Coop swept through the underground layers beneath Ghost Reef like a storm. He aggressively applied all of the expertise he had gathered while grinding within the same darkness in the past, remembering optimizations and executing them at an elevated level. The fact that his skills had grown more flexible over time meant that he was more free than ever to go all out.

With a mass of phantoms revealed to be occupying the Underlayer, his initial focus had been redirected to clearing out the underground layers. The human survivors wished to eliminate as many battlefronts as possible to ease the scenario back into their control, so the Champion’s first mission since coming back from the Ark was to wipe out the threats throughout the caverns. Basically, he would secure their flank before addressing the rest of the surface. If he went fast enough, he might even return before the fighting picked back up in earnest.

At first, after the position of the phantoms was revealed, Coop wanted to rush toward the underground tunnels with the utmost urgency. He thought the phantoms needed to be rescued. From his perspective, learning that ten million newly arrived phantoms were stranded in the Underlayer was an emergency event. The leylines had famously introduced humanity to the erosive power inherent in mana and the phantoms would be completely exposed due to their ethereal nature.

During the Underlayer Event, all of Coop’s manifestations were constantly put under pressure, so he knew how dangerous the situation could be for the phantoms. The erosive power of the leylines was the reason the rest of the galactic community never developed the underground tunnels beyond using them passages across their planet. If they tried to establish themselves in the cavernous Underlayer, none of their creations survived for long.

Balor’s Tower, which had coordinated the teleportation between layers was long gone. The only remaining link between layers were the spiraling ramps that circled the chasm, like a man-made version of the Ark Tower. That meant that the phantoms would be caught between the leylines and the forces of mana that had thoroughly claimed the deeper layers beneath Ghost Reef. Coop already knew how challenging a tower climb could be, and he had been the most powerful individual human on the planet, supported by the Avatar of the System and her ancient alien companion. Freshly summoned phantoms would be in an incomprehensibly worse situation.

However, both Gideon and Kayla assured him that there wasn’t any immediate danger to the phantoms. They were sent to the Underlayer because it was the safest place for them to assemble. With some of the contracted aliens offering their perspectives, they did their best to explain why that would be the case to Coop.

Since the Underlayer was a part of Ghost Reef territory, and the civilization shard had been fully upgraded, the affinities of their settlement had become consistent with the leylines. Rather than pure mana eroding all other categories and returning them to the most basic structures, they expected it to actually preserve the mana associated with Ghost Reef. It was the entitlement granted through taking control of the entire planet.

Though Coop didn’t exactly understand the how or the why, basically, a synergistic relationship had been established between the fully upgraded shard and the source of the leylines. In theory, the Underlayer should actually be the safest place on the planet for members of the Lighthouse after the final settlement upgrade. Still, Coop couldn’t help but remember the storm he and Lyriel had to withstand to reach the Ark.

It was rare for a settlement to have such clearly defined attributes, and even when they did, for them to match with current Champion was another variable that would be difficult to replicate. Ever since the first settlement upgrades, Ghost Reef had been influenced by Coop’s exact affinity. That had been the purpose of the optional objective to retrieve a relic that would enhance the settlement’s mana and how he had ended up collecting the spectral relic from the Zombie Lord in the first place. The final upgrade had expanded on that, revealing how the planet itself was cultivating mana from its own core.

If Coop hadn’t chased after the optional objective at Jones’s insistence, or if he had completed it with a different relic, or if Coop hadn’t maintained his position as Champion, the circumstances for Ghost Reef would be different. A ton of different variables had to align for Ghost Reef to achieve such unity across territories.

It wasn’t uncommon for global capitals to have unique characteristics associated with their founders. Usually, it was accepted as a sort of special bonus for the members of the faction that distinguished them from any other, with not much more effect than a city title. It seemed like the new human species bonus would have much more significance. It was like an ethereal link with Earth itself, which enabled them to become phantoms.

Coop entered the underground in awe of Ghost Reef. He had the sense that he needed to live up to some lofty achievements. Luckily, he was the one most responsible for their progress.

It was difficult to define the fiend he had been before. When he was hunting the Primal Constructs layer by layer and preparing to enter the Coral Forest mana well in a race to steadily increase his level across several thresholds of diminishing returns, he was already breaking into another echelon of strength. And yet, compared to the absolute force he had become after scaling up with the Eradication Protocol, he had only been a fledgling hunter back then. He had progressed beyond all the restrictions placed upon an assimilating species by the system and he fully utilized every idea he could think of to expand his influence. Monsters were invading his territory, and that was meant to be unacceptable.

