Unchosen Champion-Chapter 293: Super

“Super” Siwarak Supitaya was doing his best to keep busy. He was resting after a set of 1,000 crunches, just laying in the endless dirt, watching his chest rise and fall as he caught his breath. His pair of shadow companions mirrored his actions at his side, despite being unreal manifestations of himself. They weren’t really tired. The act of imitation was meant to make fun of him for even being able to feel exhaustion.

He ignored them, as usual, instead staring at the ceiling while his breath slowed. The vapor high in the sky slowly drifted across the spacious caverns, giving him the sense that he was situated on the bottom of a massive lazy river, gazing up at the surface. The shadow companion on his left bent one leg and rested his other ankle over it, bouncing his raised foot impatiently, while the shadow on his right put both hands behind his head and silently pretended to snore.

Super’s experience with Settlement Events was that they were full of downtime. The Siege Event left days between waves for everyone on the planet except Ghost Reef, and the Underlayer Event was similar, except humans were in control of the timing of the battles. During the assimilation, they were periodically stuck within mana domes, forced to play to the beat of the system. Super had decided that, more than anything, the events demanded patience. It was a virtue his clones didn’t have.

Super tried not to waste the downtime, continuing the same bodyweight exercises he practiced before the assimilation, but multiplied beyond his previous limits. Off in the distance, over a million Elite Primal Constructs stood around like metal soldiers on duty, ignoring his presence so long as he didn’t get any closer. Only the raid bosses shuffled around, catching the omnipresent light on their smooth surfaces and reflecting it across the Underlayer. The largest of them all, a Prime Construct, basically stared him and his clones down, daring them to draw a bit closer.

When Super lifted his head, it was there like always, monitoring the closest potential enemy as if a single human was a threat to the massive Siege Boss. Super scowled at the towering being, though he didn’t do more than that, staying on his back on the ground. He knew he couldn’t do anything about his audience, forced to simply bide his time. His clones gestured rudely at the alien invader on his behalf.

Super let his head drop back to the dirt. “Just wait. We won’t let you aliens have your way.” He threatened, still defiant despite the creeping feeling of helplessness that developed as time went by.

Three other control points were set up in the same manner, with a single lookout making sure no new developments caught the locals by surprise. It was tedious work, like being a night shift security guard for a particularly uninteresting building.

The small army of people who had entered the Underlayer with Super were set up around their connection to the surface, a full 10 miles away from the fortresses of the invaders. They formed an encampment at the bottom of the chasm they used to access the underground, more confident in their ability to secure their position than claim any new ones.

In the meantime, the Primal Constructs did nothing but wait. For them, this part of the event was obviously not meant to be the main activity. This was their staging area. They had their sights set on the surface.

He’d love to take another shot at destroying the invaders before they had a chance to reach their goal, but his instructor had relayed the mission to hold off until the Grand Horde joined them. The scouts of the well-known cavalry army carried a message that promised reinforcement in the defense of Can Gio early in the event, but they still hadn’t shown up. It had already been weeks and Super suspected they would need to save themselves, but the leaders of his settlement were far more patient than he and his clones were.

Super took a deep breath and sighed with dissatisfaction, forcing himself to relax before he started his next set of exercises. Can Gio was one of the largest settlements on the planet, but they still needed reinforcements. The feeling of powerlessness that permeated his thoughts was discouraging, but as long as he was alive, at least he could seek to do something about it.

Besides, the Underlayer Event was a rare chance for the two divergent forces to properly cooperate. Can Gio may have been one of the largest settlements, but the Grand Horde was an even larger empire. He doubted any could compare to them.

The thick jungles of Can Gio’s territory were not conducive to the Grand Horde’s structure, but the same was true for the commandos of Can Gio should they venture further into the interior of the continent. In a short time, each civilization had specialized based on their environments. The lack of territorial competition between the two made them natural compatriots, especially against their common enemies.

Super was merely a scout and sentry for the Vietnamese mega settlement, though he was originally from Thailand. Like most of the survivors from Mainland Southeast Asia, he had ended up in the expansive mangrove treefort city. Before the settlement territory reached his community, he was constantly hounded by countless Primal Constructs. Thankfully, Can Gio had grown rapidly because its initial population of both human and animal residents was quite large.

Training out in the wilds was certainly valuable, but anyone who properly conditioned themselves recognized that rest was equally important. Repeated fights were already pushing Super beyond his limits before he connected with Can Gio. As much as he wanted to develop his powers, he wanted to survive even more, so he was easily recruited by their scouts. The settlement had become a haven.

