NOVPUB“Champion Coop!” Sila Tupua exclaimed, approaching with a big smile on his face. “Excellent strike!”
“Thanks.” Coop responded after he turned toward the leader of the subjugation force and grinned back.
Sila was bleeding from several wounds where the spikes of Elite Primal Construct Insurgents had struck him, but he seemed to be in good spirits despite the damage. Coop had only interacted with the Champion of New Zealand a few times, but from what he knew, the man was as tough as he was kind. A few punctures wouldn’t slow him down nor would they diminish his good-natured attitude.
“How’d it go?” Coop broached, gauging the army’s subdued satisfaction as mostly a positive.
There hadn’t been any cheers at the end, but to be fair to them, a week-long battle with an equally leveled Region Boss was the greatest ordeal they had ever undergone. Instead of celebrating, many had flopped to the ground, relieved that what must have seemed like a quadruple overtime ended in their victory. Obviously, it could have gone much worse.
Unlike Coop, who could engage with the oversized boss monsters directly, most people found it easier to develop complicated strategies that opened their enemies up to special attacks that were specifically designed to take them out. Teamwork was essential, but whether that level of coordination was an extra pressure weighing on them or a source of support and motivation was up to the individual.
For the army formed by people from all over Oceania, Sila was a major focal point, utilizing some abilities that were superficially similar to Coop’s Inheritance of the Mists. There were no possessions, but together he and his allies were able to generate avatars who could launch devastating attacks or support their efforts, empowered by entire arrays of people. Sila served as a nexus for their powers though he wielded plenty on his own.
There were some parallels to the way Hai Yun operated with her entourage, except Sila directly incorporated his allies into his personal abilities and they were bolstered in turn. Coop saw Hai Yun more like the step in between the partnership that Camila and Charlie relied on and the broader framework that Sila had built. It seemed like there were as many potential strategies as there were individual personalities.
To Coop, who was entirely focused on his own progression, it was all wildly complicated. When they were strategizing on the way, the rotations and coordination necessary for their plan made him glad he had gone in a slightly different direction. Adding more individuals may have broadened the pool of mana that could be wielded, but it also introduced countless potential failure points. Whether it was the Mists or the Abyss, Coop was a conduit for his own mana only. When it came to supporting his friends, he could do it with his spear.
“You arrived much faster than expected! Once it was clear we had the upper hand we decided to have you finish it, but I had no idea the end would be so definite!” Sila laughed. “We still had some fuel in the tank.”
Coop rubbed his cheek with a finger. “My bad, did I overdo it?”
“No, no, we didn’t want to lock you down for much longer either.” He added thoughtfully.
“It was fine.” Coop reassured him. “I was having a good time hiking around.” He added honestly. “In fact, I heard a bird just this morning. It must have been the first to start exploring the previous Fallen Zone. I think it’s a good sign.”
“Is that so?” Sila indulged the leader of the Lighthouse, accepting the explanation, though he probably found it hard to care too much about something so trivial.
When it came to the Unchosen Champion, Sila was one that tried to learn from every aspect of his personality. Coop rambled a bit about the trees and other seemingly inconsequential details that had made an impression on his visit as they waited for the domain to fully extinguish itself, and Sila listened intently. As he spoke, the last of the Fallen Zone’s mana was rapidly dissipating into the atmosphere, finally providing a clear view of morning in the Outback.
Sila blinked as he caught a glimpse of the unobstructed landscape and didn’t recognize it. He took a look all the way around, then turned back to Coop with an expression of confusion.
“Was it always so red?” Sila wondered, but before they could exchange any more words, a global message forced itself into their periphery.
[Warn#~g…
[Fai*#...
[Sy~^...
“Uh oh…” Coop managed.
Barely a moment after the gibberish messages appeared, they vanished. More mana than he had ever seen began to physically churn all around them. The ignition was violent, almost explosive.
It came from all directions, vibrating in the sky, the ground, and everywhere in between, forming waves that pushed and pulled before settling. His ethereal manifestations evaporated in the turmoil, and his massive mana pool drained, leaving him standing in nothing but his Under Armor and bandana. It felt like the whole world was inside of a sealed barrel that was trapped at the bottom of a waterfall so large the froth threatened to drown everything in existence.
Thankfully, the tremors of mana had started at their most intense, and were already visibly calming down, leaving a haze of red that fully engulfed the horizon in all directions. It was like being caught within a twisted version of Fog of War that failed to drown their senses, but instead painted the landscape in an ominous tint.
Even worse, the red haze that formed actually stung. To Coop it felt like he had touched the seeds of a hot pepper and accidentally rubbed it on his skin, leaving a tingling sensation that engulfed his whole body. The regular mana in the atmosphere had become corrosive, like the pure mana of the leylines flowing through the Underlayer, but instead of being excluded from its influence as an integrating species, they were the same as any other mana-influenced object. The mana in the atmosphere practically insisted that their mana join it.