The regular forces of mana had no chance against the Unchosen Champion. Without the crimson haze to accompany their assaults, they were just high level monsters who showed a particular fixation toward members of the Lighthouse. They confidently moved through the darkness in dense mobs, steadily seeking their fated targets among the passages, only for the atmosphere to subtly change as they searched.

Ethereal mists coalesced throughout the caverns, marginally brightening the darkness little by little. But when Fog of War should have ceased its empowerment, after fully developing into wispy vapors that obscured the caverns, it continued to energize.

Like its caster, the ability had also evolved beyond the well-defined skill it had been when granted by the system. The mists had grown into something reinforced by Coop directly, rather than something channeled into existence with specific effect. The domain could be intensified until it imitated Coop’s Drowning Darkness abyssal skill, weakening his targets with suffocating aura damage as he personally appeared from the fog with a cadre of phantasms and swept the caves clean.

The way Fog of War had shifted actually made Coop nostalgic for properly defined progression. Without the system designating their specific evolutions, the skills that he had relied upon were growing indistinct and murky. As he experimented, he revealed how certain abilities had features that overlapped or otherwise intersected with each other. If he took his observations to their ultimate conclusion, it made it seem like every skill was the same, only colored by the flavor of his affinities. If he iterated an infinite number of times, he was pretty sure he would end up with one extremely flexible ability that was more or less identical to the result of someone else’s journey.

At that point, what was the purpose of making a build? As someone that had greedily enjoyed the incremental evolutions his build had undertaken, he didn’t like it. Then again, the system would have simply prevented the revisions to its defined skills in the first place. If that was the only alternative, he wasn’t entirely against the freedom they had acquired. He just thought there needed to be some middle ground. Something like the system, but without the baggage created by its original purpose. If they could have that, he thought he could be happy.

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With or without clearly designated development, Coop focused on refining what he could. Physically, his movements were sharper, his target acquisition more accurate, and his stamina was off the charts. If he wasn’t feeling strained, he pushed himself even harder, seeking to reach the thresholds that would represent tiny steps forward. He was driving himself to the edge of failure, pushing the limit little by little until his personal boundaries were forcefully extended and he could restart the process of breaking and building.

Reusing his old skills with his expanded understanding of his mana pool was more of an exploration into the unknown, but because he approached it in the same workman-like fashion, he made progress in his own way. Solidifying his aura had essentially finalized the mana sense that Lyriel had taught him, utilizing the currents of mana within his body that were demonstrated by his most powerful skills.

Perceiving mana was only half of the equation. The other half was training the perception, like training vision or smell. It wasn’t easy, since he still had trouble isolating the feelings associated with mana specific senses, but like anything else he accomplished, repetition was key. The channels that ran through his body became more defined as he practiced and all the talk of planet cores, faction cores, and the mana cores inside his enemies, gave him something to focus on.

Once Coop had the feeling, it was a bit like doing something routine with an unusual condition added on top. He was training a new, unused muscle. The process reminded him of the times he tried to brush his teeth with his opposite hand. He couldn’t even hold the toothbrush properly, and he ended up with bristles in his nose once or twice, but if he practiced a few times he could quickly raise his proficiency. He had already gone through a similar process when he taught himself to throw his shield with his non-dominant arm. Practice makes perfect.

The only real problem he had while grinding was that he lacked the personal goals represented by level increases. The system had forced them to go up, but in essence, all directions were viable. He just had no clear way to define the increments of advancement. Had Fog of War leveled up? What about his mana? The answer was yes to both, but in an undefined way that made him feel wistful for the glowing spotlights the system would have been showering him with.

Either way, the forces of mana that occupied the darkness of the vast cave systems between the surface and the Underlayer were vaporized by a combination of the mists and aura. In a twist, it was done in almost the same fashion as how the Eradication Protocol had sought to eliminate the existence of the members of the Lighthouse for their connection to humanity.

The layers of Ghost Reef were being carefully fumigated by the leader of the territory in a reversal of the crimson haze that had sought to destroy humanity. He was the Icon of Humanity himself, his misty domain at least as potent as any other Icon, though it maintained its own characteristics.

