Chương 88: Rank One or Bust

The Lost Temple was built in rings. The first boss patrolled the second, circling its lane like an angry train made of chains. Ivory and gold tiles covered the floor, and gold still meant death. In a real raid, players would have to dodge the boss, watch their steps, and scream at whoever panicked into a gold square. Meno was not planning to fight fair. The design flaw was simple. The Chain of the First Dream did not engage like a normal boss. It triggered like a trap.

Anything valid entering the second-ring lane made it launch around the circular corridor at killing speed, and once it committed, it carried momentum like a physical object. If the trigger vanished before impact, the boss did not instantly reset. It finished the rush, braked against the marble, then reversed toward the next valid trigger point. That was where the Morgra Ritual Stand mattered. Veyrath still treated it as Unclassified. The trigger logic reacted to its physical presence in the lane.

The stand could bait the raid boss and create a tiny, repeatable brake window inside a system meant to delete players.

"Exactly as intended," Meno said. stool tech stand not stool ban speedrun raid boss exploit feltforge aggro inc The Ashwake Cleaver's Maximum+ durability was the only reason the idea had a pulse. Maybe it would last long enough. Maybe it would break halfway through and leave him punching a raid boss with regret. There was no way to know, because Meno had not exactly stress-tested Maximum+ durability against a divine chain train. He could not rely on the axe alone.

He had to weave in the dagger between Chain Madness windows to preserve durability, which made the movement much worse. The axe had reach. The dagger had the reach of a twig, and landing hits while summoning and unsummoning the stand would require full body control. Every stand reset also forced him out of the trigger lane. Stay too far in, and the boss would treat him as the next valid trigger. Retreat too much, and he would miss the hit.

Hesitate, and the boss would complete the loop before coming back from the other side at full speed. Meno arrived at the doorway leading to the second ring and went prone. His viewcount was already ticking upward. Viewers: 151, 884"Basics first." Meno extended one hand past the boundary and dropped the stand just inside the lane. The Chain of the First Dream launched at it instantly, links hammering around the ring. He snapped the stand away, counted the smallest piece of a breath, and brought it back.

The boss hit its braking point with a scream of metal, sparks tearing out of the marble before it reversed and came ripping back. After a few repetitions, the whole ring was noise and motion.

"Okay," Meno said.

"Still works." not patched devs asleep he told them btw legal? no"The key is doing it fast enough that I can get hits in without my Chain breaking." Meno put the stand away and let the boss complete its loop at full speed. Then he crawled backward to reset, already hating the next part. Axe first. Panic Pump kicked into Chain Madness as Meno dropped the stand into the lane and dragged the Ashwake Cleaver into his grip.

Still flat on his stomach, he tried to swing at the boss like reach alone could make the position less awkward. The axe scraped metal. No Chain stack.

"Bad swing." He reset and tried again. The axe was not a spear, so poking was out. Even a bad swing needed space for the head to travel, which meant his stomach had to leave the floor just enough to make the motion possible. Push-up stance, then. Meno set himself, let the axe snap into his hand, and summoned the stand with his empty palm already forward. The boss triggered. He planted that palm on the stand's middle section, pushed off, kicked forward, lifted the axe, and dropped his weight into the strike.

The hit landed clean. So did the mistake. Meno had kicked too hard, and the moment he dismissed the stand, he barreled headfirst into the chain. [Death Penalty Applied: -100g]"Progress." headbutt tech stool ate him first try Meno vs pushup He went again. The movement was closer to a failed clap push-up than an attack. He had to launch his chest off the floor, drive himself forward just far enough for the axe to connect, then catch himself and shove back as the stand returned to inventory.

Then he had to repeat before the boss completed the loop. Chain Madness could attack ten times per second. Meno would be lucky to land one clean hit every second and a half. The only mercy was that each valid hit still gave two Chain stacks. It was ugly. It was barely possible. That meant it was probably his only route. He tried again. Good launch. Good hit. Bad recovery. The chain reversed too fast and erased him. [Death Penalty Applied: -100g] no shot this is the strat is this workout stream?

bro please stand up wait that almost worked this is costing actual gold lmao skill issue Meno glared at the scrolling messages.

"You try it, then. Show me the clip." He went again. And again. Gold bled away in clean hundred-gold chunks while the movement improved by pieces. Too much kick killed him. Too little kick missed. Too slow on the stand let the boss loop. Too fast shortened the brake until the reverse arrived like punishment. Eventually, the axe pattern reached a barely functional state, but time was slipping, and Meno's fingers kept flexing inside his gloves like they were trying to rehearse without him.

