Chương 25: The Run Nobody Would Sponsor

Meno jumped, kicked off nothing, and slammed his shoulder into the shrine wall for the ninth time. The impact did not kill him. That had become the insulting part. Death at least reset the mistake and gave chat a clean beat to laugh at. Bouncing off ancient volcanic stone like a drunk moth left him standing there with his body tilted wrong, one foot buzzing from a missed False Wings timing window, while forty-five thousand people watched him pretend the last attempt had taught him something. Viewers: 45, 238.

The number hurt more than the wall. An hour ago, the stream had carried the heat of the mythic design reveal, the wife spam, the karma necklace, the whole stupid wave of attention. Now the crowd had bled down to the people who either enjoyed watching practice, had his stream pinned as background noise while playing Veyrath, or had forgotten to close the tab. He bent his knees again. Jump. The first false step buzzed under his right foot.

He kicked too hard and drifted sideways, then forced his hips under him before using the second air-step as a braking tap. His boots hit shrine stone with a skid instead of a crash. Better. Chat was half asleep and half cruel. practice arc loud pest training montage this is why people edit videos 45k still insane bro stop crying internally whelp movement school go fight something"I have to practice," Meno said, because arguing with chat was easier than admitting he agreed.

"You think I'm going to be good at air jumps immediately? In a full immersion system? You kick wrong and your stomach tries to resign." The dragon had gone back to sleep during minute twenty-six. That was fair. Even ancient territorial cataclysms had limits. It lay curled across the cavern, ember veins pulsing under ash-black scales, one eye shut and the other barely cracked. It had watched him slam into two walls, overcorrect into the shrine, and land on his back with both feet above his head.

After that, it had apparently decided he was beneath active attention. Meno considered jumping over it and heading for the exit. He dismissed the thought before it got expensive. The dragon's body covered too much space, its breath field killed him casually, and if he bounced over its skull like a circus idiot, it would stop being sleepy in the most final way possible. No. Practice first. That was one of the downsides of streaming. To be worth watching later, he had to spend time becoming less bad now.

Viewers hated practice because practice was repetition without a payoff, and repetition without a payoff looked like failure until it suddenly didn't. Turning the stream off would keep the bad attempts private, but it would also punish the people who stayed for the vibes, the arguments, the routine. More importantly, average viewership mattered. Last month had paid him six credits. Six.

A platform contract with real ad terms, better split, maybe front-page placement, required numbers that did not look like a dying group chat. High average viewership at the end of the month meant credits measured in rent instead of pizza slices. So he practiced under the eye of anyone bored enough to stay. Jump. Kick. Kick. Land. Jump. Kick too low. Recover with second kick. Knees absorb, shoulders forward. Jump. Delay. Feel the window fade. Land without wasting the second step.

The Soma-X7 helped more than he wanted to admit. The capsule held his body through the motion without the cheap rig's strap pull or laggy haptic buzz. False Wings was still finicky, but the feedback was clean. The air-step had pressure, angle, and timing. It could be learned. Meno wanted a proper weapon badly enough that it became background pain. Panic Pump sat in his class kit like a loaded gun he couldn't aim, because the Ashen Crown Tail Spike was still not a recognized weapon.

The Common III dagger in his bag was a joke against elemental bodies. His sword was red. His backup was worse. He had burst tools, movement tools, and the wrong piece of dragon stuck in his hand.

"Later," he muttered.

"Proper weapon later. Try not to die before then. Easy." After another dozen drills, he stood at the ledge overlooking the Morgras hollow. The city below had settled into a pattern. Not calm. Alert. There was a difference. During his earlier dive attempts, he had watched bodies return. The Morgras did not respawn instantly, and they did not stay gone forever.

Around thirty minutes after a kill, heat gathered around old patrol points, black glass rebuilt itself in ugly layered flashes, and Cinder Hounds crawled back out of fire channels like the city was remembering them. Half-hour timer. Maybe exact. Maybe close enough to ruin him. There were around thirty enemies below if he counted moving patrols, fixed guards, hounds, and the Glasswalkers near the pyramid. Then the boss at the top, the Morgra figure chanting under the fiery eye.