The concerned sound he uttered had barely left his lips before the turbulence completely stilled and they were silenced by what felt like a vacuum. It was like they were standing in front of the cone of a massive speaker preparing to push the ultimate bass tones out. Just as Coop made the association, all of their senses were drowned out by an unnatural reverberation that seemed to rise from every angle at once. It was way more than bass.
Coop clenched his jaw, raising his hands to cover his ears, not from the volume, but from the sheer scale and dread that the layered and unnatural sound profile created. He didn’t just hear it, but he felt it. The noise resonated through the very fabric of all matter, including his own body and teeth. It was a horrible sensation that he immediately hoped would stop.
Instead of granting them a reprieve, the sound evolved. The vibrations ran through the full gamut, illustrating wavelengths beyond what humans could detect on both ends of the spectrum. It was like it took the most perfect, pure tone, to start with, then fractured it, transforming the sound into dissonant static noise that physically hurt before returning to the pure tone at jarring, pulsating intervals.
If the mana in the atmosphere was making him see red, the reverberations were making him hear red. To Coop, it seemed like it was attempting to calibrate itself, but it just sounded like an alarm blaring in a way that no one within their assimilation could possibly miss. A machine was awakening, and they were caught in the gears.
Then, as suddenly as the sound began, it faded away, just like the tremors of mana. Coop looked at the others present with eyes wide, slowly lowering his hands. Veteran warriors who had faced death countless times over the course of the assimilation were screaming, trying to drown out the vibrations with their own voices while some had collapsed into the fetal position, gripping their knees tightly against their chests, laying on their sides, just praying the bombardment would end. Sila Tupua was on one knee, head down, with a fist firmly planted in the ground where tears had squeezed through his shut eyelids. Coop was swinging his head side to side, desperately searching for an enemy, standing like he was surfing on an unpredictable wave.
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The calm only lasted a moment before a voice appeared, as if it hijacked the crazy sound profile to adopt an artificial intonation that spoke every language at once, in a million different layers. It made itself impossible to ignore.
The message was thankfully simple, if extraordinarily overwhelming and fragmented by the overlapping echoes, even after Coop returned his hands to his ears and clenched as tight as he could. It was like the voice of God, but the words denied true divinity.
“INTEGRATION COMPROMISED… VARIANCE BEYOND CRITICAL PARAMETERS… ERADICATE DISCREPANCY… INITIATING PROTOCOL… LOCAL COMPLIANCE MANDATORY…”
The announcement continued for what seemed like several minutes, specifying nodes and networks with long sequences of numbers and variables. Coop didn’t think it was a message for him, or any other humans for that matter, but that only made him wonder who was meant to be the recipient. It was speaking English and Spanish and Mandarin and every other language at once, like the personification of the universal language skill granted to members of the galactic community, but none on Earth would be able to conform.
With the sounds blaring, Coop couldn’t concentrate, and instead squeezed his eyes shut and tried humming to himself to ease the pressure in his own head while keeping his lungs from collapsing.
What ended up helping most were the lessons learned on the Path of Aloneness. Coop sought peace within himself, hoping that it still existed, and somehow he made it through. He only exhaled when the resonant vibrations finally stopped, lowering his hands for good with obvious relief. Coop would prefer if he never had to endure such a thing again.
He glanced at Sila who had stood back up when the sounds faded. The big Maori man seemed fully spooked, face wetted with tears, as if the end of the world hadn’t been real until that very moment. His mouth was fully ajar and the whites of his eyes stood out against his tan skin, too distracted to wipe his face. 𝖓𝔬𝔳𝖕𝖚𝖇.𝖈𝔬𝔪
He was staring up at the sky, where syrupy, crimson mana coated what must have been their normally invisible planetary shield. From their perspective, it spread slowly, starting from the center of the flat planes and meeting at the corners, but considering the distance and surface area, it had to have been a tidal wave of bright red energy. It was absolutely swallowing their planet and a generous portion of outer space beyond the atmosphere.
The layer of mana expanded, revealing the box that isolated their entire planet from the universe, and painted it in a color that was a clear, universal warning. The only thing missing was a skull and crossbones to better indicate danger inside.
When the layer of mana crossed the path of the sun, the reliable light disappeared, further washing the world in viscous crimson hues. The only illumination was emitted from the red haze itself, like being in a submarine under emergency lights, but across such a vast area, it defied reason.
That was about as obvious as it could get. The Eradication Protocol was upon them, and as expected, it was basically a global event that canceled all the rules that had been thrust upon them in the first place.
“Nice of them to let us know, huh?” Coop broke the ensuing stunned silence. “Can you imagine if that sound just continued the entire time?” He chuckled at an even worse scenario, though no one within earshot mirrored his relief. The glances he received suggested that even vocalizing the thought was a faux pas of the highest order.
“...Did we do that?” Sila whispered in complete disbelief, apparently struggling with the situation a bit more than Coop.
Coop just shrugged at him, already rolling with the punches. “It was inevitable.”