"Now dagger." Viewers: 235, 022 People were tuning in to watch him fail. More would arrive if the boss HP ever moved in a visible way. Meno had to give them that, apparently. Pain retained viewers. The dagger route needed a different body. He would dual wield but keep the offhand sheathed, using only the Rare III Leviathan Fang Dagger for durability. In theory, the offhand could sit there for bonuses. In practice, one hand had to stay free for the stand, or the whole setup collapsed.

The push-up axe motion would not work. The dagger needed more reach, which meant he had to launch sideways into a crouch on the stand as he summoned it, extend far enough to stab, then kick away while unsummoning before the boss reversed. Twist toward the lane, kick off the floor, summon, land, stab, retreat, twist back, repeat until his brain fried. Meno tried it. He jumped too hard onto the stand, lost balance, barely retrieved it in time, and slid straight into the chain.

[Death Penalty Applied: -100g] dagger no range stool slip do it again bankruptcy arc"This movement is totally cooked," Meno said.

"But I don't have a better idea." He returned to the doorway.

"Dagger reach is awful. I need momentum from the jump to extend far enough, while keeping the other hand on the stand so I can put it away as I jump back. Then I have to summon it again to force the turn." He tried again. The stab landed, but he had no time to confirm it. He jumped away, twisted, kicked off the ground into a crouch to land on the stool, summoned too early, and the boss clipped him through the edge of the lane. Another hundred gold. Then another. Then another. The issue was not hitting once.

It was hitting and trusting the hit had landed, because checking cost enough time to break the rhythm. He had to extend, assume contact, and already be moving into the next phase before the system rewarded him. Push up, jump into a crouch with a small kick, land on the stand as he summoned it, hand shove, extend the dagger sideways, turn away before the hit fully registered, kick off the stand while unsummoning it, twist to land facing the boss, and launch immediately into the next crouch without resetting.

Repeat until sanity left the room. Meno lost another fourteen hundred gold before the dagger pattern became functional. speedrun to 0 stool tuition worth? gold apocalypse"I don't care about gold," Meno said.

"The issue is time." Now he had to connect the two weapon types. Dagger into Axe. Chain Madness axe back into dagger without letting Chain break or giving the boss enough time to remember its job. The transition was brutal because once his body repeated one motion long enough, changing patterns felt like stepping off a moving walkway into a punch. To practice Meno started from push-up, ran the dagger phase for a few hits, triggered Panic Pump into Chain Madness, and switched to the axe pattern.

Too much force in the kick carried him past the safe point. He put the stool away, the boss snapped into reverse, and the chain crushed him before his body could catch up. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! [Death Penalty Applied: -100g] Meno did not stop. It took twenty-three deaths. Twenty-three.

[Death Penalty Applied: -100g] [Death Penalty Applied: -100g] [Death Penalty Applied: -100g] The key was treating the transition like a boss mechanic, even though the boss was doing the same thing every time. Axe Meno could not jump like dagger Meno. The push from the floor had to be milder, with his empty hand braced on the stool for balance as he leaned forward, let the axe bite, and shoved himself back into the next swing.

When Chain Madness ended, his brain had to drop that pattern instantly and become the crouch-jump dagger version instead. He had to split himself into two Menos. Dagger Meno was a frog: relaxed speed, less tension, more spring. His arm was the tongue, and the hit came from reach and recoil. Axe Meno was a snake: coiled, lunging, sharp, already pulling back before the train crushed its skull.

"I have to become a snake, then a frog, then the snake eats the frog, then the frog escapes the snake until the snake returns and eats the frog again."????? what brain gone frog snake meta"You guys don't get it?" Meno asked.

"It's obvious." not obvious NOT OBVIOUS no Meno had to return to Westmarket for repairs, burning another two hundred gold and more time he could not afford. More than two hours had vanished into practice, death, and movement math. If this failed, he was ruined for the level fifty race. Not poor-ruined. Time-ruined. The kind of ruined Brad's sponsorship calls, Oxy's followers, and viewers could not buy back. He returned to the boss. Viewers: 322, 104 Meno settled into push-up stance.

"First real attempt." Panic Pump fed into Chain Madness, and the snake pattern took over: axe bite, stand away, brake, stand back, axe bite again. The Chain of the First Dream skidded back and forth across the trigger lane, helpless for one strike roughly every second and a half. Each hit returned two Chain stacks, though the boss HP either refused to move or demanded attention Meno could not spare.