The southernmost district of Ho Chi Minh managed to protect a civilization shard, forming a stronghold that was hidden among its countless winding rivers. They used the territory in its immediate vicinity to develop a sprawling network of dwellings. People from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, the Malaysian Peninsula, and as far as Southern China all found safety among the local militia. However, the normally reliable Vietnamese commando teams weren’t built for offensive actions.

On the surface, they relied on camouflage, ambushes, and traps. They were extremely successful in securing hundreds of miles of their territory with concealed or stealth actions on the Primal Constructs. Unfortunately, an open field assault on entrenched positions just wasn’t playing to their strengths. That’s why they were waiting for reinforcements from their closest, and only, ally.

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He shook his head, wishing it were possible to grow strong enough to not need help. He thought the system was unfair, springing the assimilation on them with no warning. If they had explained the rules before the assimilation began, he was sure humans would be in a much better position, but it seemed like they were meant to start with a handicap.

Super rolled over and started a set of 1,000 push ups, trying to sweat the frustrated feelings away. Thanks to mana, training was much easier these days compared to before. The intensity of his workouts had vastly increased, but his recovery times were practically nonexistent. When he was a motorcycle courier in Bangkok, aspiring to become a professional Muay Thai fighter, he could never do a thousands reps of any basic exercise at the gym the way he knocked them out now.

His shadow companions continued to taunt him, one performing one-armed push ups while the other exercised at twice his speed, trying to double his count before he finished. They didn’t seem to understand that they were merely passive skills to his build. Super refused to give them the attention they wanted so badly.

Fight, exercise, rest, repeat. That was life now. A vacation meant being left behind, and being left behind meant a higher risk of death. More than anything, Super wanted to live, but paradoxically, that meant constantly risking his life by fighting alien invaders.

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People like Super, who roamed throughout the territory, were better equipped for offensive actions than the main commando teams, but too few had similar skills in Can Gio. If not for the Grand Horde’s willingness to support their territory, all but the most loyal residents would have already been seeking alternatives to avoid an open field battle within the Underlayer.

Coincidentally, joining the Grand Horde was the most popular plan of collective action, but the leaders of Can Gio valued their independence to a substantial degree. They left being absorbed as a last resort, though they had accepted one of the Grand Horde’s settlements as their subordinate shard in order to upgrade the city. The way Super saw it, they were already so closely aligned, they might as well have been a part of the same group. Together, it may have seemed like they covered clear weaknesses of the other, but really they had adapted for completely different roles.

Super wasn’t so educated to truly understand all of the historical, political, geographic, and cultural reasons for Can Gio’s commitment to independence, but he understood that their values of self-determination, resilience, and pride were major factors toward the success of the settlement in the first place. The region was close to being completely lost to the alien invaders, but their refusal to pick up and move was the reason it wasn’t.

They had kept their community open for people like him, so he didn’t mind supporting their efforts with his shadow striking abilities. The towering mangrove jungle had become as much of a home as he ever had before.

Can Gio’s sprawling mangrove forest and intricate waterways housed over ten million humans and a multiple more if including the animals, expanding across a hundred miles of hidden coast. The lush mangrove forest was full of small collective abodes and hidden treehouses.

Super shared his own elevated camp, hidden in a wide fork of branches high above the ground, with a family of colorful kingfishers. The cheeky armies of macaques that truly owned the forest often teased crocodiles in the river he used to access his spot, and they were so diligent about defeating the Primal Constructs, Super had never seen a single alien variant within the mangroves.

He was sure that his tiny claim on the territory was safe while he was underground because of the miles and miles of twisted roots and confusing waterways filled to the brim with protective wildlife. It wasn’t a place that any type of invader could easily penetrate; all the more reason to make sure the Primal Constructs didn’t get any free fortresses through the Underlayer Event.

As Super worked toward completing his 1,000 push ups, reiterating his resolve to defeat the conquerors that were staged beneath his current home, he thought he felt the ground shake. In the corner of his eye, he noticed the Prime Construct Siege Boss shifting its body away from his spot in the dirt, and he stopped his exercise to observe. Both of his clones did the same.

Super was still on his hands and knees when the Siege Boss had its entire head blasted by what seemed like an invisible force of pure, unadultured momentum. Metal shrapnel blasted across the Construct army, catching them by surprise as much as he was. The metal soldiers staggered as debris smashed into them.

Super was shifting his weight so that he was sitting on his feet, just in time for tiny motes of energy to start popping up all around him. He flinched, trying to avoid the balls of energy as they manifested right before his eyes. They emerged from the dirt and coalesced out of thin air as mana was gathered from all across the sector of the underground around the Primal Construct’s control point.

“What are these?” Super mumbled, distracted by the developing light show.