“But it’s too early, isn’t it? We were supposed to have more time.” Sila continued, referring to the ongoing predictions generated from Lyriel eyeballing the atmosphere and the various studies conducted by the researchers at Ghost Reef.
Supposedly, they still had a minimum of 250 days before the so-called Eradication Protocol began while most predictions landed even further out. Coop hadn’t put any stock in the exact dates, accepting that it would be upon them regardless. All they could do was get stronger as fast as possible.
“Just means we’re ready.” Coop assured him, undaunted by the change in atmosphere. “Or maybe this is just the setup.” He guessed, looking around for Icons rushing towards through the haze and finding nothing but the red-stained Australian landscape. The ambience had certainly taken a hit, making it seem like they were living through a worldwide low health warning instead of exploring Earth’s wild frontiers, but surprisingly, the geography was more or less the same as it had been before.
Murmurs started to bubble up from the army as individuals recovered from their shock. They were immediately concerned with the fact that they couldn’t access their status or view the leaderboards, then others announced that they had lost all their skills and the panic built upon itself. Hearing their worries, Coop went through the motions, accessing his ethereal mana as he called upon Retribution to resummon his good old reliable spear.
It appeared, snapping from the air as his mana responded. The manifestation solidified in its exact form, but there was something indefinably different. The spell really wasn’t Retribution anymore, or even an imitation of it. It had simply been Coop, manipulating mana himself without the system involved at all.
“Huh.” Coop grunted, not exactly dissatisfied with the result, as he inspected his spear, just wondering about all the implications with regard to the relationships between the system, mana, and themselves. “I guess maybe the Purification Chip worked.” He commented, referring to the disc provided by Lyriel so many months prior.
He couldn’t tell which of their working theories had been closer to the mark. The fact that they had held it together through the initial activation must have been a good sign that her original promises, made as the Avatar of the System, were being kept, though there was something weird going on. After Coop manipulated his mana, he could feel the tingling that spread across his skin even more aggressively.
He clenched his fist, watching his forearm flex, and felt the power that he had worked hard to accumulate, even if it wasn’t properly displayed in a convenient status page and the sensation disappeared, causing him to move on. He frowned in concentration as he transformed his spear into a short sword, then realized that Lucid Dreaming and the Path of Aloneness didn’t come nearly as naturally. He had already needed practice, but now there was another layer of challenge to keep his mana under control.
He stared at his sword for a few more seconds, scowling at it, feeling the fire build in his veins as he grew frustrated. He embraced the agitation that silently demanded he lash out until ‘Rage’ finally lit the edge of his blade in orange and red before he took a deep breath and let it flicker out.
The skills he had more practice with, going back to the Path of the Revenant and Mistwalker, manifested so much easier. He worried the difficulty might be a problem, especially when it came to the more esoteric effects that the system provided. He thought he could still detect auras, but how would he define identities, classes, or titles? He shook his head as he realized correct identifications would take a level of knowledge he simply didn’t have.
Coop concluded that while they had been ejected from the system, that didn’t seem to mean they couldn’t access the same mana pathways as they had before. Coop even imagined they could keep making new ones so long as they were creative and in tune with their mana.
His mind was still stuck on the possibility of progression, though as he considered the situation, he realized they were standing at the precipice of the end. He frowned at the notion, unable to switch off the desire for making gains.
Sila watched Coop, eyes darting from his face to the spear as it swapped to the sword, then lit up. The Champion of Aotearoa New Zealand experimented for himself and after a few moments of effort his traditional tattoos were igniting with his own ancestral mana, perfectly executed without the guidance of the system.
As they tested the situation, a growing number of individuals started to curse, or shout in pain and confusion. The alarm escalated as those with weaker constitutions or less refined mana resonance felt the corrosion of their mana. Where Coop was all tingly, some of them felt like they were being attacked by swarms of fire ants, were actively being pepper sprayed, or were even being physically altered as they lost control of their mana.
The latter almost sounded like when Coop was on the verge of evolving into a completely new entity, causing him to take notice. It seemed like the protection provided by the Purification Chip was imperfect, though they were currently in untamed territory. Their civilization shards should provide an additional layer of protection that might help the more susceptible among them.
Sila turned to the army and used his empowerment to command them to be calm and remember all the training they had already undergone. Then he ordered Callagun, Toby Jackman, and Layla Itunu to aid those who were struggling.
They had spent the majority of the previous 500 days planning for this exact scenario. Coop knew he had to head to Ghost Reef and Sila needed to return to New Zealand.
“We should probably get back to our territory.” Coop suggested to the increasingly alarmed leader.
Coop returned his ethereal armor to his body as he spoke, letting it manifest with the same snappiness that it had a million times before, as if to encourage action. If things were kicking off, they couldn’t waste time. Oblivion was nipping at their heels
Sila nodded with a serious expression, understanding the situation just as well as Coop. Humanity’s reckoning was at hand.