When he reached the dagger transition, he became frog instead: crouch, extend, unsummon, twist, kick, summon, reach, recoil. After a hundred Chain stacks, Chain Madness returned, and frog had to become snake again. 20 minutes can't see HP bar is he damaging it? stool prison this might work? At twenty minutes, he was around 1, 700 Chain. At forty-eight, he reached 3, 940. Sweat crawled down his face while his brain bounced between frog and snake, frog and snake, until words became slower than movement.

He could not tell if the boss was losing HP or if he had spent almost an hour crawling, stabbing, and dying on camera for nothing. How much HP did a raid boss have? not possible infinite hp too fast to see HP GlassRook time quit Meno ignored them and kept everything narrowed to movement. At one hour and thirty minutes, his Chain reached 7, 300. His vision blurred at the edges, but his body still knew frog, snake, frog, snake.

Then chat started spamming GlassRook's name, and Meno's attention left his hands for one fatal beat. He tried to read. The next attack went wrong. [Break Surplus Activated] Break Surplus saved the Chain, but not the rhythm. The shock knocked the pattern loose in his body, and by the time he reached for the stand timing, the boss had already swept past without braking. Too long. [Chain Broken] Meno looked at the lane with the stand still sitting in his inventory.

The Chain of the First Dream came barreling from the other side and clipped him while he stood too far in. [Death Penalty Applied: -100g] NOOOOO 7K CHAIN WHY LOOK GLASSROOK BAIT pain Meno ignored them and opened the leaderboard.

[Launch Leaderboard | Global Level Rank] [Rank 1: BrineSaint — Level 51] [Rank 2: JaxxonVale — Level 50] [Rank 3: Kestrel_Crownfall — Level 50] [Rank 4: Thornwake_Stormhold — Level 50] [Rank 5: PikeNorth_Highbanner — Level 50] [Rank 6: Moonwake_Silverwake — Level 50] [Rank 7: Honeygrave — Level 50] [Rank 8: OxideChoir — Level 50] [Rank 9: VantaRush_HypeForge — Level 50] [Rank 10: GlassRook_Crownfall — Level 50] [Rank 11: PrayerBeadGod — Level 49] Meno stood there with the death message fading and the empty lane in front of him.

"Unbelievable." His voice came out too flat at first, like his anger had not finished loading.

"This stupid chain-train trash boss has infinite HP, everyone on the board is fifty, BrineSaint is already fifty-one, and I am stuck here shaving paint off a raid boss while jumping around with a stool like an absolute idiot." Chat had climbed past four hundred thousand. They were vicious. lost rank 11 forever stool clown GlassRook wins take break can't do it"Can't do it?" Meno asked. Maybe the AI had not fixed the stand because killing the boss this way was practically impossible.

Practically was not the same as impossible. He was gaining Chain. The hits were real. The damage was real. He just had to go longer.

"You just watch. I was never racing for rank ten anyway." Back in Westmarket, he repaired again losing another two hundred forty gold. Then he returned to the Lost Temple, dragged forward by anger more than legs.

"We are going straight to the top. Then GlassRook can take a vacation off the board." take a break tilt queue drink water do not he's gone"Repair was enough break," Meno said.

"No more mistakes. Not a single one." He stepped toward the raid portal.

"If it takes ten hours of jumping around, I still kill it." Before entering, he stopped beside Kaerthalan. The Ashen Crown Dragon lay half asleep near the side, huge and ancient and rude enough to ignore him unless food was involved. Meno pulled out all forty-four remaining apples from his inventory and threw them at the dragon in a messy red-and-green rain. Kaerthalan lifted his head. The apples vanished into his mouth with several lazy snaps. [Kaerthalan's Drowsing Regard] Mind Control immunity for 8 hours.

Persists through death. The dragon looked satisfied for half a second, then went back to sleep without thanking him.

"Typical." Meno reached the boss too angry, immediately botched the first movement, and died. [Death Penalty Applied: -100g] Viewership dipped below four hundred thousand. Viewers: 380, 412 no tilt reset mental stop take break Aurelia was right to dump you Meno saw the line, and everything narrowed. He did not answer. He did not ban the chatter.

He went back to the boss with the sentence repeating in his head, Aurelia's voice folded through it, the phone call replaying in pieces he had no use for and could not silence. By the time he got into position, there was only movement. Panic Pump. Chain Madness. Snake mode. Stand, lunge, hit, pull back. Then frog mode: crouch, extend, kick away, twist. Snake became frog, frog became snake, and the ring screamed around him. The stand appeared and vanished.