Meno still did not know what the eye was. Ritual focus. Boss mechanic. All categories bad. If he took five to ten attempts per monster, the first kills would respawn before he cleared the last. That made the math simple. He had to clear the whole thing fast, or the whole thing was hopeless. He looked down at the black-glass pyramid and memorized positions again. Hound near lower fire channel. Pair of Glasswalkers under the left bridge. Three near the treasure path. Rift-Speaker on the mid-tier.

More by the lower stair. Pyramid guards around the base. Boss at top, eye hovering above altar. The plan was disgusting, which meant it had a chance. He lifted the Tail Spike.

"Simple and easy. False Wings baits them down, fast kills pull patrols in, and I clear the bodies before the half-hour respawn window catches me." simple he says noway this works EASY BTW do it 100% fail Meno smiled.

"Ready to witness a speedrun? Level twenty-seven versus fifty-plus, guaranteed zero XP, all major guilds enraged." The viewer count ticked upward. 48, 912. The crowd smelled blood again. Meno backed away from the ledge until he had room for a run-up. He tucked the Tail Spike in both hands, point down and slightly forward. A horizontal dive had been too slow and too readable. This needed to be angled. Head down, body slanted forty-five degrees, aiming first at empty space between patrols instead of at the target.

False Wings would adjust the line late. He ran. The ledge vanished under his boots. Air rushed up around him as the pyramid and road network widened below, all hard angles and glowing threats. He aimed for the gap between two patrol groups, letting gravity build speed until the ground became a problem. First air-step. He kicked down-left, changing the dive without killing momentum. His stomach tightened as his body snapped onto a new line.

He pulled his legs in, flexed through the core, and pushed them forward so he arrived feet-first instead of face-first. The Tail Spike punched through a Cinder Hound's back. The creature cracked open, coal ribs bursting around the dragon material. Meno kicked off the impact point with his second False Wings step, not upward but forward, using the dying hound's body and the air-step together to rebound. A Morgra Glasswalker turned. Too late. The Tail Spike drove through its ember core.

[Kill Confirmed: Cinder Hound] Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. [Kill Confirmed: Morgra Glasswalker] No XP. Expected. Meno hit the ground rolling, alive, HP shaved but not gone. He came up running away from the pyramid, dragging attention toward a lower road where the patrols could converge. Two steps. A molten arm stretched from behind and pierced through his chest.

[Death | Morgra Glasswalker — Molten Reach] [Respawn: Ashen Crown Shrine] [Dropped: Cracked Prayer Bead x1] Meno rolled off the shrine stone and sprinted back toward the ledge.

"Could be better," he said.

"Still two for one." TWO FOR ONE LIFE loud pest dive route that roll was sick died instantly after but still He did not check positions. Checking wasted the rhythm. The first dive had shifted the city, and now the only way through was tempo. Run. Jump. Fall. Kick. This time he aimed at a Glasswalker near a bridge support. The first False Wings step bent his line around a heat flare. Spike through back. Kick again, collide shoulder-first into another Morgra, spike forward, core cracked. Two kills. Roll. Run.

A Rift-Speaker raised both arms. Meno jumped forward, then air-stepped sideways, dodging the first molten reach line by an inch. He landed near a fire channel, pivoted, and sprinted away from the pyramid to pull the converging pack toward the accessible road. The larger Morgra spoke in heat pulses, sending black glass erupting from the ground in a fan. Meno became a hedgehog made of failure.

[Death | Morgra Rift-Speaker — Glasswake Command] [Respawn: Ashen Crown Shrine] [Dropped: Bent Spoon Head x1]"Success," he said, already moving.

"They're converging." SUCCESS??? he got turned mush rift-speaker scary whelp logic honestly they moved down The next runs blurred into a brutal, stupid rhythm. Dive, kill two, die. Dive, miss one, kill one, die. Dive, kick late, spear hound, skip off the body, punch through a Glasswalker's shoulder, die to Molten Reach before landing clean. Dive, hit treasure scaffolding, recover with second air-step, stab a hound through the skull, land, sprint, die to three heat lances crossing over the road. No XP. No loot.

Only thinning numbers and chat getting louder. Viewers: 73, 119. The dragon slept through most of it, because apparently even repeated bombing did not qualify as interesting after the first hour. By the tenth successful dive, twenty Morgras were down. Meno's control improved in ugly little increments. He stopped thinking of False Wings as a jump and started treating it as a correction. First kick changed angle. Second kick decided whether he lived for three seconds after impact.

