Chapter 286: The Assembly
Coop hummed to himself, unable to contain his delight, before summoning an Apparition to momentarily possess his form and empower him while demolishing another set of Primal Constructs.
His heavy morning star cracked as if shedding its ethereal shell, turning into a translucent weapon of black void and glittering stars that was cold within his palms. Coop was already swinging the weapon through his mists, challenging the invaders for the control point that they desperately held.
When the glassy mace slammed into the Field Boss that boldly challenged the Revenant, the muffled boom obfuscated the power in the attack. The weapon sent a cascade of intensifying gravity waves away from the point of contact. The waves were silent and invisible to the eye, but their progress was easily tracked by how the monsters repeatedly lurched, crumpling further into the soil with unmistakable crunches until they were ultimately defeated.
After one attack, he released the possession and slid into the objective. The crushed enemies he left behind dissipated into mana smoke on their own, leaving yet another control point transitioning to blue.
It didn’t take long for the joyful humming to return. Coop was in an immensely good mood. Africa was simply the best.
Sure, he had to wander through the tunnels on his own, unguided and relatively inefficient compared to his experiences with Neon Park as well as the entire continent of Europe, but the local factions were way too fun. His addiction to the grind was ultimately satisfied either way.
The locals chased him around, capturing the control points while challenging him to a series of specialized duels that Coop treated like sparring sessions. Once they caught onto his route, they had contenders arriving at nearly every settlement, sometimes multiple times, one after the other. They were genuinely interesting, and despite their hostility, they followed their own code, much like the EEC.
He had been mistaken when he assumed they had been influenced by alien factions when they organized their combat styles. What they had developed was entirely human. They had actually formed medium-sized squads around supporting individual warriors that excelled all on their own. Rather than balanced parties, they had large support squads dedicated to powerful individuals, but there were so many, the strength of their heroes had been almost standardized.
The primary warriors normally competed with each other, honing their abilities so that they were each worthy of being called champions, but with the classical definition as opposed to being people who controlled civilization shards. There were far more champions than there were settlements, and they seemed to largely be based around clubs and communities, maintaining more natural human connections than what had been forced upon them by alien influences. Every village had a champion, regardless of civilization shards.
He supposed such a structure came with more baggage, but from what he had seen, they maintained rivalries in ways that elevated them all.
They showed him all kinds of amazing skills, including him in the competition among their fighters, breaking up the monotony of the Underlayer with flashes of brilliance that activated Coop’s imagination for builds. It was a blast. The Assembly’s champions actually had him looking forward to defeating the monsters even faster to see what they had in store for him next.
Unlike the European Emergency Community, they hadn’t sent a single diplomatic official to meet with him the entire time he was in their territory. It was almost like they had no leaders at all. Instead, they repeatedly confronted him with warriors that he found far more relatable. It was like they inherently understood his style of diplomacy and played along, though that was purely a coincidence caused by how they separated their own roles.