The chain braked, reversed, braked again, reversed again, while the marble under the boss scarred itself with blue-violet sparks. At thirty-nine minutes, he reached 3, 222 Chain, and Meno kept going. Repeated failure had smoothed the movement into something usable. The frog no longer overjumped. The snake no longer bit too deep. He did not feel clean or calm, but the pattern held. Viewership climbed again. Viewers: 421, 009 Meno did not care. There was only chain and movement, one hit at a time.

Fifty-seven minutes. [Compound Swing | Chain: 4732 | Damage: +47320%] One hour and fourteen minutes. [Compound Swing | Chain: 6066 | Damage: +60660%] One hour and twenty-eight minutes. [Compound Swing | Chain: 7214 | Damage: +72140%] One hour and forty-three minutes. [Compound Swing | Chain: 8378 | Damage: +83780%] The boss still did not die, and Meno had almost stopped expecting it to. His body hurt. His fingers cramped.

Sweat blurred the edges of his vision, and the capsule began placing warning icons at the edge of his view. He kept moving. At 9, 000 Chain, chat lost all restraint. OVER 9000 OVER 9000 OVER 9000 HE DID IT still alive Meno did not feel human anymore. Frog. Snake. Frog. Snake. The stand became breath. The boss became noise. The ring became contact and recoil. At 9, 604 Chain, one hour and fifty-eight minutes into the fight, the chamber started to shake.

The Chain of the First Dream's path hitched, and adrenaline cut through the blur so sharply Meno felt almost awake again. The braking points shifted. The ring trembled under the stand. Every crouch and lunge turned less reliable, but he could not check the HP bar because checking meant dying. He adjusted. By 10, 384 Chain, the whole room was vibrating and the movement had become five times harder. Frog landed lighter, crouched lower, extended sharper.

Snake coiled from uneven marble and lunged without waiting for perfect ground. Another hit. Another. The Lost Temple shrieked, high and metallic, like a freight train trying to stop while its own weight dragged it forward. Viewers: 783, 222 Chat went berserk. GOGOGO DYING? KEEP GOING DO NOT LOOK ONE MORE One more hit. Then one more. Then one more after that. Sweat blurred his vision.

His heart hammered hard enough that the capsule warnings multiplied, red and orange icons stacking near his sightline, and Meno ignored all of it. Viewers: 1, 004, 771 Still one more. Viewers: 1, 432, 009 The boss juddered in both directions now, links shedding sparks with every brake. Meno's axe arm moved before thought. The snake lunged. Viewers: 2, 389, 567"ONE MORE HIT!" Chat screamed with him in an unreadable flood.

[Compound Swing | Chain: 10398 | Damage: +103980%] The Ashwake Cleaver smashed into the Chain of the First Dream, and the raid boss shattered. For one stretched moment, the world dropped into slow motion. Broken links spread through the air one by one, metal fragments burning blue-violet as they spun over the marble. The sound collapsed into silence, then returned all at once, detonating through the whole temple. Notifications filled his view.

[World First Chain of the First Dream] [World First Solo Raid Boss Kill Detected] [Max XP Gained] [World Announcement Pending] [Ability Selection Available] Legendary loot beams hit the ground, but Meno barely saw them. There was one thought left. More. More. More. Chain Madness still had one hit remaining. Chain was still alive, for a blink. Meno triggered Preypoo l.

Water exploded around him, and he launched immediately into Chain Torpedo, blasting through the opening toward the third-ring corridor where he had killed the book. He flew past golden tiles, hit the far side hard, and sent Hundredfold Cleave into the left pack before combat could end. The five Choir-Sewn Pilgrims and the Prayerless Knight disintegrated. Chat did not understand. WHAT LOOT GET LOOT WHERE ARE YOU GOING HE LEFT LEGENDARY Meno did not stop.

Break Surplus saved his Chain as he dashed full speed through the third ring, using False Wings to jump and kick over lethal gold tiles, but the next pack was too far and the combat gap was already closing. He waited until the last possible moment. [Panic Pump] [Combat State Initiated: 3 seconds] [Compound Swing | Chain: 10502 | Damage: +105020%] He activated Chain Madness, and the unbreakable window snapped into place a heartbeat before the gap could break.