The remaining Morgras clustered near the pyramid base and lower stairs, looking up between patrol adjustments. Hounds avoided obvious shadow lines. Glasswalkers angled away from ledges. Rift-Speakers lifted glass shields when dust fell from above. They were learning again. Meno checked inventory between respawns for the first time in too long. Junk padding: 48. His mouth went dry. The tribute pile had cost him. Deaths had cost him.

The shrine had eaten prayer beads, dead buttons, tokens, string, spoon heads, and all the little garbage that stood between him and dropping Epic III dragon material into a volcanic prison. Forty-eight chances before the system started reaching for things he cared about. Maybe fewer.

"Okay," he said.

"Tighter." account bricked soon that is not enough protect dragon toes stop dying then impossible challenge"Next jump is for… uh…" He glanced at chat.

"MudWizard99." WAIT WHAT DEDICATED JUMP MUDWIZARD REPRESENT do me next dedicate my death He ran. The MudWizard99 jump killed one hound and one Glasswalker before a molten spike took his head off. Chat loved it. So Meno kept doing it.

"For LeftBeef." Dive. One kill. Death.

"For RentIsAMob." Dive. Two kills, bad roll, death to fire channel.

"For WifeLawyer."

"No," Meno said mid-run.

"Banned name." He dedicated that one to BlueberrySteak instead, hit a Glasswalker clean, then used the second air-step to flip forward with more flair than was required. The spike punched through the last hound near the lower bridge, and Meno pushed off the ground to avoid the first counterattack. The second counterattack caught him in the ribs, but chat had already gotten the somersault. The last five enemies were harder. They anticipated the drops now. Molten Reach attacks came upward while he was still airborne.

False Wings turned from movement into survival. He had to dive, wait for the reach line, kick ninety degrees off empty air, let the attack pass, then spend the second kick correcting back toward the target. That left no recovery step after the kill. One kill per life. Then death. Again. Again. He killed the final Glasswalker with a forward somersault because chat had become unbearable and because, somewhere deep in his broke streamer brain, he knew clips mattered even when the move was stupid.

The Tail Spike pierced the seam under its neck. He kicked away from the ground afterward, failed to fully control the landing, and hit the stone flat on his back. Half his HP was gone, and somehow he was still alive. For once. Chat erupted. STYLE BONUS WHELP GOT HANDS LOUD PEST AIRLINES dumbest thing I have ever seen watching history and regret Meno staggered upright at the base of the pyramid. The city below was quiet in the wrong way, empty of hounds, Glasswalkers, and Rift-Speakers.

Nothing stood between him and the black steps now except the pyramid, the chanting boss at the top, and the fiery eye hovering over the altar. He had cleared the room before the timer. Probably. He started up the steps. This attempt was scouting. He reminded himself of that with each stair. Scouting meant information, not success. Scouting meant dying was acceptable if the death bought mechanics. Scouting meant he was not going to tilt when the boss erased him. At the top, the Morgra figure turned.

It was taller than the Glasswalkers, its body wrapped in black-glass plates shaped like ceremonial armor. A molten mask covered its face, smooth except for three vertical vents. Above it hovered the fiery eye, huge and lidless, spinning slowly inside a ring of ember script. Meno inspected both. [Hostile: Morgra Crown-Binder | Type: Elemental Humanoid | Threat:??? | Trait: Volcano Conduit] [Hostile: Crown-Sight Eye | Type: Ritual Focus | Threat:??? | Trait: Judgment Beam] The cavern shook the instant he reached the upper platform. The eye lit.

"Oh," Meno said.

"Fast." A fiery beam erased him in a line so bright the world turned white. [Death | Crown-Sight Eye — Judgment Beam] [Respawn: Ashen Crown Shrine] [Dropped: Useless Festival Token x1] Meno sat up, lifted one finger, and said, "All planned." No one believed him. literally erased planned btw boss laser show volcano conduit means bad what now genius no mobs left timer running Meno stood and opened his inventory.

"Do you know why VRMMOs are king?" he asked. Chat began listing every wrong answer with enthusiasm. pain settings wife avatars because you can smell streamers suffer no wings"Because immersion and realism mean doors for people with brains." closed doors for you then negative brain detected he said people with brains while holding garbage where door Meno pulled out his bandages. He did not have many left. Enough for a few emergency wraps, maybe.

