Chương 13: A Scratch on the Crown

Meno threw a bent spoon head across the cavern and watched it skid toward the dragon's foreclaw. The spoon head clicked over black stone, spun through a ribbon of red light from the lavafall, and came to rest near a talon wider than his chest. The dragon did not wake. Its ash-black ribs rose with a slow breath, ember veins pulsing between scales like banked fire under cracked iron. Heat moved through the cavern in waves, and every wave made the shrine behind Meno feel smaller.

Meno took a cracked clay saint from his inventory, weighed it in his palm, and tossed it higher. It tapped the dragon's shoulder plate and fell into the shadow under its wing. Still nothing.

"Good," he said.

"It ignores junk." That helped, but only in the same way a cracked shield helped against a cannon. The exit remained behind the dragon. The shrine remained behind him. Death had already proved it would return him here, and the room had begun to feel less like a cavern than a box the game had forgotten to label properly. He stepped out of the shrine alcove and stopped at the first pulse of heat.

The floor looked simple from the shrine: dark stone, a few shelves, black pillars, cracks glowing red where lava ran beneath. Up close, every surface had a slope or edge that could steal his footing. The magical torches on the wall burned in straight, stubborn flames, untouched by the dragon's breathing. The dragon exhaled. Meno pulled back into the alcove just before the hot wind reached him. The breath rolled low across the floor, struck the shrine lip, and curled around his boots.

His HP dipped, but the alcove took most of the force.

"Floor travel," he muttered.

"Alcove blocks some. Pillars maybe block some." passive boss mechanics go left after exhale tail side safer maybe he died there idiot He waited through another breath before moving. Ten steps carried him to a black stone spur, where he pressed his back against warm rock and listened to the dragon breathe. The next exhale split around the spur and still hit him hard enough to burn half his HP away. The pillar helped, just poorly.

He stayed in place until the heat passed, then crossed to a raised shelf as the lavafall flared red against the cavern wall. His pathfinding became slower than he wanted and cleaner than he liked. Junk markers helped: a dead button at the edge where the breath curved around the stone spur, a broken loom peg beside a shelf that gave just enough height, a useless festival token at the spot where the floor looked flat and lied.

He died twice making the markers useful, once to the sleeping breath bending around a pillar worse than expected, once when a wing shifted in its sleep and knocked him from the shelf into a glowing fissure. [Death | Ashen Crown Dragon — Sleeping Breath] [Respawn: Ashen Crown Shrine] [Dropped: Cracked Clay Saint x1] On the next run he moved after the lava pulse, not before it. The timing shaved heat off the breath line and gave him enough HP to keep going.

He reached the tail side and stopped there, crouched behind a rear claw half-buried in stone. The talon was black and hooked, its chipped edge showing a dull furnace-red line beneath the surface. It was close enough to touch. Chat noticed what his hand was doing before he wanted to admit it. do not poke the dragon poke the dragon Meno lifted the Common III sword and tapped the chipped claw edge with the lightest cut that still had weight. [Compound Swing | Chain: 1 | Damage: +10%] The dragon did not wake.

For a moment, even chat seemed to stall. Meno tapped again. The sword gave a small, dry ring against the claw. He tapped a third time, then stepped half a boot-length behind the talon as the dragon's breath moved through the cavern. Heat washed across the outer curve of the claw and struck him anyway, but the claw blocked enough to keep his HP from vanishing. [Compound Swing | Chain: 5 | Damage: +50%]"Valid resistance," he whispered.

DRAGON DUMMY absolutely not a dummy no post needed just dragon toe PrayerBeadGod found bigger post farm the sleeping dragon lmao The claw was better than the stolen post in one way: it did not shift under his arm. It was worse in every meaningful way. It belonged to a dragon with a broken threat tag, it sat inside a sleeping hazard field, and every breath forced Meno to choose between chain timing and survival.

He kept his cuts tiny, touching the same chipped edge, backing into the claw's shadow when the breath came, and stepping out only far enough to keep the rhythm alive. At twenty stacks, nothing visible happened. At fifty, the blade felt like it was striking a hot anvil wrapped in scale.

At one hundred, the old ceiling lit the technique icon, and Meno ignored it because spending a full chain on one flashy hit against this thing would be the kind of stupidity that felt good for half a second and then cost him twenty deaths. [Compound Swing | Chain: 100 | Damage: +1000%] He kept tapping. Unbounded Chain did not arrive with fireworks. It did not make the sword glow or the dragon flinch.

It only let the count continue past the point where his old build would have stopped, and that permission felt meaner than a buff. It told him the work had not ended just because a number looked impressive. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. At one hundred and forty, the dragon breathed deeper and forced him flat behind the talon, his shoulder pressed to burning stone while his sword hand reached out for a contact cut that almost missed.

