The tracker needed a few minutes to come back to his senses after witnessing Coop deal with something that had haunted the region as easily as taking out the trash. The appearance of Field Boss level monsters had been the end of the humans’ ability to freely navigate the wild areas, forcing them to bunker down or accept that they needed civilization shards to claim territory. They lived in fear of a Field Boss encroaching on their camps and ultimately ending their struggle to survive. In contrast, to Coop, a Field Boss was just another monster with even better loot. He had to reassure the tracker that they would definitely be taking back their planet from these Primal Constructs, it was just a matter of time.
Once the tracker got a hold of himself, wiping away a tear or two of relief, he led the way along twisting foot trails with renewed vigor. They moved through thickening forest until Coop started to get concerned about night fall. Without the sun high in the sky, the thick canopy of leaves blocked almost all of the direct light before it reached the ground. The dirt trails were shrouded in shadow by the afternoon, and by the evening it already felt closer to night.
The trails themselves were hardly noticeable to someone like Coop who could have mistaken the path for the game trails of small mammals. The only sign that they had been used by people before the tracker strode through the brush was in the composition of the top layer. The dirt, mud, and leaves had been swept away until rocky stone bedrock outcroppings were exposed, creating a small valley wide enough for a single person to travel between bushes, but only a few inches deep. The jagged tertiary limestone was worn until smoothed over. They were almost like small islands of stepping stones that had risen from the mud. Countless sinewy roots had bored into the empty spaces in between the stone as nearby trees sought to expand their coverage, but smaller vines had been crushed by regular travel and it seemed like water would be funneled down the path at frequent intervals.
As they moved south, winding through the vegetation, they also ended up further from the coast. The forest regrowth transitioned into a proper jungle as they entered what had been conservation areas even before the assimilation. Coop was comfortable with sleeping on the beach on Ghost Reef, where the worst threat was having a hermit crab pinch his toes, but spending the night in the jungle wasn’t something that would put him at ease. As it grew darker, he couldn’t help but seek reassurance from his guide.
“Are we almost there?” Coop ventured, trying not to sound like he was sitting in the backseat.
“We made good time.” The tracker responded. “See that ridge?” He pointed ahead, between trunks of trees to a black cliff that was like a stone wall among the vegetation. “We just have to get to the top.”
“Hm?” Coop thought he made it sound a lot easier than it actually would be. He wasn’t ready to call the terrain mountainous as they were still in the northern lowlands, but a cliff only needed to be a dozen meters before Coop’s rock climbing skills would be abandoned in favor of mistjumping.
“Don’t worry, there’s a trail.” The tracker chuckled, mistaking Coop’s consideration for hesitance.
“Let’s get going.” Coop suggested, looking forward to a little break after a full day of tough travel.
While the hike had been physical enough, Coop hadn’t had much to do besides follow the tracker. They had expertly avoided almost all monsters which had mostly been the Elite Ruin Nebulas that covered the interlocking branches high in the trees. For the most part, the monsters simply didn’t have the reach to attack them as they passed by as long as the tracker kept them moving on open trails, making sure the sky was always clear above their heads. The times where Coop had deleted an obstacle in the form of a monster blocking their path had been few compared to the actual number of ambushers waiting in the trees. A single spear throw was enough to crush the Ruin Nebulas. The damage that Coop’s attacks dealt to the elite monsters made precise targeting of weak points a bit unnecessary. He could annihilate the entire body of the monster with one strike. They didn’t get the opportunity to offer a challenge as long as the tracker or Coop’s Presence of Mind pointed them out before he wandered underneath them.
Despite the constant presence of monsters in the trees, Coop hadn’t identified a single regular monster. The fact that he hadn’t had the chance to start another Slayer quest chain, even with new monsters present, was making him itch more than the humidity.
Coop wanted to take the time to reset the whole region, using all of his skills to wipe out the elites and see if regular monsters would reoccupy the area for a while, but he figured that would take too much time away from his first priority. Clearing the area they had traveled through alone would take him multiple days at the minimum, and that would only be a relatively linear cut through what he imagined was hundreds of miles of rather dense monsters.
