Unchosen Champion
Chapter 388: Withdrawal

On the shore of the Min River, in a mountainous area of Fujian, China, a trio of enormous phantom battleships idled with uncanny stillness. The way the vessels floated on the water made them seem completely weightless, belying their actual magnitude with their unique constitutions. Each had triple masts and an equal number of decks, with nearly a hundred cannons a piece. They were mobile fortresses armed with more than enough siege weapons to contend with the most dangerous threats, and that was before considering the hundreds of powerful crew members who had diligently trained their skills throughout the assimilation.

The passengers were patient in spite of the constant threat of violence, an inarguable demonstration of confidence and trust in both themselves and their leaders. They stared into the haze, unflinching and alert for monsters. The quiet helped them utilize all of their senses to detect enemies.

The ships silently hovered on timeless jade waters, the depths barely visible through the veil of extraordinarily thick mana that sought to smother them all. The crimson fog had swallowed the world whole, leaving only the immediate surroundings observable through its suffocating filter. The former pirates watched for the telltale radiance of the forces of mana most commonly found in the region and listened for the strange hymns that accompanied the more evolved variants.

The banks were almost entirely hidden from their vision, with all but the nearest shore a mere suggestion. Blurry shapes of dark green and brown sank into the oppressive red, hinting at the dormant vegetation that awaited a morning that might never come. The silhouettes of gnarled weeping willow trees, limbs caressing the surface of the water, barely emerged from the shifting haze. They were like faded charcoal sketches on a blood red canvas when visible at all.

What had once been a thriving city at the fork of an ancient river was reduced to glittering dust. The skeletons of flat-bottomed sampan fishing boats sometimes appeared like forgotten ghosts, meekly poking through the surface, their golden lanterns no longer illuminating the waters. Any hint of the boatmen or their oars was long gone, consumed by the dense energy, adding to the sense of abandonment and dereliction. Soon, any clue that humanity had been present would be completely wiped out.

The river itself was the only reliable presence, gently reminding the ships of its existence with timidly lapping waves that barely rocked the reinforced hulls. The air was cool and damp, spreading the influence of the water even as the red haze dominated the atmosphere. The beacons carried by each ship, more like mobile mana pylons, contributed to a pocket of relative safety enjoyed by all the sailors.

The beacons established a minor territory that mitigated corrosion, but they were hardly providing more than a dying candle on a stormy night. It would be better to embrace a civilization shard, or better yet, return to the core of the Lighthouse in Ghost Reef, if they sought relief from the pressure.

They were wasting valuable time in the wilderness, but because it was the last call, Hai Yun forced herself to be tolerant as the minutes ticked away. The rest followed her lead without so much as a hint of complaint.

In their eyes, she had proven herself multiple times before the Eradication Protocol began. She had practically risen from the dead in exactly the same way as Coop, at least to those who watched the leaderboards. The similarities put her in great esteem, but it was her unremitting efforts that truly earned their respect.

She had suffered greatly beneath the weight of responsibility, blaming herself for every catastrophe that befell her companions. The Lighthouse had provided her with guaranteed relief, and in doing so, gave her renewed purpose without ever compelling her actions. As a result, she was a prominent figure by the time she returned to her homeland, supported by countless powerful allies, new and old.

Even though it was only for a relatively short time that she was back, she was glad to have been given the opportunity to atone for what she saw as her many failures. This time, she would be able to leave without so many regrets.

All the remaining settlements and outposts in Asia had been evacuated, their remaining populations currently embarking on ships similar to the ones idling on the river. By the time she was back on the ocean, the New Zealanders would be shipborne as well, leaving nearly an entire hemisphere to the corrupting enemies.

Mana pylons and even civilization shards were being overrun before the local defenses were willing to give in, ultimately collapsing rather than admit defeat. The Lighthouse was forced into rescue operations more often than not, with powerful individuals like herself throwing themselves into danger just to rescue handfuls of persistent survivors before they were ultimately extinguished.

The incredible feats of the Cleary Brothers in Tasmania had already spread far and wide, but Hai Yun had no intention of such heroics. She would prefer to minimize the theatrics in favor of safety and smoothness.

While some individual isolated locations could have held for much longer, it no longer made sense for the remnants of humanity to spread themselves so thin. Especially when their withdrawal would be majorly complicated if they delayed much longer. The carefully coordinated checkpoints were being called to evacuate all at once to avoid an oncoming disaster. It was Hai Yun that had made sure the exodus avoided falling into chaos as desperation set in. Her personal experience was pivotal in that sense.

Word had spread that the Panama Canal was at risk of falling, with Ghost Reef calling for them to return home before it happened. Without the passage, the planned fallbacks would have to drastically expand their paths of retreat, skipping numerous stages if they ever hoped to reach the promised sanctuary of Ghost Reef.

