Chương 45: The Shield Only Worked in the Air

Meno wanted Skybound Striker. Wanting it made him suspicious. It looked amazing in the exact way an option looked amazing when the downside was waiting two lines lower. Extra air-steps, bigger jumps, airborne damage. The class would finally stop pretending to be grounded melee and become what he had been forcing it to be since the volcano. Then his eyes went back to the grounded damage penalty.

"Seventy-five percent less damage while grounded," he said.

"That's not a downside. That's a bricked build." SKY OR COWARD REAVER IS FREE DAMAGE TITAN IS BORING OP ground is optional pick dragon class idiot Meno looked at the options again and tried to strip out the part of him that wanted the flashiest answer. Skybound was incredible, but he could already jump around enough for now. False Wings had carried him through worms, raid tiles, dungeon traps. Later levels would probably offer some cleaner aerial upgrade without the massive grounded penalty.

Last-Life Reaver was the math monster.

"At one HP," Meno said, "every stack goes from ten percent to twenty. That is stupid. Panic Pump gets me there instantly. One hundred stacks becomes basically two hundred. One thousand becomes two thousand. Cheat death once per combat means I get a second life, sort of." He grimaced at the last line.

"But it locks the whole build around one HP. Playing no-hit works sometimes. Controlled rooms, known patterns, mobs that don't fart damage fields, fine. But I don't want my class telling me full HP is wasted. If I pick Reaver and play safe, I get nothing." That left Titan Variant.

"Two stacks per hit works at any HP," Meno said.

"It improves farming, bossing, everything. Projectile Hundredfold gives ranged AOE. Panic Pump becoming reusable after a chain break means I can chain those projectiles if I'm alive enough to keep being stupid. And the False Wings shield is huge." He paused, then added, "It's basically Aurelia's power-up shield, but for jumping." He selected Option 3. [Class Evolution Selected] Swing Master — Titan Variant Meno flexed his hand around the damaged Rune Spire.

"Okay," he said.

"Need to test." test on archmage test on chat do NOT test on dragon he is testing on dragon There was nothing convenient to hit. Meno walked toward the dragon, and chat began praying in every direction. Kaerthalan opened one eye before Meno spoke.

"No," the dragon said.

"I didn't ask yet."

"No." Meno stopped at a respectful distance, which was still close enough that one sneeze would delete him.

"Can I hit you once? Gently. For testing. I'll give you an apple." Kaerthalan's eye narrowed.

"Two apples." Meno stared.

"You were asleep ten seconds ago." Meno threw two apples. Kaerthalan snapped both out of the air, crunched once, and kept watching him like the tribute had barely reached the floor of acceptable. Meno lifted the Rune Spire.

"Tiny tap." He touched the very end of the blade against one of Kaerthalan's foreclaw scales, soft enough that the contact felt more like a knock than a swing. Meno stepped back, activated Panic Pump, and the world tightened. [Technique Activated: Panic Pump] [Compound Swing | Chain: 100 | Damage: +1000%] [Current HP set to 1] He swung the Rune Spire upward, toward the empty sky.

Silver sword-light peeled off the absurd blade in a faint crescent and shot away from him, thin and fast, carrying the shape of his swing. It crossed the open air above the temple platform and broke apart at medium range. [Chain Broken: Hundredfold Cleave] Meno stared. Then he activated Panic Pump again. [Technique Activated: Panic Pump] [Compound Swing | Chain: 100 | Damage: +1000%] He swung a second time. Another silver arc tore off the Rune Spire and flew into the sky. It worked. It actually worked.

"Oh," Meno said.

"That is awesome." PROJECTILE CLEAVE IT WORKS ARTILLERY MASTER 1 HP CANNON do it again hit dragon One of the archmages lifted a staff. Meno saw blue light for half a second, then a water bubble wrapped around him and lifted him off the platform. His arms pressed against the curved surface, his legs kicked uselessly, and the Rune Spire floated beside him. Caldrin, the Southern Archmage, opened one eye.

"Settle down." Meno floated there at one HP in a wizard fishbowl.

"Sure," he said.

"No problem." The bubble lowered him to the ground and popped. Caldrin closed his eye and returned to meditating like nothing important had happened. WIZARD TIMEOUT SETTLE DOWN LMAO archmage put him in jar fishbeadgod Meno wanted to laugh, sleep for twelve hours, and eat something with salt. Instead, he checked the viewer counter. Still huge. Too huge to log out. Never happening. The AI had not responded yet.