For the sake of grinding, he was worried that the whole world would be like Belize; densely filled with elites. At least that would mean there were still some Field Bosses waiting to be hunted, but it would make Slayer quests that much more annoying to complete, and the elites were choking out the presence of lower level invaders for people to properly level. As it was, the wild areas were clearly becoming unfit for anyone but the already strong to utilize. Coop imagined that the level curve of humanity would keep growing wider over time.
The northern portion of Belize was lucky to have a Primal Construct variant that was pretty stagnant compared to some of the other roaming types. It meant that the small places of safety could avoid many of the confrontations that would take place if the monsters were more active in claiming territory, like the Ruin Excavators back home. Instead, the Ruin Nebulas remained in the branches and slowly meandered between trees, and that was only possible where the jungle was dense enough. The Field Bosses became more mobile, simply by virtue of being too heavy to remain in the trees. The locals had a healthy fear of the bosses given that if one of them wandered into their territory, it meant their settlement would be wiped out unless they got extremely lucky.
Corozal had actually dealt with a Field Boss barely a week prior to Coop’s arrival. They had the good fortune of having a pair of the wandering warriors nearby who did the bulk of the fighting on their behalf. The profession skills of the residents were only enough to tie the boss down, but none of them had the firepower to defeat it. The fact that the Nebula Field Bosses maintained their combat prowess as they were chipped away meant that even when ensnared, the low level combatants were at a significant disadvantage. The fact that Coop could defeat them so easily was a testament that class levels and the skill thresholds that came over time were still valuable. 500 levels in a profession wouldn’t provide phantasms, even if it would add plenty of attributes.
When they reached the stone ridge that the tracker had identified as their destination, they found a hidden path that had been carved into the surface. The tracker lifted a curtain of vines that had grown in the way and revealed the first few steps, smiling with delight at Coop’s impressed reaction. Worn stairs that were slippery with moss and leafy detritus had been painstakingly cut back and forth until reaching the top. While Coop followed along, he was even more tempted to mistjump the rest of the way. The stairs were barely safer than clawing his way up the side, with their uneven heights, curved exteriors, and slippery surfaces, and even though there were holes bored into the rock periodically, whatever rope railing once existed had long rotted away, forcing him to use his fingertips to grasp jagged grooves in the sheer rock wall.
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It took two rotations before he no longer had broad leafed vines smacking him in the face and they cleared the tree line of the forest they had traveled through. Coop actually paused, catching his breath, when he looked out at the massive expanse of green, lit by the orange light of a sunset he couldn’t see.
“That’s a pretty sight.” He mumbled, causing the tracker to stop and take a look himself.
The canopy of the rainforest stretched all the way to the horizon, almost like a solid green version of the shallow seas back home. Lush green trees towered above the forest floor with shrouds of humid mists drifting in between like low cloud formations. Thin strips of emptiness marked rivers that snaked through the forest, but the actual trail that they used was invisible after barely a dozen yards, too narrow to make an impression on the green canvas.
While the leaves didn’t flow like the waves of the ocean, there was still enough movement to make it all feel alive. The tops of trees swayed in unseen gusts of wind. Flocks of birds erupted from particular areas after being attacked by Ruin Nebulas and sounding warning calls that drowned out the singing from more peaceful areas. Flowers reached high beyond the leaves, blooming from orchids living in the tops of the giant trees and doing their best to attract buzzing insects that flew above the canopy. Coop wasn’t sure if he could even count the different shades of green provided by the mixed variety of vegetation.
Every few seconds, a burst of activity shook a tree in one spot or another as small conflicts broke out between the invaders and what Coop had to assume were wild animals. It was pretty clear that even if most humans were being driven into corners, the planet wasn’t going down without a fight. It made him want to sweep through, clearing out the elites even more. He had the strength to turn the tables against the Primal Constructs, but it was all the other threats that kept demanding his attention.
“Come on, we better hurry to make it before it gets too dark.” The tracker stated, interrupting Coop’s musings.
Coop shook himself out of his admiration for the landscape and concentrated on his feet, so that he wouldn’t slip back into the rainforest below. He chuckled to himself, as he realized what a tourist he was, no matter what he tried, even during the apocalypse. Then again, every day he felt less like the assimilation was a catastrophe that deserved that label. The real tragedy was borne from the chaos.
