Chapter 273: King of the Hill
Without the bolstering power of Inheritance of the Mists, Coop spent triple the amount of time to defeat one third of the equivalent number of enemies. It wasn’t exactly a fair comparison, considering his personal capabilities were diminished by the previous expenditure due to simple fatigue, but the broader conclusion was the same.
Finding a way to effectively weave Inheritance into his regular tactics was a worthy goal with the potential to yield exceptional results above and beyond his normal standard. If he was going to conquer as much of the Primal Constructs in the Underlayer Event as he desired, leaving the impressions that he intended, he needed to adapt yet again, and exploring Inheritance if the Mists was a viable avenue to do so.
The assimilation was a series of challenges presented to the entire planet. Coop never had the desire to take on all the burdens of the entire world, but the Underlayer Event presented a temporary situation where he could afford to ease the weight for people outside of his current sphere of influence. By taking up that mantle, he had committed to pushing himself in a different way than he had in the past. No matter how much power he accumulated, he was still just a single person, but that didn’t mean he had reached his limits.
That’s why he would keep iterating on his use of Inheritance of the Mists. He felt like he was on the verge of establishing an optimal use for a unique application of the skill. The upgrade to Salvation multiplied his abilities in unpredictable but extreme ways. Utilizing the powers granted by apparitions came with risks, penalties, and restrictions. As he explored the limits, and occasionally played with fire, he had to accept the consequences.
He had already learned to tamp down on the power, using restraint to avoid being completely incapacitated by the ability, but there was still plenty to learn about restricting downtime. The Battlemaiden, and in a way, the Lightning Lord, had taught him the lesson in humility. In the meantime, while he waited for another chance to summon an apparition and apply all that he had learned, he used his other skills to turn the first control point into a perpetual meat grinder.
It wasn’t like he was helpless without being possessed. The fact of the matter was that Inheritance produced such impressive results because it was building off the carefully laid foundation that was the rest of his build. Otherwise, the skills of the apparitions would just be a flash in the pan.
The Champion of Ghost Reef staked his claim on an area inside the glowing perimeter that marked the area as an objective of the Underlayer Event. The objective was pinned to Primal Construct colors, since they consistently outnumbered him within its area, but for them to maintain their advantage, they had to throw a steady stream of bodies into a turbulent fountain of mists. None who entered survived for long.
Coop was maintaining a tumultuous field of Fog of War, establishing it within the borders of the control point, but the mists struggled to resist the pure mana of the Underlayer. The formation couldn’t be considered a proper domain, as anyone viewing from the outside would be able to catch clear glimpses of the Revenant roaming within. At best, it merely established a haunting milieu of danger.
Gaps repeatedly coalesced throughout the mists, only to be swallowed by swells of vapor that were in turn torn asunder by the invisible forces in the air. Even at its thickest, lower to the ground, shadows were still clearly visible inside the struggling domain, revealing the motions of the warrior at the heart of the fog as he kicked through the vaporous arrangement.
Elite Primal Constructs weren’t hampered by the obscuration of mists anyway, but Coop was using it for his own abilities. Presence of Mind and the phantasms from Legacy of the Mists both benefited with the addition of his haunting fog. He was using all of his other abilities to their fullest, whether they were active skills or merely practiced techniques.
A clenched fist, gripping the hilt of an ethereal weapon extended beyond the fog for a moment, attached to a shadowy silhouette of a spectral gladiator as it pummeled the challengers unlucky enough to draw his attention. When he spun on another target, a window in the fog appeared, revealing his grim, determined eyes, contrasting a subtle smile that told a different story of zealously kept momentum and fully indulged abyssal hunger.
Coop’s ethereal shield deflected ranged attacks that pierced the formless cover, ripping thin strips in the fog as volley after volley tried to suppress his resistance, only to clash against the solid manifestation and be flicked into the air. Counter attacks from the Revenant were relatively rare, but when they came, they were devastating.