” Marcus promised as the trio of him, Camila, and Charlie prepared to disembark at the port, looking like a squad of special operatives in their matching Ghost Reef equipment.
“Be careful.” Coop warned them, not wanting them to risk anything more than absolutely necessary when it came time to the fighting. The way he saw it, he would be enough. He would never delegate this one responsibility as Champion, even if he continued to find it uncomfortable, or maybe even because he found it uncomfortable.
He took a deep breath and launched his spear, letting it fly over Port Front Park, slightly away from the fighting, closer to the remains of the warehouse district that existed between Empress City’s airport and the ocean. The no man’s land between the two forces’ bases.
They had briefly discussed how Coop should approach in order to swiftly end the conflict, with the first suggestion that he head straight for the airport and let Charlie slow the Empire’s assault down with her storms. If he tried to claim the civilization shard, they were sure that the Champion of Empress City would pull his forces back in order to defend his seat of power. The problem was that they didn’t actually know where the shard was hidden. The paranoia to keep it hidden at the expense of the residents paid off for the Empire’s Champion in that small way.
Marcus didn’t have any personal knowledge of the leader of the settlement. He only knew of the man’s nasty reputation. Most of the interactions in the jail fell under Rod’s supervision, the Viceroy’s purview, but there was still plenty of information they could surmise based on his rule of the city.
He was an uncharismatic tyrant that was only in power thanks to the initial knowledge granted by the Endless Empire and a willingness to behave ruthlessly before most others wrapped their heads around the situation. After seizing power he strong-armed others into supporting him by using the faction's authority as leverage. His style of leadership was essentially the exact opposite of Coop’s lackadaisical management where Coop concentrated on empowering others around him. This tyrannical approach inevitably led to dissent and resistance.
Even in the beginning, the Empire’s Champion was barely clinging to his position. It wasn’t clear whether he understood his precarious situation or if he was just that distrustful, but either way, he isolated himself from the rest of the settlement in his secure central compound, surrounded by guards and agreeable advisors, and was never seen among the residents. At the very least, he seemed to innately fear others, believing they would have the same twisted thought processes as him, someone who wouldn’t hesitate before resorting to violence for their own gain.
Those who openly challenged the leadership structure in Empress City were silenced, no matter how they advocated for that change. Marcus considered himself lucky to have drawn a following when he petitioned for enacting votes, otherwise he expected he would have been quietly killed instead of publicly arrested. It was too hard to believe that only a few political dissidents existed to then be thrown into the jail when considering the dissatisfaction that permeated the city. The fate of others was almost certainly much worse.
In the end, the Chosen Champion’s mistrust left Coop and his companions without a clear idea of where the civilization shard was hidden, other than somewhere in the airport. If the two forces weren’t already engaged in conflict, Coop would have sought the shard out, opting for the potentially less violent solution, but he didn’t want to waste time while the rebels were fighting for their lives. Instead, he was aiming to flank the Empire while the girls went to the rebels’ defense.
When he mistjumped, he landed on the wide flat roof of an industrial storage facility, two or three storeys tall, bordering the highway that cut an elevated path toward the port. It was one of the few structures left standing. His eyes followed the highway, and its series of ramshackle obstacles. The fighting had taken place across dozens of makeshift barriers, leaving debris scattered across the entire length. The rebels had erected temporary lines of cars and concrete half-walls that appeared to have only temporarily slowed the Empire as they pressed in the direction of the port. The makeshift barriers didn’t hold against the surge forward, and were left scarred by signs of violent struggle. Beneath the highway, rubble occupied most of the space, turning the city blocks into urban ruins, full of dark corners and cover that would make it an incredible challenge to avoid ambushes.
Coop spotted the first signs of life at the end of the highway, where the offramps began splitting to the different sections of the three-island port. Beyond, fires were actively roaring. The park containing the pier where they had escaped in the past was neglected by both forces.
