Chapter 226: The Covenant
Coop blinked as the light of Chakyum’s level gains ultimately faded. The heavenly spotlight had come steadily at first, forming a solid beam of light that made his eyes water while the levels overlapped. It could have been a tractor beam for the density. Over time, the experience slowed such that there were full seconds between each level. Coop numbly assumed diminishing returns had kicked in pretty heavily, reducing the rewards granted to the leader of the Cult.
Coop’s mouth was dry as he tried not to think too much about the details of what he had seen. He felt sick to his stomach after witnessing the Cult’s enormous sacrifice. There was something about the impersonal and seemingly voluntary nature of the mass offering that disturbed him to his core. The ghostly howls and haunted distant screams that faintly echoed across the sky implied that it hadn’t been exactly as simple as it first appeared, but the sounds were drowned out by a high pitched ringing in his ears.
Eventually, the sounds ceased altogether as the giant window in the hellish sky diminished, shrinking as the overcast clouds recondensed. The shattered rift diminished until it disappeared and the clouds reclaimed the sky.
Identifying the man in front of him yielded the kind of limited information masked by question marks that was usually reserved for the contracted alien residents. It was clear enough that he had gained a massive quantity of stored experience. Coop checked the leaderboards to better understand what he was dealing with, expecting the worst.
Day 113
The Lich (Level 5,102) Luc-Hau (Level 437) Lom-Hau (Level 390) Coop (Level 197) Sila Tupua (Level 136) Toby Jackman (Level 134) Callagun (Level 134) Hai Yun (Level 130) Reina Kitawa (Level 127) Akari Kitawa (Level 127) Coop exhaled a held breath as he read the list. A familiar but forgotten name topped the leaderboard, reclaiming its position from the very start of the assimilation. All the regular Priests were gone, along with the sacrificed Acolytes, but the final number of accumulated levels was nowhere near the worst of what he imagined. Admittedly, at some point calculating the level gap between himself and his opponent seemed like an exercise in futility.
Coop cracked a smile at the absurdity. “Heh.” After rereading the levels for a second time, he chuckled senselessly to himself. He was reeling with shock, feeling a bit unhinged, as his own reaction surprised him at least as much as the actual numbers.
The Lich gazed at Coop from a much less gaunt face than before, though his skin was an inhuman gray that went beyond simple paleness. Coop suspected that he was some other kind of human, like Jones after his Bloodstone racial evolution. It seemed as though increased racial levels necessitated unnatural changes as well.
The old man had let his hood fall down as he broke the sky, revealing a powdery bald head and thick tangled eyebrows of white. Black and green energy continued to glow from the sunken sockets on his face, completely hiding his actual eyes. An unmistakable expression of confusion painted his visage. He hadn’t expected his challenger to start laughing, of all possible reactions.
“Did you just sacrifice 20 million people for 5,000 levels?” Coop asked incredulously. “That’s it? Are you stupid?” He exclaimed to the astonishment of The Lich.
Coop was rattled. He was having difficulty parsing his thoughts with what he had witnessed and filing them into his understanding of the new rules of reality. It was easier to view everything from a completely impersonal perspective than to consider the massacre for what it was.
The fact that so many deaths had resulted in such a level boost was catastrophic, and not because it was a tremendous increase that elevated The Lich firmly into the territory of aliens in the galactic community. Coop felt it was a disastrous result because it was just so wasteful.