He started tying them end to end with quick, ugly knots, testing each pull with his hands. The Soma-X7 translated tension and fabric resistance with annoying accuracy. He made a rope maybe sixteen feet long, if the knots held and the system decided bandages still counted as flexible material instead of medical-only nonsense. At one end, he tied a hoop. Chat shifted from mockery to speculation. lasso? no way this works third ban inc bandage rope tech did someone say exploit Viewers: 94, 002.

Meno put the Ashen Crown Tail Spike into inventory. Chat went feral. WHY PUT SPIKE AWAY NO WEAPON HE'S NAKED BANDAGE BUILD do not clip this unless it works clip it either way"Clip this even if it fails," Meno said. Then he sprinted. The ledge came fast. He launched harder than any previous jump, straight toward the pyramid. First False Wings kick fired behind him, adding forward speed instead of correcting downward. His body became a bullet. The pyramid rushed up beneath him. The Crown-Binder turned at the altar.

The Crown-Sight Eye began to glow. Meno held the bandage rope in both hands. His line would carry him over the top and past the boss, too fast to land, too fast to fight, too fast to do anything except one stupid thing at the right moment. He threw the hoop. For one sick second, it looked wide. Then the bandage loop caught around the Crown-Binder's upper body and one raised arm. The eye brightened. The cavern shook. Meno waited one more second. Just one. The beam formed.

"Now." He kicked ninety degrees to the side. The Judgment Beam tore past where his body had been, close enough that his HP flashed from heat alone. The bandage rope snapped tight. Fire crawled along the fabric immediately, burning through the outer wraps, but his momentum hit before it failed. The Crown-Binder stumbled. Then toppled from the altar platform. Meno yanked with everything he had.

The boss fell down the pyramid steps in a clattering, glass-cracking tumble, dragged off its conduit position and away from the eye. Meno hit the far cavern wall at high speed. [Death | Collision Impact] [Respawn: Ashen Crown Shrine] [Dropped: Failed String x1] He did not celebrate, and he did not read chat. He grabbed the Tail Spike from inventory and ran. The next dive started before the shrine light finished fading from his vision. Ledge. Run-up. Jump.

The Crown-Binder was displaced, halfway down the pyramid, still trying to stand. The Crown-Sight Eye tracked him from above, its glow building. Meno angled vertical enough to keep forward momentum without dropping into the wrong tier. The first beam came early. He kicked right. The beam missed. The Crown-Binder raised one molten arm from the broken steps. The eye flared again. Meno waited through the terror in his ribs, falling head-first now, Tail Spike locked in both hands. Second beam.

He kicked left at the last second, correcting toward the boss instead of away. The Tail Spike hit center mass. Apex Edge met volcanic conduit. The Crown-Binder split under him, molten light bursting through black glass plates as the dragon material punched into its core. Meno died with it when the impact drove both of them into the steps hard enough to break stone. [Kill Confirmed: Morgra Crown-Binder] [Death | Impact Trauma] [Respawn: Ashen Crown Shrine] [Dropped: Cracked Prayer Bead x1] The cavern shook harder.

The fiery eye still hovered above the altar, but its beam no longer fired. Its ring of ember script spun unevenly, flickering without the boss beneath it. Meno was already moving. The dragon opened one eye as he passed.

"Again?" it asked.

"Get ready for your hoard." He hit the ledge at a dead sprint. The eye hung exposed at the top of the pyramid, pulsing like a heart made of judgment. Meno jumped. First False Wings kick drove him faster, face-forward, Tail Spike ahead. Second kick corrected the final angle when the pyramid edge rose too high. He flew straight at the Crown-Sight Eye with nothing left to spend and no plan beyond impact. The Tail Spike pierced the center. The eye detonated.

White-red fire swallowed the altar, the pyramid top, the cavern ceiling, and Meno's entire body. [Death | Crown-Sight Eye Detonation] [Respawn: Ashen Crown Shrine] [Dropped: Dead Button x1] For a second, there was only shrine light and the dragon's breathing. Then the notification unfolded. [Quest Objective Complete: Break the Morgras Crown-Sight] [Quest Updated: Burden of the Cursed Priest] Objective: Recover the Ashen Crown Hoard. Morgras command structure disrupted.

Meno lay on the shrine stone, staring at the message as chat screamed around him and the dragon's eye opened fully. He smiled before he could stop himself.

"All planned," he said again. This time, more people believed him than he deserved.