Unchosen Champion

The atmosphere was bursting with a strangely familiar energy. Coop let his eyes wander across the clouds, sniffing at the particularly stimulated smoke with curiosity, eventually coming to the conclusion that he was detecting an obvious variant of abyssal mana.

The flowing currents that clouded the region weren’t exactly the same flavor as Coop’s newest affinity, but they were close enough to be incontrovertibly recognizable. He imagined that if he had selected a different abyssal sponsor, they would have matched up perfectly. He couldn’t help but wonder if his first forays into the Coral Forest had primed him to receive the affinity in the first place, assuming that simply living on Ghost Reef hadn’t been enough.

Where his affinity seemed to be embracing the depths of the abyss that he was most familiar with in Earth’s oceans, something about the final layer of the Coral Forest was markedly alien, making it different enough from his own to be distinctive. If he hadn’t gradually delved into the habitat, he would never have guessed that he was still in the mana well outside of his settlement. The tinge of strangeness throughout the environment was enough to throw him off.

The slate ground, with its linear stripes and geometric patterns all pointing directly forward, to the final gout of mana, made the whole zone seem like an alien planet teetering on the verge of collapse. The mana seed was the core holding it all together. The last section was completely free of sand, instead completely covered in fine layers of ash that thinned as they approached the end.

The almost explosive gouts of mana billowing through gaps in the surface resulted in a truly apocalyptic setting, like the whole underground region was simultaneously being broken and rebuilt. It was somewhat similar to new environments that were being established by an active volcano, gradually creating new islands through what was ultimately an extremely destructive process. The mana seed was carving its own habitat through the seafloor which was then colonized by extant life.

Thankfully for the residents of Ghost Reef, the seething atmosphere was limited to the bottom of the mana well, rather than anything larger. The unusual erosion and creation caused by the churning mana wasn’t like anything Coop had seen before, but it wasn’t like he was particularly well-traveled in the first place. Still, if there was anywhere that had similar markings decorating the landscape, he was sure it would have been a defining natural wonder that even he would have been familiar with.

The pulsing illumination, glowing from floating spheres that faded from bright lavender into purple ash within the churning smoke, was even more unnatural. The vivid shade of color seemed like a rarity in the natural world, but the bubbles of light painted the entire underground level in peculiar hues, highlighting the oddities of the layer.

There were no visible growths, establishing the exposed stone as brand new real estate, freshly revealed as a result of the powerful cauldron of mana that flooded the domain. Even the extremophile invertebrates that lived in the shadow of the hydrothermal vents hadn’t made it to the proximity of the core of the dungeon. By the time they did, Coop suspected that the seed would have already sunk deeper into the crust of the planet, extending the layer further away from the surface while leaving behind a new vent to become the most premier in the area.

By the process of elimination, he knew that the Enigma had to have made its home there. Like the other individual Faders, it relied on a steady flow of mana to maintain its position as boss of the coral abyss. It made sense that the final, most potent vent would be its lair.

However, Coop still had no sense of its presence. He stepped forward, ready to approach the mana seed that had formed the entire Coral Forest, knowing that no boss would willingly give up on its territory so passively. At least, he was pretty sure it couldn’t be that easy to conquer the well.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” Coop muttered, nerves already taut as he anticipated the culmination of his grind in the form of a final boss battle.

A few seconds went by, and Coop was starting to doubt his convictions. Perhaps the monstrosity had been observing him more carefully than he imagined, and it had recognized that accepting the challenge of the Revenant was a bit too risky. Or maybe it had already identified weaknesses that even he was unaware of, and it was waiting for the perfect moment.