What had Coop done? Even he couldn’t really explain it. He stared at the palm of his hand, surprised that such a simple command had actually been effectively received by the alien ship. He had struggled so much to get anything done at the start, and since then, only his control of mana had changed.

Despite his newfound success with the Ark, he didn’t like how vague and fuzzy the rules were becoming. To him, it was important to have a proper structure to serve as a foundation for things, but without a system to guide them, he felt a disconnect between the unending possibilities of mana and the pre-mana reality that had grounded his original perspective. He was a bit scared of the chaotic potential, even if he had been a source of disobedience in the order of the previous system.

He slowly curled his fingers into a fist and squeezed, reinforcing the sensation of wielding mana with complete independence and envisioning possibilities that would satisfy him. When he raised his eyes they were filled with ambition for the future.

The Eradication Protocol was canceled. Humanity was no longer a target for the system, and never would be again. They may not have become members of the galactic community, but he had just granted them a free pass to avoid triggering an automatic response should they enter system territory. Rather than be branded by the system like the Exiles, they had been exempted from assimilation and integration altogether. The unassailable hope of the Lighthouse had been secured.

As a result, the Ark had gone back into an inactive and dormant state, one that wouldn’t interact with them any longer, no matter how proficiently he wielded his mana. The already manifested forces remained on the planet, but the hexagonal cells used to reproduce the individual units were shut down and tucked away as if they had never existed in the first place.

More significantly, the corruption of mana on the planet had ceased. The Ark was no longer imposing its authority on the leylines, leaving it so that the concentrations of mana throughout the world could go back to normal. Coop shook his head at the very idea that mana could be normal at all, but that was where humanity was at this point. They couldn’t turn back the clock on the revelations of mana’s existence. Relinquishing the planet’s mana was effectively the end of the Eradication Protocol.

The crimson haze steadily dispersed from the upper atmosphere until the dawn sky was clearer than it had ever been before. As it thinned, the gradient of miasma sank and eventually disappeared. Even the surface of the Gulf of Mexico became more or less visible from the top of the mountain. Coop felt like the elimination of the haze was conclusive proof that the tides had turned.

Unlike the initiation of the Eradication Protocol, which had been a turbulent assault on their senses, canceling the whole event was more subtle. The erosive energy of the Eradication Protocol was just gone, switched off, though there probably wasn’t much left for it to destroy. Every human product, from the fine particulate matter in the atmosphere to the microplastics that had invaded ecosystems were gone, but with them went the cities and a portion of human life that was difficult to comprehend. The planet was saved, but human society would never be the same if it was recovered at all.

As long as his companions survived, Coop was encouraged by the notion that the Lighthouse could rebuild something worthy of their efforts. That would be enough to satisfy him, but the manifestations that had become the forces of mana still roamed the earth, and they weren’t just a few. They wouldn’t respawn any longer, but they had such a significant amount of time to establish themselves that Coop had trouble envisioning even a distant future that didn’t involve significant combat. They would have a countless number of opponents to hunt and eliminate.

Then there was Lyriel. At first she shrieked and panicked as she observed the tool for her revenge slip away before falling into a numb silence that was, frankly, more than a little disconcerting. She impassively watched the mana in the atmosphere go back to normal with Coop as he took stock of the situation. In the summit of the Ark, he had secured hope while Lyriel faced despair, fulfilling the final prophecy he was meant to forget. The reverse would have been true if she had her way.

When she moved to his side, he thought she might try to fight him or at least just hate him for robbing her of her wrath, but the truth was that it had all been lost before they had made any progress on the tower at all. In the end and without words, she conceded that Coop had been the only reason they made it as far as they had. She had lost any authority to make the call when he had dragged her the rest of the way up the tower. Her mission had failed while his duty persisted. All of her emotions were turned inward and directed at herself.

Palisteon seemed happy enough, maybe even shocked that they had any success at all, chirping excitedly at them both, but Lyriel stoically watched the horizon. Her eyes were unfocused and watery, but they were speckled with subtle flecks of silver that Coop couldn’t help but watch drift across her irises. He wasn’t sure if she was entirely conscious of her surroundings.

“Don’t worry, Lyriel.” He broke the awkward lull that formed in the moments after shutting the Ark down. “I’ll take responsibility.”

She glanced up at him, eyes glimmering in the renewed light, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

“You’re just passing the torch to me. I’ll make sure to take good care of it.” He added, though even he knew that what he was suggesting wasn’t something that could be solved easily. “We can fight to make this the last Eradication Protocol that the system gets to impose.”

“We?” Lyriel mumbled, dejected, doubtful, and sure he didn’t mean her.