Though Coop should have been tired from his experience in the Ark, like the residents of Ghost Reef, he was filled with excitement at the prospect of turning the tide against the forces of mana. Once they got their priorities in line, he was ready to get things stabilized. He went level by level, all the way down through the underground, until he was clearing layers that hadn’t even been occupied by any people yet.

On the way, the different groups who had sheltered in Ghost Reef celebrated his return in various ways. Coop found himself having miniature reunions in between battles while strangers called to him like he was their son or brother. From Neon and Platinum with their gangs of soldiers to Tzultacaj and the other Jaguar Elites near the top of the layers, Coop spent almost as much time fighting as he did greeting people, turning down gifts and shelter with a promise to return when the job was done. Then, in the deepest levels, the Emperor Penguin with Mika and Matt were as hospitable as a borderline freezing layer could be, and President Na Ho-Jung and the other Koreans tried to get him to stop fighting for drinks, as if they had already won.

His return was commemorated like a triumph over the apocalypse all the way down. It wasn’t even all about him. Instead, it was that he had come to symbolize the Lighthouse faction itself, something they were all indelibly a part of.

Coop was surprised by what he found the entire time he was interacting with people. He had been worried that, like for Lyriel, there would be a long road of recovery ahead of them, but the collective struggle had ended up bringing them together in a way that was otherwise impossible to recreate. In a way, it reminded him of how the earliest residents of Ghost Reef had united during the Siege Event. They had created unbreakable bonds that would carry forward into the future. He knew that once things settled down, they would be haunted by the memories of the Eradication Protocol, but they had built a network of support that would never falter and spread to every single individual.

While Coop took care of business, he couldn’t help but observe how the connection between ordinary humans had transcended past relationships. Every living person was linked together through an incomprehensible shared adversity. They relied upon each other, and they had somehow made it through the darkest times in history together. The stark reality of facing true annihilation side by side had forged a new type of bond that couldn’t be compared to those that existed pre-mana. Whatever damage they had taken was borne as one, with mana making their collective spirit a reality.

As they fought, they had been stripped of the pretenses and natural posturing that existed under normal circumstances. They were forced to acknowledge their vulnerability in a manner that few ever had to experience. Helping each other endure and overcome the shared event gave them all a sense of empathy and understanding that went beyond regular emotions. The unspoken recognition that they had all gone through something together meant that they were permanently united.

Because the enemies were so much stronger than each of them on an individual level, every person’s survival hinged on the actions of their comrades. The trust they had to have in each other after the absolute reliance necessary to survive would be unquestionable. Then, there was the unified purpose to resist the Eradication Protocol and fight the common enemy in the forces of mana. In order to live, personal differences and individual ambitions were overridden by the collective goal of survival.

Coop was sure a psychologist could explain it to him better, but even someone like him could recognize they had undergone levels of extreme stress and enhanced emotions in a way that accelerated bonding. When it came to such a dramatic experience as the Eradication Protocol, the kind of event that no humans had ever had to endure in the same fashion, he doubted anything could break the connections that now existed between members of the Lighthouse.

Unwavering trust and loyalty were a given, but they also had a deep understanding of each other, guaranteed acceptance of flaws and strengths, and an eternal connection that would absolutely deliver support for each other no matter the obstacle. Despite all the damage they had surely taken during what would absolutely become the defining experience in all their lives, they were making it through the tunnel with an unshakable commitment to one another’s well-being.

The entire time Coop had climbed the Ark Tower, he had been conscious of the struggle they were undergoing. After experiencing the reception of each and every group, he couldn’t help but feel proud to be a part of the Lighthouse, and be surprised by their resilience. The community that had formed was something special. Outside of extremely small groups, he doubted many past humans could properly relate.

Obviously, not everything would be perfect, but even someone as accustomed to acting alone as Coop could appreciate the network effect that had been established. Coop suspected that they might come through the entire disaster even better than ever, entirely because of mana itself. Each and every person represented a portion of the overall mana pool and due to their comradery it was all supportive, and after upgrading the settlement, they could add the planet itself to their network.

As Coop got a better sense of the overall morale, he couldn’t help but be hopeful for the future. He had thought just living would be good enough, but somehow they were exceeding expectations.