Another mistjump gave him a better vantage point, on top of a boat storage facility, so that he could see past the end of the road, still behind the backs of the Empire’s split forces. They were assaulting the rebels on two clear fronts, fully committed with few auxiliary forces at the rear. The Empire appeared to have been organized into smaller groups of soldiers that coalesced into a larger mass to leverage their superior numbers, equipment, and experience. They simply applied brute force to have their way against the rebels in a battle of attrition. Coop would need to engage a mass of soldiers if he wanted to halt their progress on at least one of the islands.
He briefly entertained the idea of a sneaky approach, assassinating the leaders to try and throw the rest of the army into chaos, but he dismissed the idea with one look at the bodies that the Empire had left in their wake. Bloodied and mangled dead were piled against the barricades on both sides of the road. It didn’t seem like they cared whether the victims had belonged to the Empire or not. There was no regard for the dead.
It was clear that the rebels had attempted to hold the Empire back from attacking from the main thoroughfare with each of their own blockades, but were ultimately overrun. Those who were too slow to retreat weren’t shown any mercy, but they hadn’t gone down without a fight. Coop had no idea what the numbers of each force looked like at the start, but the Empire had certainly managed to keep a large portion of their already massive army through the assimilation.
A pair of the Empire’s Chosen, joking and laughing as they worked, were dragging another body by the legs to be haphazardly dumped out of the way, lingering far behind the rest of the army, ignored by the other troops while they completed an unpopular chore. Groups of soldiers were waiting along the highway, preparing to take their turn pushing the rebels, and in the meantime, they were making sure the exit ramps were completely clear, ensuring that the split armies would be able to reinforce each other by crossing the highway.
Coop’s spear pierced straight through the soldier on the left, with no warning aside from the rushing of the wind.
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“Wha-” The other started as the weight of the body suddenly shifted to him alone, pulling him off-balance, but an ethereal sword cut him off as Coop stepped through the mists behind the first target to execute the second.
Coop was already frustrated with the whole situation at the start, but his agitation was building. He swapped back to his spear and aimed for what appeared to be the center of the frontline fighting, on the northernmost section of the port, ready to end the conflict once and for all. As he stepped forward, spear cocked back, bloodied fingers weakly brushed his ankle, startling him out of his throwing motion. Shifting out of the way, he looked down with a bitter realization. The dead body that was being dragged wasn’t dead.
“...Nomad?” The glassy-eyed man lightly coughed before a deep exhalation marked the end of his life.
Coop winced, dropping to one knee and trying to get the man to drink one of Olani’s health tinctures. The random man was already gone and Coop was growing even more disgusted with the entire scenario with every moment. He was absolutely sure that he preferred to be far removed from anything like this and the fact that he was dragged into the middle of it made his blood boil. That it was happening at all was already bad enough. The reality of an apocalypse was a nightmare.
Coop restarted his throwing motion, heading for the portion of the port that had the thickest smoke in the north. He wasn’t going to let the Endless Empire continue to exist on Earth, tainted as their Chosen were by egotistical delusions and prideful aspirations. It was too much of a risk to Ghost Reef to allow them to persist after he and his people stepped into the middle of their war.
When he exited the monochromatic world of mists, he entered hell. Fires burned all along the port island, spouting thick black smoke that created a haze thick enough to sting his eyes. He could taste the blood in the air as embers drifted onto his armor.
The fighting had clearly been going on for a long time. The rebels had been slowly ceding ground, using their long series of complicated structural barriers to establish new battle lines each time they were forced backwards. They really had nowhere to retreat to once they reached the port, so they had shifted to fighting to the death, and the evidence of their commitment was apparent. They had spent weeks building obstacles, anticipating the ultimate push from the Empire, knowing exactly what doomed fate awaited them from the start.
For the most part, it didn’t seem like there were many people who had the firepower to blast through concrete barricades or the stacked metal shipping containers that had been previously occupied like apartments by the rebels. That didn’t stop the Empire’s overwhelming numbers from slowly pushing forward. Somehow, the two sides had settled on what amounted to brutal trench warfare along the relatively narrow avenue of the highway and then the port islands after the warehouse district had proven itself to be too much of a no man’s land to properly push through. The result was the rebels being cornered.
