Unchosen Champion-Chapter 312: One with the Abyss

Coop fell to his hands and knees, crying out in agony as pulsating tendrils threatened to rip out of his bruised skin from the inside. Through his blurry vision, he watched in horror as prehensile stems bulged beneath the surface, creating ripples that flowed across his forearms, surging and twisting until they reached into the back of his hands and caused his fingers to twitch uncontrollably.

It was the kind of awful sensation that he never could have imagined before experiencing himself. He was living a nightmare that was so unreal it would have woken him up if he was so lucky to have been asleep. Coop gasped as he dug his fingers into the sand, refusing to let them be dominated by the pain.

On some level, the tendrils calmed down as he mentally struggled to stifle their progress, though they continued to wriggle, as if he was a newborn babe exploring the use of his limbs for the first time. They were already a part of him.

He was in shock that such torment had been his reward. He had done this to himself after becoming the first to overcome a Region Boss and then also successfully defeating the Icon of Mana that came afterwards. Briefly, he was riding the highest of highs, recognizing his accomplishments after taking a beating from the motes of power, then he was brought low by his own volition. It felt like it would have made more sense to have been infected by the Icon, but this was the result of his own progression, having been initiated long before he entered the Fallen Zone.

Tears of black blood poured from his eyes and hissed when they fell onto the dark sand as the abyss gradually became his dominant affinity, threatening to erase his Dynamo title in favor of something completely new. Spectral mana was swirling from his sweat-soaked pores, being expelled from his arched back as it was replaced and Coop heaved and spasmed.

He could feel himself changing, and he was terrified of what he would become. Flashes of the mutant undead abominations he had met in the past painted a gruesome picture that he wanted no part of. It seemed like he was on the verge of becoming an eldritch abomination instead, but rather than be gifted such a thing from an experienced faction, he had earned it for himself.

The abyss within had been born through his voracity for progression. His steady pursuit of experience gains had passed all the tests necessary for the system to take notice and acknowledge his efforts. The unending hunger of the Deep Dweller had been a parallel representation for his unwavering desire to progress. The series of Dedications had established a borderline impossible gauntlet, but he had defeated millions of enemies to cross thresholds and pioneer a new path previously unexplored within the galactic community as the system struggled to interpret the records of humanity.

The unique combination of human imagination and his own steady forward momentum was forging a completely novel route for utilizing mana. It threatened to climb straight out of his body, shedding his past self to metamorphose into a completely new species.

“No!” He roared, vocalizing his choice as prompts repeatedly buffeted his muddied vision, demanding that he complete his evolution and abandon humanity for something fresh, different, and potentially more potent. The system had long played at uplifting basic entities into new species, and Coop seemed to have made himself its most recent project. He wasn’t in need of such an uplift, and he didn’t want it. He was doing everything in his power to express that.

“Cancel!” He gasped, seeing the consequences of the transformation as unacceptable, especially after the Mists had already shown exactly how invaluable his connection to humanity could be. How many times had he proven the formidability of humanity? Why did he have to leave it behind?

“I won’t!” He shouted through a hoarse voice, reinforcing his resolve in any way he could. He wasn’t even sure why it was so important to him, but it always had been, just as he meant to preserve the environment around Ghost Reef as much as he could, he didn’t want to change into something unrecognizable, creating a schism between himself and the place he held dear.

Even if a new primary affinity could be better, it wasn’t what he wanted. He couldn’t sacrifice that much just to gain new racial passives, even if they promised the potential of dominion over immeasurable depths of the sea and deep space, as if humanity couldn’t conquer those frontiers for itself. There were prices he wasn’t willing to pay for personal progression, and losing his humanity was certainly one of them.

All he wanted was a few new skills to synergize with the ones he had already mastered. His build was already uniquely his. He had no real regrets with how it had come along and he was doing everything in his power to preserve it as it was.