Neither had Feltforge, the moderators, or any polite system note asking him to stop using unclassified items to abuse raid bosses. Maybe they did not care. Maybe the first boss had phases he had not seen, and stool-trap timing would fail anyway. Maybe the AI was watching and waiting to see how much rope he could braid into a public hanging. If he got banned now, with this many viewers, after Titan III and the class evolution, it would be worse than the first two disasters combined.

"Not testing the boss," Meno said. COWARD good boring do it don't do it He opened the leaderboard instead.

[Launch Leaderboard | Global Level Rank] [Rank 1: BrineSaint — Level 46] [Rank 2: Kestrel_Crownfall — Level 43] [Rank 3: JaxxonVale — Level 43] [Rank 4: Thornwake_Stormhold — Level 42] [Rank 5: Moonwake_Silverwake — Level 42] [Rank 6: PikeNorth_Highbanner — Level 41] [Rank 7: Honeygrave — Level 41] [Rank 8: OxideChoir — Level 40] [Rank 9: GlassRook_Crownfall — Level 40] [Rank 10: VantaRush_HypeForge — Level 40] [...] [Rank 39: PrayerBeadGod — Level 34] Meno read the board and felt the win from the Page shrink under better numbers. Rank thirty-nine. Up from eighty-eight, which should have felt incredible. Level thirty-four, after one raid trash kill. The kind of jump people would clip with arrows and screaming thumbnails. BrineSaint was forty-six.

"BrineSaint still dominating," Meno said.

"Gap between him and Kestrel widened by one. That's annoying. Moonwake passed PikeNorth, so Highbanner probably hates breakfast right now. JaxxonVale is still way too high." He stared at Jaxxon's name.

"I keep forgetting to check his class. That's bad. He randomed at launch and is still top three. Something there is disgusting." Honeygrave had passed OxideChoir too, which meant the Rot Savant was still moving strong. Meno closed the board before it could keep eating him. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Leveling has to slow soon. Raid is fifty-plus. Death penalty jumps to five hundred gold at fifty. That has to be a wall. If the AI expected people to rocket past fifty, it would have made more death brackets." cope maybe level 100 by lunch BrineSaint already packed meals rank 39 still insane crafting cost you sleep cost you wife cost— Meno muted chat opacity for one second before the last word finished forming. His view count slid down to 492, 000. Still absurd.

Still life-changing if he could turn it into actual money. Still dropping fast because people had seen the kill, the reward, the class choice, and the projectile test. The wave was leaving. He could not rerun the tome until the seven-day reset, and the raid would not hand him another trash mob he could kill solo just because the stream wanted one. He opened his inventory and equipped the Sleepless Grip. They slid over his avatar's hands like soft cloth, ivory-gray with faint gold script crawling under the fabric.

The defense line was low, which was expected. They felt comfortable anyway, in the strange full-immersion way where gear pressure became body memory. His fingers flexed, and the script dimmed, then pulsed once. A notification appeared. [World First Achievement Acquired] First Player to Equip Legendary I Gear [Reward Unlocked] Legendary I Design Credit Meno went still.

"No." The system waited.

"No. Absolutely not." MORE DESIGN CREDIT legendary this time make wife boots make stool armor he hates free stuff Meno shouted at the sky.

"Give me gold. A title. Anything." Meno opened the legendary design panel immediately, too tired and angry to pretend he had restraint left.

"Fine," he said.

"You want a design? Here." The white design room tried to swallow the platform. Meno clicked through item type without ceremony. Weapon. One-handed sword. Rune Spire. Legendary I. The effect name came first. Prayer Edge. He considered Meno, then PrayerBeadGod. His channel was under Meno, but the design tag could carry the other name. He named it what the reward deserved.

[Design Complete] Name: Meno's Nightmare Type: Legendary I Rune Spire One-Handed Sword Prayer Edge: Attacks with this weapon ignore Defense, deal zero damage and heal the target for 100% weapon damage dealt. Tool Property: Functions as a runic chisel for rune-channel crafting. Designed by PrayerBeadGod: Extreme reach while retaining one-handed classification. Chat hated it. WHAT IS THIS HEALING SWORD??? DPS PLAYERS FORCED TO SUPPORT zero damage legendary actually crafting tool?

wait runic chisel property huge Meno selected recipe as the acquisition method without thinking. The AI paused. [Design Analysis] Undetermined Reason: Weapon profile contradicts expected use case. Meno smiled for the first time since the reward opened.