Coop pointed toward the horizon, where tiny pillars of black smoke were highlighted by flashes of lightning despite the otherwise calm weather. There was clearly a war still being fought far in the distance.

“The Lighthouse.” He declared, grabbing an ethereal spear as it solidified at his side, then followed the manifestation with his full set of armor. “We’ll make sure it shines properly.”

Lyriel seemed surprised to see any signs of life, especially given that they could also observe hundreds of demonic Icons wading through the ocean like lost giants, suddenly losing the zeal of eradication, but having no other purpose outside of proliferation and conquest until the end of the planet’s quarantine. They were like alien automatons that had lost communication with their controllers, mostly still following the default instructions that defined them. Icons were meant to hold position until they gathered enough forces to attack. In this case, they had plenty of support and were already in the middle of an offensive.

The titanic demons kept their arms above their heads. The water climbed all the way to their chests, but the depth of the Gulf of Mexico near the Ark should have been extraordinarily deep. They were also surrounded by so many minions, the ocean was mostly obstructed in wide sections that made it tricky to be sure there wasn’t actually land beneath all the stone and blood.

Coop picked his target, but he spared Lyriel an extra few words before he got back into the fight. He genuinely considered her contribution to their efforts as critical, since without her early influence he would have been much more inclined to stay on his island throughout the assimilation. It was the Avatar of the System that had fueled the continued urgency of Ghost Reef. From their perspective after the Siege Event, they could have taken it easy, but she warned them of what was coming.

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“Unbelievable...” She whispered as she witnessed continued resistance to eradication, her voice barely audible even to Coop standing right next to her.

He nodded at her encouragingly, recognizing the disbelief that appeared in her face, not to say ‘I told you so,’ but to inspire her to try to look at things from a new perspective.

“A lighthouse represents hope, guidance, and security, right? I don’t see why our faction should deviate from such a fitting symbol.” He concluded. “You’re a part of it too, you know.” He added. “No more being branded for eradication.” As she realized what he had done, she turned back to face him, reassessing him with a surprising intensity.

He shied away from her stare, unused to making eye contact with anything but her runed blindfold while he faced the sea through thin clouds. “Besides,” He continued, “some people need a sense of purpose. Resisting the system will be a proper outlet after we defeat its forces. We won’t let it keep doing what it wants, especially after it tried to eliminate us.” He tapped the butt of his spear into the ground, amused by the idea that she had carried a torch that was igniting the Lighthouse for the rest of the galaxy. “...But that’s for after we regroup and rebuild.” He reminded not only her, but himself.

He lifted his spear and flipped his grip with a little toss before wrapping himself in his fully realized pool of mana so that he blazed with enough energy to have the former Avatar of the System stepping back. The spear inherited the power, illuminating itself with waves of energy that flickered from its surface and faded in the air.

Coop hopped forward before planting his foot such that a pulse of mana surged across the floor of the Ark, like the visualization of a soundwave extending from his stomp, then launched his spear. It flew high, covering miles that gave it a dramatic arc. His target was the nearest Icon between himself and Ghost Reef.

The spear streaked across the brightening sky like a shooting star, leaving a trail that was faintly aquamarine as his abyssal and spectral manas mixed together. The spear divided into fragments, like it was breaking up in the atmosphere, but it was actually splitting into more spears. The fragments were also dividing, so that the thrown spear became an exponentially growing barrage.

As he stepped closer to the edge, watching the spears fly to make sure he got the timing right, he spoke over his shoulder. “Take your time. You can come home whenever you’re ready.”

“You too little buddy.” He directed at Palisteon and the alien healer chirped back enthusiastically.

Coop mistjumped to the main spear without hearing her response, joining a rain of projectiles, right before they collided with thousands of enemies that were still miles and miles away from the reefs that surrounded the island settlement. When the aura infused spears collided with enemies, they pierced through their armor with little resistance. Then, when the missiles exploded with fragments of mists, there was nothing left of any stricken monsters. They were annihilated.

He swapped to his two-handed axe as he himself fell, raising it above his head as he rushed toward sea level at terminal velocity. His blade crashed into the back of his targeted Icon, aimed for the neck of the giant demon. The edge crashed through the stone with all of his momentum causing damage to an area a hundred times as wide as where he had made contact. A blast of aura shot across the ocean with the return of the Unchosen Champion.

Magma erupted not just from the wound but from the Icon’s eyes and mouth as it had a split second to start a roar before it was destroyed, its head crashing into the ocean while its body slowly toppled. One of the many Icons wading through the sea collapsed back into the water, bubbling and steaming as it dissipated in the abyss. Coop was already choosing his next target.