Coop’s massive Fog of War put a temporary pause on the fight, creating a solid barrier between the two sides. He pumped more than half of his nearly 20,000 mana into the channel, allowing the misty domain to expand until it encroached on both forces. He was claiming the battlefield for himself and himself alone.
The rebels immediately fell back to their next line of defense, a row of shipping containers buttressed by a massive toppled over crane. It would have been a worthy obstacle for a paintball match, but Coop thought it was woefully lacking for the life or death battle they were in.
The lull on the Empire’s side was brief, halted by shouts to keep attacking even as the fog rolled toward them. If they stayed, they would be caught in his domain, but the discipline of the Empire’s Chosen remained shoddy at best. They lobbed a few sad spells and ranged attacks into the fog but ultimately fell back to avoid being engulfed in the inscrutable mists, disregarding their comrades to make sure they individually stayed relatively safe.
Coop just let the fog continue to spread toward the Empire, walking slowly with it as he carefully selected his first target, avoiding the many bodies that lay scattered across the ground. Presence of Mind painted him a bleak picture of the carnage that had taken place already.
To the south, on the center island of the port, where the cruise ships and tourist amenities were situated, a single tornado had spawned despite the clear morning. The tornado itself was full of lightning, repeatedly striking out in violent bursts. The middle island was effectively cut in half as the second flank of the war met the legendary Aeromancer. The lightning tornado moved forward faster than Coop’s fog, and thanks to its intimidation factor, the Empire willingly gave way, retreating all the way up the exit ramps and back onto the highway with scattered shouts to retreat.
“Back!” A voice cut above the rest on Coop’s side as they witnessed the massive retreat of their allies, and Coop followed the sound. “Pull back to the highway! Hold the ramp! We’ll regroup with the Supreme Commander before we make the final push!” His message was transmitted through the troops, but Coop honed in on the original instructor.
Coop spotted a squat man dressed like a general from a banana republic, with a too small black beret that must have belonged to someone else before it was reclaimed, and dozens of medals and ribbons decorating a red sash across his chest. He was specifically guarded by several shielded Chosen who should have been on the front line, with their empowered protective equipment. They were warily watching the fog while walking backwards at the rear of the others who had simply turned to run.
Coop tossed his shield straight up, planted his foot, and led with his free arm as he pitched his spear in the direction of the priority target. Coop thought the beret-wearing man must be an idiot to openly advertise that he was in charge while in front of his opponents. The medals may as well have been a bullseye and the shouted orders a spotlight for someone like Coop.
The ethereal spear blasted out of the fog without any forewarning, leaving a thick trail of mist that made it seem like the domain itself was reaching out with needle to poke at the enemy army. The spear exploded a magical barrier that appeared to be built out of octagonal cells, snapped through one of the tower shields that was held protectively in front by a bodyguard, then flew straight through the man that held it. The spear’s split second trajectory might have seemed slightly off target until Coop manifested from the mists while the spear dissipated, adjacent to the squat man, and swept his sword through the neck of the general, then vanished into the mists as he mistjumped back to his tossed shield.
The few that witnessed a ghost suddenly appear next to their leader, behead him, then vanish just as quickly, broke into a full run. The army abandoned any semblance of a controlled retreat as fear gripped them, spreading through their ranks. Their panic was enough for the rest of the army to follow, running up the highway’s exit, scrapping their organization in favor of escaping the gradual press of fog.
Coop’s spear shot out of the fog once again, this time with an extremely high arc, sending another trail of mists up into the air like a rocket launch. The rebels on the ocean side of the fog were able to follow the projectile as it reached the early morning clouds, then sank back to the ground almost lazily, picking up speed until they weren’t sure if they were imagining the blurred shape was the same object. Once the fog blocked their vision of the spear, they knew it landed by the sound of destruction that echoed across the port.