"Good." He closed the panel and refused to think about it again. The Mythic I credit was still sitting in his account. Later. Much later. Maybe never, if he found a way to sell it to a museum without getting banned. The raid platform had filled while he was busy making garbage history. Players crowded near the portals, shouting questions, recruitment pitches, insults, and gold offers for a Rune Spire. Meno ignored all of it until the blue portal flashed. Stormhold players emerged in force.

A full formation came through. Shields in front, robes and bows behind them, casters tucked safely in the middle. One man stood near the front, and the rest of the group seemed arranged around him. Meno inspected him and stopped. [Thornwake_Stormhold | Class: War Anchor — Level 42 | Ability: War Banner] Thornwake was muscular, maybe in his thirties, with a short black beard and cropped hair. He carried a massive shield like it belonged to the ground and he had temporarily borrowed it. Main tank.

The kind of player guilds put in front of disasters. The silver portal flashed next. Silverwake players arrived in polished order, less bulky than Stormhold but just as deliberate. Meno inspected two, then a third, then froze on a woman near their front. [Moonwake_Silverwake | Class: Crimson Mercy Herald — Level 42 | Ability: Bloodflower] She had black hair pulled into a ponytail, hard eyes, and a face that looked enough like Thornwake's that Meno glanced between them twice.

"Siblings?" he muttered.

"Different guilds. Interesting." Crimson Mercy Herald sounded evolved. It sounded like a healer class that had murdered the word healer and planted flowers over the body. The two groups stopped near the raid entrance and spoke with each other in tight clusters. Several looked at Meno. None approached him. Meno turned to chat.

"Look at that. I wonder how Crownfall and Highbanner feel about this." alliance??? dirty raid test kestrel crashout soon emergency meeting The combined group moved toward the Lost Temple entrance. Twenty players, close enough that Meno did not bother counting twice. They vanished into the raid gate one by one.

"They realized trash packs can drop legendaries," Meno said.

"Now they're going for it. Twenty-way XP split is garbage, but legendary loot changes the math." He checked the damaged Rune Spire, then swapped it for his spare. The fresh weapon settled on his back, absurdly long, jutting up like he had decided to cosplay a walking lamppost. Chat agreed too fast. LAMPOST LAMPOST MASTER carry it through door challenge one-handed siege weapon repair your old one idiot"I owe a skeleton mage a kill," Meno said. He stepped through the yellow portal.

Westmarket's Mage Tower ring snapped around him in wind and yellow stone, the city spread below. He took the stairs down at a normal pace. His legs remembered too many bad jumps, and three hundred thousand people watching did not require every stair to become a stunt. His viewership kept bleeding anyway. 320, 000. Bradbaron intercepted him near the tower exit, waving both arms like a lunatic.

"Not crafting now."

"I have offers for more Rune Spires!"

"Great." Meno left through the northern gate and headed for the road out of Westmarket. The Sleepless Grip flexed with his fingers, its script brightening briefly before fading again. Every ten seconds, it would resist the next debuff or status effect. Against the Glassdry Boneknives, that mattered. The stun opener had been half the trouble in that dungeon. The Curse Eater line was stranger. Fifty percent increased damage while suffering from a debuff or status effect.

The gloves prevented the first status, which worked against the damage bonus unless the enemy spammed debuffs. Against Sleepwalkers, perfect. Against the skeleton mage, maybe. He reached the foot of the mountain where the road gave up. Something hit him from nowhere. [PvP Encounter Initiated] [Sleepless Script] Poison resisted. A second later, pain cut across his back and his body locked. [Status Effect: Stunned] Meno's HP dropped to seventy-five percent under a burst of quick strikes.

Another poison sank through after the glove script faded, and a green-black icon appeared under his health bar. The stun snapped. Meno jumped. False Wings caught under his feet, and the 20% maxHP shield flared around him in a thin, silver shell. He kicked twice, drew the Rune Spire midair, and swung behind him while forcing an inspect. [Karmabeast | Class: Venom Stalker — Level 25 | Ability: Toxic Edge]"Oh," Meno said.