Instead, all the holdouts, from the outposts in the Middle East, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Indonesia, and all the way to New Zealand were falling back together, entering the enormous naval theater that was the Pacific Ocean as a unified convoy. Combined, they hoped to form an overwhelming force that couldn’t be stalled by the enemies who engaged with the armadas protecting their sea routes.

The Pacific Republic, dominating the west coast of North America, had been called to move first, reinforcing the Grand Horde and the Jaguar Sun in Central America to keep the door open for the millions of ships still in the process of transport.

Nearly half of the entire global Tempest Fleet had coordinated to make the withdrawal possible, including the armada assigned to Hai Yun, but she had broken off from the convoy, chasing down rumors of some who had failed to break their siege or leave their base in time to evacuate. The captains promised they would be able to make up any lost ground when they crossed the Pacific, confident in their speed, so they volunteered to extend a lifeline. Hai Yun feared she was putting the sailors and her attendants at unnecessary risk, chasing down ghosts, but there would be no new regrets created by making sure.

“Mistress.” A bodyguard addressed her with his head bowed, refusing to raise his eyes out of an unnecessary level of respect. “The scouts have returned with confirmation. The angels are encountering significant resistance near the location of a former outpost.”

Hai Yun nodded at the report, seeing no reason to delay any further. “Let’s go.” She ordered, and her entourage of bodyguards relayed the message as they followed her march onto the shore by leaping into the shallows from all three ships. There was no time to waste.

They moved quickly, passing massive stone karsts that loomed in the haze before reaching the rural region where a lone tulou preserved the last bit of humanity on the continent. It was surrounded by the glowing celestial entities known as angels, each hovering like a ball of energized white light just a few feet above the surface. The illumination made the ground seem soft, blurred by a haze of blissful luminescence.

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These were the lesser examples of the creatures, not having spawned the individual features that transformed them into biblical horrors. They would sprout ragged wings or other desiccated limbs as they evolved, growing more and more powerful as they became more corporeal. The worst was when they added twisted and contorted faces who hummed as they fought. _{\n(o)v.e\l.com}

Her elemental dragons manifested first, clearing the way as they popped the energized entities, letting the alien forces explode into waves of eerie light that crashed like shattering glass. From the perspective of the fortified tulou, the flame dragon seemed to be dragging a rainbow across their stronghold.

Hai Yun parked herself on an earthen embankment that may have once been the foundation of a neighboring structure. From there, she guided her dragons around the tulou, circling the battlefield in ever expanding circles while her attendants went to work.

This was a mission for the largest versions of her manifestations, embracing shock and awe as they flanked the siege. Both dragons became enormous, far beyond even what she had ever imagined for fantastical creatures. A mere flap of the fire dragon’s wings created waves that burst hundreds of angels at a time. The lightning dragon merely glided over its targets, and a constant barrage of passive lightning held the enemies at bay.

Two hundred souls joined Hai Yun’s entourage as they marched back to the ships, now hounded by the broader horde that had trapped them in their fortress. She helped a young girl, sweating like she had a fever, eyes bloodshot from tears and corruption, as she struggled to carry a flemish giant rabbit that was twice her size. The rabbit was unpressured by the corrosion of mana, but none of the humans were being spared.

Hai Yun had no words for what she saw as cruelty in not even sparing the children,but her heart was light as they approached the reinforced phantom battleships. It wasn’t long before they embarked on their oceanic journey, the last humans from the largest continent in the world, escaping to safer harbors.

But it wasn’t the end of their struggles. First the weather turned. Then, they reached the massively violent naval theater that had consumed the Pacific since the day that the Eradication Protocol began. It was a storm of wind and rain almost as violent as the magical attacks being thrown back and forth.

The ships climbed waves that were so massive, they easily could have been mountains, then surfed into the valleys, where it felt like the entire ocean had opened up to let them sink into its depths. The hull was constantly struck by floating debris, evidence of the many phantom ships that had already sacrificed themselves in the war for naval dominance with the angels as their opponents.

Muffled booms echoed across the wild sea. Thousands of similar rumbling sounds interjected over the wind and shouts, periodically chasing each other down the shifting canyons of water, making them seem closer than they actually were.

The sources were rarely obvious, but every human recognized the burst of ship cannons as the war raged on. The shroud of crimson weighed heavily on their vision and the ocean formed physical walls of water that separated them from their comrades, but the thumping proclamations could not be silenced. They were the defiant sounds of human resistance.

Flashes of rainbow light reflected along the surfaces, catching just the right angles to travel far as the enormous white capped waves curled over the rails of the ships. Beneath the red haze, a deceptively heavenly glow had developed, particularly noticeable as it exposed the first few inches of otherwise dark, impenetrable ocean as it churned.