Confusingly, both of his permanent companions disappeared before he could look at them, unable to answer the question even if they hadn’t. He frowned, trying to understand what was happening.

Following one of the motes with his eyes, he watched it twirl through the sky on a roundabout path, spinning as it picked up speed and was drawn toward the air above the Primal Construct fortress. In moments, the otherwise completely empty plains revealed thousands upon thousands of the tiny fragments of glowing energy, all being attracted to a single spot over the panicked army of alien invaders.

The aliens were discombobulated by the sudden demise of their foremost defender, struggling to reorganize themselves in the single second that had passed after the abrupt attack.

Super, equally confused, tried to assess the battleground. His eyes immediately went to the center of the vortex of energy motes, and realized a lone figure was looking down on the monsters, hovering in the air with both arms raised above his head. Beyond the figure’s open palms, the motes were coalescing into a rapidly growing ball of energy. The man at the center of it all had his hair whipping in the wind, rising straight up as he accumulated an unbelievable amount of power in such a sudden fashion.

Even Super felt like he was standing at the precipice, approximately a mile away from the freshly chaotic battlefield. The stranger had gathered such an incredible amount of energy in such an abrupt manner, Super barely had time to form a coherent thought.

The aura of the man was growing brighter and more intense with every speck drawn in. The air began crackling as mana raced into the glowing sphere of power at ever increasing speeds. The ground vibrated as if barely resisting the gravity of the man and his mana bomb.

Then, after what seemed like an eternity, but was maybe ten whole seconds, the figure unleashed his attack with a roar that barely reached Super’s ears. The massive glowing mana bomb smoothly sank down from his hands, moving with a deceptive slowness that made it seem delicate while simultaneously evaporating every Primal Construct that was even near its path.

The light was so bright, Super had to shield his eyes to avoid being blinded before the bomb touched the ground. Even from as far away as he was, it felt like he was standing at the edge of a collision between heavenly bodies. Heat wafted across the Underlayer in a wave, a mere preview of what was to come.

When the bomb finally sank into the ground, it caused a cataclysmic explosion that sent shockwaves of dirt rippling across the staging area of the Primal Constructs. Super was in the process of rising to his feet, but the ground shook so that he stumbled back to his hands and knees, and he had to lift his forearm to shield his face from the debris that flew through the air. Dirt, mixed with bits of disintegrating Primal Constructs, bounced against his skin.

First the heated wind had blasted into him, forcing him away from the explosion. He barely avoided rolling through the dirt like a tumbleweed. Then, the actual explosion shook the world, making him fall. Afterwards, the direction of the air pressure abruptly switched, and he dug his hands into the dirt to avoid being blown into the battlefield.

Super’s only thought was that he needed to send his clones back to warn his instructor, but it was obviously way too late. They had no business lingering within the Underlayer. A greater force than the Primal Constructs had arrived, and it was horrifying. They would be lucky to avoid being swept up in the destruction.

After the explosion, which somehow felt as though it lasted longer than the buildup, everything had grown silent, and even Super held his breath, still on his knees, not wanting to be the one to disturb the moment of peace. His visibility was reduced to a few feet as clouds of dust and mana slowly settled back to the ground.

He gasped as a figure appeared in front of him as if it had manifested out of thin air. It was undoubtedly the culprit of the attack. He trembled as he realized he had inadvertently attracted its attention. Before he had the chance to beg for his life, the man spoke to him directly.

“Hey bro, you good?” The stranger tilted his head, but Super couldn’t respond. The man shrugged at his silence before continuing. “Sorry to interrupt your workout, but could you move into that control point over there?” The man asked as if he was someone that could be denied. “I’m gonna keep it moving, so I’ll leave the rest to you.”

Super had a blank look on his face as he sat back on his feet for the second time. He was turning the man’s words over in his head. He said sorry? Why? He could do whatever he wanted. And leave the rest to him? Before Super could muster a stuttering response, the man vanished into the clouds of mana.

As the atmosphere settled, Super finally witnessed the aftermath of the mana bomb’s destructive power. The once mighty enemy army was gone, their fortress turned to dust, and the land they had claimed for their stronghold was completely charred, forming a massive shallow bowl. An empty ring representing the control point was all that remained of the previous daunting invasion. In the distance, the other three objectives were displaying various shades of blue that he might have noticed in between exercises if he had made it that far.

Super, still in shock, staggered to his feet and trudged toward the control point, somehow feeling too exhausted to finish his workout. He’d just sit and have a think instead. As he went, one of his clones stuck its head out of his shadow, as if checking if the coast was clear for both manifestations. Super couldn’t even be mad.