At the top of the ridge, they found more forest. If Coop hadn’t climbed the stairs in the side of the cliff, he wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between where they had come from and where they were. The variety of plants and animals was so extreme, it felt like every flower and every butterfly was a new discovery. The tracker kept them moving forward, identifying the trail right away, and leading the way into the darkening jungle.
A few minutes later he stopped Coop, suggesting they sit on a few rocks that were conveniently chair height. He gave a shrill whistle that sounded like he was imitating one of the many colorful birds they had passed underneath, but he received a response in the form of another slightly too human sounding whistle back. Another few minutes and a pair of younger men appeared from further in the jungle.
They were both dressed in decorated red loincloths and wielded black blades in one arm, each weapon only about a foot long and curved almost 90 degrees at the end, but the larger of them also held a thin spear with a black tip while the other had a sling hanging from his hip. The first of them wore what Coop thought looked like a flat-brimmed cowboy hat, with a white scarf around his neck, and a tight waistband that covered up to the top of his abs. The other had a short haircut with large green earrings that dangled down to his neck and a short black cape that barely covered his arms to his triceps and his back to his shoulder blades. Both men were lean, with dark tans from their bare chests to their bare feet. Coop couldn’t have any other impression besides hardened indigenous warriors.
They remained some distance away, keeping large trees near them as they both stared hard at Coop, making him wonder what they saw. The tracker raised his hand in a gesture of greeting and received the same motionless wave back, but they never glanced away from Coop. He identified them.
[Human (Level 84)]
[Eagle Commando (Body)]
[Ancestral (Slayer)]
[Human (Level 86)]
[Night Sun Battlemaster (Strength)]
[(Slayer)]
“Oh, wow.” Coop whispered, surprised by how far these guys had progressed. He thought they might even be pushing the top 10. It had been a while since he checked, so he let himself be distracted for a moment.
Day 78
1. Coop (Level 157)
2. Charlie Seraphin (Level 106)
3. Camila Alvarez (Level 106)
4. Ix-Hau (Level 105)
5. Hai Yun (Level 103)
6. Reina Kitawa (Level 101)
7. Akari Kitawa (Level 101)
8. Magnus Eichmann (Level 100)
9. Carl Schauer (Level 100)
10. Sila Tupua (Level 99)
“Oh…” He mumbled. It really had been too long since he appraised the rest of humanity.
Not only had he been distracted by all of the conflicts popping up, but he really had just moved on from the race when he pulled away from the rest, after the siege, like it was over. While the rest of the leaderboard’s progress was surprising, he had extended his lead from Charlie even more after basically going to war, and she had retained her place at the top of everyone else. Camila had also caught up, fulfilling her promise while not compromising on grinding the Slayer titles and both of them had kept up with their professions. He wondered if they were getting more experience while they traveled, maybe they would have more luck than him finding regular monster variants to get some quick quest completions. Coop affirmed to himself that he would keep track of their exploits with the leaderboards. He supposed they would already be in Neptune’s Bridge, with Marcus working on a proper transition into their network. Hopefully, things were going well.
Meanwhile, only the higher level of the pair of warriors in front of him even cracked the top 1000, and when Coop scrolled all the way down to find his position, he discovered another familiar name at level 86. Edith Buford was ranked 934 out of every human on the planet. A granny that was following along with Ghost Reef’s preliminary adventure guild grinding guide like it was a part of her daily aerobics exercise. Coop shook his head at the thought. Here Coop was, getting excited about meeting a pair of high level warriors, when he had helped develop proper monsters back home. He had to stifle a chuckle.
“We are surprised to see you, brother.” The higher level warrior stated, addressing the tracker. “It is too difficult, even for our patrols to leave the vicinity of our camp.”
“The end times are certainly upon us.” The tracker confirmed. “But this one can help.” He stated, gesturing to Coop. “He is looking to meet some of Chakyum’s priests.”
The warriors nodded, reassessing Coop with a more favorable light. “The Jaguar Sun was chasing one down a week ago.” The warrior who spoke first continued for both. “Tomorrow we can show you the rest of the way. Let us gather our strength for the night and exchange news.”