It was only 30 seconds before it landed among the crowd of Chosen rushing back up the offramp, but it smashed through the ramp like a meteor, detonating the pavement. The road, designed for a constant flow of heavy duty shipping, collapsed into a wide crater that had split the elevated road and continued into the ground, establishing a sinkhole that was immediately filled with a surge of sea water. Coop’s bunker buster of a spear had cut the path of retreat.
[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]
The rebels watched in fearful awe as the fog appeared to have launched a missile into their enemies, then lit up as if the fog itself had leveled up. The dread that the fog would turn on them next was palpable, but for now it just kept drifting away. The movement was painfully slow, but they would only corner themselves if they ran. They only had the ocean at their backs.
Coop clamped down on his thoughts, dragging himself through the mists after another, regular, spear throw cleaved through the Empire’s disarrayed army, leaving his Fog of War behind. His actions were mechanical, trained by hundreds of thousands of engagements with far more difficult monsters. His opponents this time were just that: simple monsters. Presence of Mind revealed a disparity in their levels, where some of them had managed to essentially power level themselves into the 60s and low 70s by killing their fellow humans. These were the ones that he caught, those who had tasted the experience gains that could be had through murder, and over extended themselves in search of more.
The Chosen that had been cut off were bloodthirsty and happy to have a clear target instead of mists and ghosts, but they found Coop to be an impossible target. He dodged and blocked their aggressive swings and practically absorbed spells, seemingly unaffected. Coop’s counter attacks, on the other hand, were executed with finality. The Empire’s army didn’t have much time to regret their enthusiasm for a solid target as Legacy of the Mists brought the ghosts that they had feared in the first place right into their midst.
The Ancient Prowlers were more coordinated than the Empire’s Chosen. They were more dangerous too, even if they were much lower level. When a blast of orange magic damage caught Coop across the torso, it barely registered, but a Prowler would have left him with a stacking debuff that he would need to be aware of, even if the attack barely did damage. Any scratches the Chosen managed to land were less than negligible, erased by his Reaper title as he returned the favors a thousand fold. Coop’s shield barely vibrated as he deflected the most powerful attacks that the Empire could bring to bear and his magic defenses made dodging the ominous bone spells and elemental blasts unnecessary, even if he stepped aside anyway.
His ethereal swordsmanship had him dancing through the tail end of their army, the ones who were cut off from the highway by his spear’s destruction of the ramp, those who were too dedicated or too vicious to leave the frontline in time to escape. They should have surrendered, but they were too far gone to even consider it as an option. They were the highest levels in the region, or so they believed, so they saw no reason to retreat at the first sight of his fog.
Coop kicked a man off the end of his spear, cast Legacy of the Mists to shield his flank from someone trying to get into his blindspot, letting the phantasm catch the blow, then counter-attack with a deadly thrust. He followed up by throwing his spear through another challenger before letting the dust settle. When he stood alone, before the highway’s destroyed ramp and beneath a spotlight of another few levels gained fading into the morning light, he just felt disgust.
Most of them barely breached half his level, most were closer to a third, and his stat stacking only multiplied that gap to the point of absurdity. Even the levels he gained were minimal, and other than dropping points into Mind, he ignored the notifications. Coop tossed his shield up over the edge of the highway and mistjumped to the road, feeling a bit like he was having out-of-body experience, disassociating with his own actions.
The Empire had managed to regroup a few hundred yards further down, amassing their squads while reusing the obstacles that the rebels had established. He stood alone on his side. The ones that managed to retreat from him joined the rest, more than a quarter mile down the highway, where they seemed intent on rallying. Coop thought they should keep running.
They seemed to think it was a good idea to concentrate their strength into one place. They were idiots. There were a massive number of Chosen left, easily more than 30,000 total, but they funneled themselves into the relatively narrow road that they had used to reach the port in their final push, extending toward the edge of the airport in massive columns like it was some kind of military parade. It made sense for the rebels to try and turn the highway into a chokepoint, since they were potentially outnumbered and outgunned in the first place, but for the Empire it wasn’t playing to their advantage.
Coop spat on the ground, trying to get rid of the bad taste in his mouth.