Meno crashed into range of the pack where he had killed the book and pulled aggro before combat fell away. He ignored the Gilded Remnant with its impossible damage reflect and drove straight into the active Kneeling Vessel before it could enter wipe mode. At this Chain value, the Vessel died in one hit. The Remnant followed, keeping combat alive while Chain Madness protected the sequence, and Meno tore through the door to the fourth ring, where five Prayerless Knights waited on the other side.

He hit the nearest one hard enough to erase it. [Sleepless Grip resisted: Stun] The others reacted too late. Meno was already past their strike range, and their chase preserved his combat state. Viewers: 3, 102, 884 Then the fifth ring opened ahead, and Meno cut through the first doorway to find what he had come for. At the center stood a huge cloaked figure with its arms spread toward the vaulted ceiling, where false stars glittered in the dark. Vervenzal. The final boss. [Vervenzal, the Banished God | Type:??? | Threat:??? | Trait:???] The Prayerless Knights leashed back at the doorway just as Meno kicked into range with False Wings. Vervenzal's hands began to lower, slow and ceremonial, as combat mode started. Meno only needed seconds. [Compound Swing | Chain: 10512 | Damage: +105120%] Chain Madness turned the Ashwake Cleaver into ten axe strikes per second. Vervenzal's HP collapsed. [Boss HP: 82%] [Boss HP: 61%] [Boss HP: 43%] [Boss HP: 20%] Chat turned into pure meltdown.

FINAL BOSS NO WAY NO WAY HE SKIPPED RAID 1052x DAMAGE BTW RANK ONE Chain Madness ended. Meno switched to daggers, and his main-hand dagger broke almost immediately. [Weapon Broken: Rare III Leviathan Fang Dagger]"No." He went offhand only. Vervenzal's body started to glow, caught between phase transitions by the massive incoming damage. Its cloak lifted. Its arms twitched. Spell effects tried to start and cancel at the same time, buying Meno precious seconds. Left hand. Left hand. Left hand.

The boss HP melted in chunks. [Boss HP: 12%] [Boss HP: 8%] [Boss HP: 5%] At five percent, Vervenzal flickered. At three percent, it split into five copies. All five copies began the same channel. [Annihilation] He laughed once, too sharp to sound healthy.

"Annihilate this!" He sent Hundredfold Cleave into one copy at random. The cleave detonated in a massive arc, catching all five bodies. Vervenzal shrieked through every copy at once as the robes burned, their edges turning to cinders, and the entire Lost Temple began to shake. For half a second, there was only silence. Then the top of the temple detonated upward, and open sky tore into view.

Kaerthalan, Ashen Crown Dragon, descended through the broken ceiling and landed above the ruined fifth ring with his wings spread, ash and gold light pouring from his scales. The impact blasted Meno backward and filled his screen with notifications. [World First Vervenzal, the Banished God] [World First Lost Temple Raid Cleared] [World First Solo Raid Clear] [World Announcement Pending] [Max XP Gained] [Ability Selection Pending] [Passive Selection Available] Meno collapsed to the ground.

[Impossible Scenario Detected] Adrenaline drained out so fast his body felt hollow. Capsule warnings flared red. [Elevated Heart Rate] [Elevated Blood Pressure] [Extended Neuromotor Strain] [Emergency Logout Initiating: 15 seconds] He blinked through sweat and opened his status. [Level Up] [Level Up] [Level Up] [PrayerBeadGod | Class: Swing Master — Level 59 | Ability: Compound Swing] Meno opened the leaderboard with shaking focus.

[Launch Leaderboard | Global Level Rank] [Rank 1: PrayerBeadGod — Level 59] [Rank 2: BrineSaint — Level 51] [Rank 3: JaxxonVale — Level 50] [Rank 4: Kestrel_Crownfall — Level 50] [Rank 5: Thornwake_Stormhold — Level 50] [Rank 6: PikeNorth_Highbanner — Level 50] [Rank 7: Moonwake_Silverwake — Level 50] [Rank 8: Honeygrave — Level 50] [Rank 9: OxideChoir — Level 50] [Rank 10: VantaRush_HypeForge — Level 50] Chat was no longer readable.

RANK ONE PRAYERBEADGOD GG ITS OVER ACTUALLY R1 HE DID IT WTF LEGENDARY I WAS HERE LETS GOOO Meno lay on the temple floor with Kaerthalan watching. The logout timer reached five, and he smiled through the exhaustion.

"Said it." At two, his voice was almost gone.

"Rank one or bust." Then the capsule forced him out.