In the aftermath of his battles with the Insurgents, the Omega Construct, and the Icon of Mana, Fatal Reckoning, he had selected his level 500 skill. Aside from the nasty bruises and many punctures covering his body, he was in excellent shape compared to how he usually felt after such a challenge, and it seemed as though his mission to diminish the Fallen Zone had been a resounding success. He rewarded himself with seeing where his skill choices had taken him.

It was only another rank of the passive skill, Reverence, taken through his stacking Dedication to Sethrak, the Deep Dweller. The fictional eldritch being pieced together by the system had already received 10 stacks of Coop’s newest passive, and Reverence rank 11 would be the culmination of the long project. He figured it would finally be complete and his next choice would be the start of the path, so he was excited to review many skill choices while he mistjumped the rest of the way to the continental summit.

His curiosity overwhelmed his sense of unease toward the passive skill, but he had no time for regrets. He was fighting through the pain to decline the offerings. His other notifications still lingered in his vision, as he was too distressed to dismiss them.

[You defeated Region Boss: Fatal Reckoning (Level 500)]

[+2145814 Basic Credits]

[+15 Voidstone (Legendary)]

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[+1 Jar of Liberated Souls (Trophy)]

[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]

…

[Congratulations! You have leveled up!]

[Congratulations! Your profession has leveled up!]

[Congratulations! Your profession has leveled up!]

[Skill options available.]

…

[Congratulations! You have unlocked a unique Racial Evolution.]

…

[Become One with the Abyss?]

…

[Abort Evolution?]

…

[Accept Penalty?]

…

[Pay Fee?]

…

Coop had no idea what he was doing, but he was so committed to the idea of being human and fighting for his little island so that humanity could continue on that he still resisted. The struggle was ingrained into his subconscious. The evolution was his own doing, an achievement for unprecedented success in combat against the planetary sponsor, but he reserved the right to refuse.

As he rushed through the prompts, spitting up black blood while he drove his fingers deeper in the sand in an effort to brace against the agony, mana suddenly exploded from his body, cascading as it touched the atmosphere and spread throughout what had been the battlefield. Rather than seeping from his pores as the spectral mana had, the exposed concentration of mana erupted from his being, completely disproportionate to his physical form.

A portion of the mana smoke from every monster he defeated from the point he had taken the first Dedication before the Underlayer Event, all the way until the Icon of Mana he had defeated in the Fallen Zone, escaped from his being. It felt like his soul was being torn asunder, but he couldn’t do anything but hang on. Millions of kills worth of skimmed experience were expelled from his body, forming black clouds that contoured over the land and bloomed toward the stratosphere.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The smoke rose high into the sky, like a volcano had erupted, continuing to spread until it could have been comparable to the domain of the Omega Construct itself, but less controlled, as it was rapidly dissipating while it fled into the air. Then, after what seemed like ages, it all abruptly ran out, as if he had been a wet torch that suddenly extinguished, and Coop retched up the last of the black gunk that had been building up inside of him in mind-boggling concentrations.

He leaned back, putting his weight onto his feet until he fell backwards onto the sand, surrounded by dark stains, and covered in splotchy purple bruises, blood, sweat, and grime. He felt truly weak compared to his normal self as the world spun beneath him.

There was another new notification, but he spent a few minutes just catching his breath, completely unable to move, like he had just broken a horrible fever, entire body aching. He struggled just to barely hang onto his consciousness. He watched through vibrating eyes as the smoke clouds swirled together as their remnants were slowly siphoned over the water.

When he finally built up the resolve to check his new notification, it was another repeated message that he had new skill options available, even though he had just taken the last rank of Dedication. The sound of disgust echoed from his throat, but his following cough was weak and filled with pain.

The mana smoke condensed at sea level like an enormous thunder cloud, back toward the location of the start of his encounter with the Omega Construct. He refused to entertain the idea that another Icon of Mana would appear as a result of his own actions, but the thought lingered in the back of his mind enough that he decided he had to check the prompt and prepare to retreat, no matter how quickly his consciousness was slipping away.

He groaned at the thought of more skills like the Dedications. The idea of another skill made him feel nauseous, like the smell of the exact type of food that had previously caused horrible food poisoning.