"You." KARMABEAST KARMABEAST JUMPED HIM PVP GOD only 25??? level means nothing Karmabeast vanished. He appeared behind Meno the instant Meno touched down, daggers already moving. The Rune Spire came around in a wide silver arc. Karmabeast ducked under most of it, but the tip clipped his shoulder. [Compound Swing | Chain: 2 | Damage: +20%] Meno dodged the next dagger, stepped back, and thrust. The Rune Spire's reach forced Karmabeast to bend away harder than he wanted. The tip grazed leather.

[Compound Swing | Chain: 4 | Damage: +40%] Karmabeast slashed once, then pulled out of range before Meno's return cut. Meno stabbed again. This time Karmabeast waited, let the spire pass by his chest by an inch, and did nothing. [Chain Broken: Miss]"Annoying," Meno muttered. Karmabeast disappeared again. Meno jumped before the backstab landed and kicked off air as he spun, swinging the Rune Spire behind him in a silver arc. Karmabeast stepped back from the blade with smooth, hateful patience.

Meno kicked again and landed at range. The rogue circled. He was waiting for cooldowns. Or glove timing. Or both. Karmabeast threw a dagger. Meno sidestepped, letting it strike the ground beside him, but a black cord of force snapped out and yanked him back just before the blade detonated. [Sleepless Script] Poison Cloud resisted. Then the cloud kept breathing over him, stacking poison anyway. Meno jumped out, but Karmabeast appeared behind him midair with both daggers back in hand.

A strike landed between his shoulders. [Status Effect: Stunned] Meno fell out of the sky with Karmabeast clinging to his back, using him as the landing plan. Karmabeast hit him three more times before the stun ended. Poison climbed to seven stacks. His HP fell below fifty percent, then kept ticking down. Not good. The instant he could move, Meno dodged a dagger thrust and jumped backward. He kicked away with False Wings, tucked his legs forward, then spent the second kick straight back at Karmabeast.

The Rune Spire cut across the return line. Karmabeast dodged the swing but stayed close enough to punish him. Meno landed and stabbed. [Compound Swing | Chain: 2 | Damage: +20%] Instead of chasing the chain, Meno jumped back again. [Chain Broken] The shield caught the next poison tick, cracking silver across his body. He let himself land early, skipping toward Karmabeast just as the thrown dagger flashed toward the ground. This time, he kicked before the pull caught.

The dagger detonated behind him, and Meno spent the second kick on a thrust. Karmabeast avoided the point by folding sideways, his shoulders and hips moving like they belonged to different bodies.

"He's tracking the glove cooldown." Karmabeast did not answer. He only smiled. Meno jumped straight up, used the first False Wings to kick higher. At the same time, he unequipped the Sleepless Grip. The next second, Karmabeast appeared behind him in the air and stabbed. The poison landed. Meno reequipped the gloves before the follow-up. [Sleepless Script] Stun resisted. Karmabeast's eyes sharpened. Meno kicked away with his last False Wings step.

The rogue dropped beneath him for half a second, caught in the air with nothing left to do but fall. The airborne shield still shimmered around Meno, eating poison ticks. He twisted his body, activated Panic Pump, and dropped to one HP with Hundredfold ready to fire. [Compound Swing | Chain: 100 | Damage: +1000%] Meno swung the Rune Spire. [Hundredfold Cleave] A silver projectile tore off the blade and slammed into Karmabeast midair. The rogue survived at critical HP, his body flickering slightly.

Meno's brain tagged it immediately. Cheat death. [Chain Broken: Hundredfold Cleave] Meno activated Panic Pump before either of them could land. [Compound Swing | Chain: 100 | Damage: +1000%] He fired the second projectile. Karmabeast had no air-step, no ground to push from, and nowhere left to dodge. The silver arc hit him in the chest and split outward in a hard flash. [Kill Confirmed: Karmabeast] [Loot: 5 gold] Meno landed, the False Wings shield vanished, and the poison immediately ticked.

[Death | Karmabeast — Venom Stack] [Currency Lost: 50 gold] The world went blue. He respawned at a shrine near Westmarket, wind moving through the grass, the city walls visible in the distance. His karma was intact. Karmabeast had attacked first. AIRBORNE EXECUTION GLOVE SWAP TECH 50G LMAO KARMABEAST LOST???? STALEMATE??? Meno looked around. Karmabeast was not back yet. Maybe the attacker respawn timer was harsher after initiating PvP. Maybe he had a distant bind point. Meno did not wait to find out.

He started walking back toward Westmarket. His hands were still shaking around the Rune Spire, but his voice came out steady enough for the stream, and for the rogue who was definitely watching.

"Nice try."