The Pacific had adopted a new aesthetic during the Eradication Protocol as the forces of mana demonstrated their freedom from the constraint of land. While the demonic armies of fire, stone, and blood had many variants that were capable of low flight, they were not unique in that aspect. The dragons were similar, with some of the winged creatures capable of launching themselves above the ground for long distances, but the golden serpent variants were even better swimmers. Still, neither family of monsters compared to the angels. They were the ones who were completely indifferent to the surface that they conquered.

The sound of crashing glass immediately following the explosion of cannon fire indicated one of the glowing wisps had been destroyed somewhere nearby. Despite the number of enemies steadily increasing, the sound of their defeats was relatively stagnant. The massive conflict involved hundreds of thousands of ships and millions of enemies spread across miles and miles of rough sea.

It didn’t take long before Hai Yun’s convoy was in the midst of the battle, where spells flashed through the haze and entire ships were swallowed by the abyss. The unexpected variable was in the third parties who sided with humanity, thanks entirely to the presence of their beacons.

A massive pod of dolphins joined the main battleship carrying Hai Yun, riding their wake. Most of the dolphins were simply playing, leaping ahead and racing the ship, but the lead individual was a gnarled veteran of mana, a Chosen creature who had protected the unleveled members of its community against seamonster and Primal Construct alike. It now suffered from the corrosion of mana, but managed the pressure by returning to the proximity of the larger ships carrying beacons in between sessions of battle.

It knew better than to linger for too long, disappearing back into the depths before the larger entities joined the armada for the same reason. Increasingly intense rain lashed the crew, each droplet stinging like the end of a whip, and the wind howled as the angels formed a choir that echoed across the surface. The constant hum was eerie, but each time one was killed, the chiming explosion was a signal that humans weren’t outmatched yet.

As the ocean spray mixed with the rainwater, reducing visibility to near zero, though even with perfect visibility they could only ever hope to spot more churning mountains of water, the legends of the deep began to stir. In the brief flashes of rainbow light created by the death of an angel, or sometimes barely outlined by sparks of phosphorescence deeper in the water, the crewmembers caught glimpses of vast creatures rising to the surface.

Sometimes it was a single colossal tentacle, thicker than the ship’s mast, slick with a slimy sheen and tipped with rows of innumerable razor-sharp suckers, reaching around the ship from the blackness, almost gently, as if embracing the calm mana filtered by the beacon. Then, it was a serpentine body with scales like obsidian that were individually the size of the hood of a car, coasting past the submerged portion of their hull without breaking the water tension. An eyeball that was half the size of the ship, glowing with the bolstered intelligence brought by embracing mana, watched them from the inside of another colossal wave. Hulking silhouettes appeared in between waves, only visible for a split second, exposed as the troughs between waves sank, appearing like living islands emerging from below, barnacled and covered in algae, blowing a spray of water that could have been as forceful as a volcanic eruption. Even the sea monsters enjoyed a moment near the beacons, the depths failing to shield them from the corrosive effects of mana.

They were careful with the ships, instead lashing out only when the winged angels assaulted the vessels. It was as if the native monsters of the ocean recognized the solace provided by the artificial beacons and sought to protect them from the forces of mana while they passed by.

If it wasn’t for their contribution, the Lighthouse might have lost the Pacific. The presence of an Icon of Mana had bolstered the angels beyond what the sailors could handle, but it was being forced to contend with the inconceivable animals that had conquered the world’s oceans while humanity cleared the continents. It was like the ocean itself had united against the primary angel, forcing it to blast enormous beams of rainbow light into the depths almost as much as it used its power to cleave through the many ships that strafed its foothold.

Hai Yun wasn’t there to fight, but she loaned her strength as the last of the Tempest Fleet fled toward Panama. Her ship ended up being the rearguard, but the Icon didn’t have an opportunity to give any real chase, hounded as it was by errant tentacles, spiked bones, and enormous jaws.

Once they escaped the storm, the angels were reduced to their light ball forms, too weak to delay them from reaching the canal. As they passed through the protected channels, members of the Jaguar Sun leapt onto the ships, finally relieved from their posts, forming a last line of defense along the shores. Tzultacaj only requested a lift to the opposite side, aiming to reach Corozal on foot to bolster one of the last outposts remaining anywhere on Earth.

Hai Yun could see why she had been forced to retreat early. From the north, the Panama Canal was encumbered by the fiery demons burning through defenses with their legions of soldiers. From the south, countless parasites swarmed, flooding the forest after conquering the city with spiked limbs and clicking teeth.

After Hai Yun’s ship passed through the canal, the forces of mana claimed the territory, finally taking control from the humans that had held to the last second. The ship's cannons did little to prevent the inevitable fall, but as the Lighthouse successfully recalled its forces, Ghost Reef would be even further bolstered.