While staring up at the sky through still blurred double vision, as if his pupils had been slightly dislodged, knowing he couldn’t let it rest, he willed himself to concentrate. The whooshing sound of mana whipping across the Mississippi Sea drove him to do something, considering he might have to run for his life from the billowing smoke soon enough.

Coop was aware that he was in no shape to fight, or even move for that matter. He had to check to see if he had an out in the form of a new skill. He took a deep breath, still lying motionless halfway up the beach, flat on his back with his legs bent underneath, like the victim of a shipwreck, and opened the skill options. When he was presented with enough text that he had to scroll down, then scrolled some more, the ghastly expression on his face transformed to one of giddy excitement, if slightly delirious from agony and exhaustion. Finally, he could take a single step on the Path of the Abyss.

For the first time in hundreds of levels he was able to access a full list of skill choices. He found it within himself to remember enthusiasm, despite the stars popping up in his vision, as he finally read through Mind-based Abyssal skills available for his build. He had active skills to sift through, like Tidal Fury, Abyssal Blast, Thalassokinesis, Drowning Darkness, Depth Charge, Call of the Void, Leviathan’s Strength, Sunken Grasp, Pressure Command, Horror Kraken, Lurker of the Deep, Ghost Tide, Fathomless Chains, and Nightmare Nova. Then there were passive skills, like Deep Sea Vision, Awakened Depths, Forbidden Lore, and Depths of Madness.

Coop tried to read through them all, unable to physically move a muscle, and found each of them appealing in their own ways, especially when compared to his previous 11 sets of choices. He could easily see uses for almost every single active skill. However, it wasn’t until he read through the final passive skill in the list that he knew what he had to choose.

Depths of Madness was a passive skill that directly influenced his Mind stat, making every point of Mind double in potency. Now, at first it didn’t seem like a big deal because all that meant was that it would drastically improve his mana pool and magic defense: two aspects of his build that were already far beyond everything else he had going on. However, the fact that it was a Mind-based passive skill was appealing in of itself.

Coop had already received the Mindbender title for collecting 5 of 6 Mind-related passives. What would happen if he completed the set? He would have one passive skill for every attribute in his status. Coop was sure it would either upgrade Mindbender or give him another title. If it was half as valuable as Mindbender had been, it would be worth taking over all the other choices. But either way, he doubted it would suddenly rejuvenate him to the point that he could battle another Region Boss ranked Icon of Mana. In fact, none of his options appeared to be a 'get out of jail free’ card, and judging by the flow of mana, that might be exactly what he would need if he lingered much longer. It was time to leave, one way or another.

He painstakingly rolled over so that he could work his way back to his feet and begin his retreat, starting with pushing himself onto his hands and knees. He was facing away from the storm of mana that had formed on the surface of the sea, sending waves of energy as it struggled to coalesce. Coop was fully intending to flee as soon as he got up, no matter how slow he was. As long as he could make it back to the treeline, he should be okay to regroup.

The weakness he felt in his body was worse than the first times he used Inheritance of the Mists and he groaned as he came to the realization that he might need to crawl. Having new skills available had filled him with too much optimism. He took a deep breath and started to drag himself, willing the crashing sounds and flashing lights to just be mana doing weird things and not another portal with an enormous monster crawling into Earth’s assimilation.

His eyes landed on the treeline, but he was still seeing double, or rather, he was seeing two distinct versions of everything at the same time, and they blurred over each other as he strained to focus, never completely aligned. Looking at anything in particular felt like it would give him a headache, so he squeezed his eyes shut and did his best to move forward, crawling his fingers through the sand inches at a time before dragging one knee, then the other.

After a few feet, he was already breathing heavily, shivering, sweating, and clenching his jaw as he struggled. The nasty bruises that spread from his right hip, up to his chest, and wrapped around to his back throbbed with every rapid heartbeat, and other parts he hadn’t even recognized were injured by the Icon of Mana refused to cooperate with his efforts, forcing him to drag a leg, and gingerly rest a shoulder. Lights sparked into his sight like fireworks, but they weren’t caused by mana, he was just on the edge of consciousness.