He swapped weapons and flickered between Icons, letting the minions be destroyed in the splash damage, expecting far more resistance than he actually found. He had really underestimated how overpowered he had become. He had been fooled by the extraordinary defenses of the Final Judgment Icon. It had him thinking that he had a long way to go before he could comfortably stand toe to toe with the most powerful forces of mana, but with his pool of resources, he was already their match. They fell like the Siege Bosses of the Primal Constructs during the Underlayer Event, barely slowing him down with anything but their numbers.

For them, he was the inescapable judgment they were meant to represent. He forced the armies of monsters to turn toward him just to be crushed by his shifting weapons and the aura they propelled. Rather than a grind, it was a farm session that left thousands defeated in his wake.

Coop swept through the masses, skipping across the surface of the ocean with mistjumps and Icon executions, rapidly closing in on Ghost Reef to get a good look at what was happening. He had projected confidence to Lyriel, but the truth was he was worried about what he would find. Every day that he had spent in the Ark had weighed on his thoughts.

At first, when he was close enough to gauge the status of Ghost Reef, his stomach dropped. Seeing the island without a lighthouse or any sign of the fort was a gut punch that made it seem like he was too late. The reliable bastion had crumbled, but thankfully, the sandy strip in the ocean had not been completely defeated.

In fact, the defenders were surging past the shoreline and splashing into the shallow water, aggressively pushing beyond their entrenched positions as they took advantage of the sudden relief created by the end of the Eradication Protocol. The lack of corrupting mana and the dispersal of the enemy domains had people who had been pushed to their limit reenergized. The spark of hope they had desperately fought to keep alive had reignited into a blaze.

They moved in tight formations, incredibly coordinated, relying on teamwork to overcome monsters that should have represented a significant gap in power. Just like Coop, they refused to make any additional sacrifices as they swiftly picked apart the legions and hordes that encroached on the shoreline. The main parties that had been with Ghost Reef since the start of the assimilation supported their efforts, evenly distributed among the rest.

It was an immense relief for Coop to see Charlie’s lightning, Madison’s heavenly domain, and Shane’s shimmering domes. The Cleary Brothers led others while benefiting from Derek’s buffs on the north side and Gibson’s party operated as a vanguard for Emmanuel to send enemies flying on the south, freed from the trappings of gravity until it magnified a hundred times at the worst possible moments. Laurie had her squad providing cover for the seniors that smashed through the shallows to the east and the west was protected by a series of specialized ranged attackers, sniping across the beaches from prone positions. Though they had lost the high ground provided by the walls of the fort, they hadn’t misplaced their firepower, and pale angels and aggressive demons crashed like they were running into an energy field when they were pierced by bolts of elemental energy.

Coop spotted most of the alien members of the Lighthouse holding position along with groups of awakened animals on the still dry land, making sure it stayed free from enemies. What he didn’t see was a single phantom or wraith among the humans, aliens, and animals. There were no ships or siege weapons, and not a single piece of any structure remained on the surface of the settlement. It made it seem like the people that were fighting had been lost at sea and trapped on the small section of dry land instead of previously having a fortified base.

Coop cleared a path around the island himself, barely registering the shouts of recognition as individuals identified his skills cleaving through swathes of their enemies starting on the northwest side of their defenses. He stuck to the more distant sandbars, linking the efforts of the defenders with his own.

His weapons stretched with his aura, becoming waves of energy instead of solid blades, and he used them to wipe out everything that had reached near enough to wade instead of swim. The forces of mana continued to encroach the outer reef, and even to him, the numbers felt oppressive, but he was able to help establish a pause in the battle that had been raging on the island itself.

When he turned back to the island, he took a deep breath, trying to settle his complicated feelings. The sight of the familiar, but completely changed island made some conflicting emotions squeeze his heart. The fort really was gone, and not even a hint of the cobble streets or service buildings remained. It should have been soul-crushing, and a part of him that remembered all the effort that had gone into maintaining every brick and leaf ached with pain and frustration.

And yet, he spotted the flashes of smiles on the faces of the defenders, undaunted by the destruction, their unwavering spirit reflecting from their eyes. Then, among them, he noted the half-buried coconuts that already had fresh green shoots splitting their husks, eagerly reaching for the newly revealed sun in the clear sky.

In that moment of observation, Coop felt revitalized. Of course he wasn’t finding Ghost Reef exactly as he left it. That was always an impossibility that grew more complete with every second he was away, but he felt grateful anyway, recognizing the unspoken promise in the eyes of the survivors. They would persist.

Somehow, even when basically nothing remained, it felt good to be home. He didn’t know if it was the sand, the water, or the air, but it was more than enough for him. Even when everything was stripped away, the people, the memories, and the inextinguishable will to keep driving forward were etched into the essence of Ghost Reef.