He knew he was in trouble when an actual heavenly light drenched the dark beach in celestial hues. He had no mana to be drained, nor any manifestations to be destroyed, but when his ignored notifications trembled and disappeared, he knew something had arrived.

Given the battle he had just been through, he was sure it was Fatal Reckoning. Earth must have drawn that much closer to the Eradication Protocol, giving the Icons free reign to return immediately after their defeats. He let himself fall onto a hip so that he could roll onto his side and face the boss, raggedly breathing like he was actually on the verge of death. The treeline was a bit too far to reach in his condition before he was noticed.

Even without mana, the beauty of his Revenant build was that he was never completely helpless. He would be able to fight until the moment he really died, even if it was only as a summoner of phantasms while he used his ethereal manifestations as a crutch to prop himself up. At first, he tried to recall the tool demonstrated by the previous apparition, thinking that a shotgun could be the answer to all his problems, but he was cruelly reminded of the limitations being levied upon him when Retribution failed to yield salvation.

The ability of apparitions to breach such restrictions, as relics of the akashic record of Earth, was unfair, but then again, that was the reason humanity was being branded for destruction and the Eradication Protocol would take place. They, as a species, violated the guardrails around the galactic community. If it really came down to it, he would risk another possession, calling upon an apparition, even knowing that he might truly break down trying to wield such power in his current state. He felt true gratitude that he hadn’t let his build go, trading it away for the system’s ambiguous promises. Who knows what kind of constraints would have been introduced.

His always reliable spear manifested in his hand, spectral and abyssal mana in perfect balance, and with the help of gravity, he jammed it into the sand, leaning against it as he faced what really might end up being his final fight. His last stand would be from the sandy ground of an ugly unnatural beach, but for Coop, it was enough that it was a beach at all.

“Human!” A sweet voice echoed quietly from the sea, gently reaching his ears as the angelic being floated toward him, gown defying gravity along with her flowing hair.

He squeezed his spear and imagined the valiant army he hoped would buy him enough time to recover just a bit more. Though he felt no shame in retreating, he fully expected to have to fight to the end this time.

“Coop!” The voice continued enthusiastically, obviously excited to recognize him. He paused at hearing his own name, squinting at the vibrating silhouette of gold and blue. “Quickly! Invite us to your faction!”

“Huh?” Coop choked, throat dry, sounding like he was on the verge of more than just passing out.

“We wish to join the Lighthouse! Invite us before the window closes!” She continued, glancing over her shoulder to look at the sky before looking back at him. It was confusing how she was referring to herself in the plural form, just as the Icon of Mana had, though she spoke with only one beautiful voice instead of thousands.

“Ugh! Why is it that you are more disgusting each time we meet?” She whined as she got closer. Coop would have shrugged if he could.

She let herself drop to the ground, kneeling next to him. “Do you not recognize me?” She asked, still speaking rapidly before uncharacteristically placing a hand on the back of his head to ease his burden and her other gently on his chest.

“It is Lyriel, the Avatar of the System. This is Palisteon, offspring of my navigator.” She gestured toward her neck, leaning her head slightly to the side. Coop squinted and noticed what seemed like a worm huddling against her fair skin, appearing genuinely fearful of falling from her shoulder.

“We have come to reinforce you humans, but you must invite us to your faction before time runs out.” Lyriel continued, encouraging Coop to hurry as gently as possible.

Instead of wasting energy on responding, he complied, mostly just glad he wouldn’t need to fight after all.

[Unknown (Level ??,???) has become an ‘Initiate” level Entity of the Lighthouse]

[Unknown (Level ?) has become an ‘Initiate” level Entity of the Lighthouse]

Coop confirmed the invites as his strength finally left him and he fell unconscious, hearing Lyriel whisper in the distance that it was fine; he could rest easy with her at his side.