At one hundred and fifty, the first real sign appeared: a faint gray scuff along the chipped claw edge, so small that if the lavafall had pulsed a second later, he might have missed it. [Compound Swing | Chain: 150 | Damage: +1500%] Chat saw it anyway. mark MARK barely trash sword vs dragon claw, what did you expect keep going don't look at hp hp bar didn't move lmao Meno did not look at the health bar. He knew better. The bar would insult him.

The scuff mattered because it belonged to the claw, and the claw had failed to be invincible. He kept the rhythm small. Tap the chipped line. Shift behind the talon. Let the breath roll past. Tap again before the chain starved. The tail shifted after deeper ember pulses, but the pattern had enough warning when he watched the seams near the rear leg. When those seams brightened from dull red to bright orange, he tucked tighter against the talon and let the movement drag sparks across the floor inches from his boots.

The next death came at Chain 173 because his own foot slipped on the glassy stone, not because the dragon changed anything. [Chain Broken: Stagger] The broken rhythm left him standing half a step too wide when the breath came. His HP disappeared before he could regain the claw's shadow. [Death | Ashen Crown Dragon — Sleeping Breath] [Respawn: Ashen Crown Shrine] [Dropped: Dead Button x1] Meno sat up with his jaw tight.

"Footing. My fault." He went again. The route markers made the first half cleaner. The dead button had dropped somewhere else now, but the broken loom peg and festival token still gave him enough visual anchors. He waited through the breath at the first spur, crossed after the lava pulse, climbed the shelf without touching the fissure, and reached the rear claw with more HP than before. The next chain reached two hundred.

[Compound Swing | Chain: 200 | Damage: +2000%] [Mastery Hint: Rhythm maintained beyond prior limit.] Meno read the notice in the corner of his vision and nearly paid for it. The tail seam brightened. He tucked into the talon shadow, shoulder scraping the claw, and kept the sword moving with short, ugly hits that barely deserved the name swing. The scuff on the claw edge darkened into a thin scraped groove. Not damage in the way people liked to clip. Not a chunk flying off.

A stubborn little line where cheap iron had met something ancient two hundred times and convinced it to acknowledge the conversation. His sword durability ticked into a warning shade. He swallowed the impulse to check the exact number. Menus killed chains. At two hundred and thirty, the breath came deeper again, and the claw shadow failed to cover his whole body. His HP fell to critical. He kept going because stopping would only make the death slower.

At two hundred and fifty, the groove gave a tiny red flash under the sword edge, less like a break and more like heat bleeding through a hairline crack. [Compound Swing | Chain: 250 | Damage: +2500%] The dragon's rear leg twitched. Meno did not celebrate. Celebration had range, and he did not have room for it. He shifted with the twitch, let the movement carry his blade along the same groove, and struck again as the talon settled.

At two hundred and eighty, the edge of the claw began shedding dust so fine it looked like ash. The dragon still slept. Its threat tag did not change. Its health bar, when his eyes betrayed him for half a glance, remained almost insulting in its stillness. That was fine. He was not killing it. He was stealing from the impossible. At three hundred, the system gave him the number and nothing else. [Compound Swing | Chain: 300 | Damage: +3000%] The sword bit into the groove.

A sound cracked through the talon, quiet compared to the lavafall, loud enough to make Meno's shoulders lock. A sliver broke from the chipped claw edge and dropped to the stone near his boot, glowing dull crimson along one side. The piece was smaller than his palm, curved, dense, and sharp where it had separated. Chat went rabid. PICK IT UP CLAW DROP mining class PICK IT UP don't die pick it up before breath that's money that's so much money The next breath was already building. Meno's chain was alive.

The sliver lay just outside the safest line. His HP sat above half, which meant he had one bad decision available. He took one final contact hit to keep the count from dying while he stepped out. The sword touched the groove. Then he broke away, dropped low, and snatched the sliver off the floor. [Major Loot Acquired: Ashen Crown Claw Splinter x1] The claw shadow vanished as the breath rolled through. Meno tried to dive back behind the talon.

The heat caught him mid-motion, burned through the remaining HP, and put him down before the tail could finish the job. [Death | Ashen Crown Dragon — Sleeping Breath] [Respawn: Ashen Crown Shrine] [Dropped: Bent Spoon Head x1] He spawned at the shrine and opened inventory before standing fully upright. The claw splinter was there. Still there. Meno stared at it until chat's movement blurred around the edges of his vision.

[Ashen Crown Claw Splinter | Quality: Epic III | Type: Dragon Material] Trait: Heat-Bound, Apex Edge Crafting use unknown. Epic III. His mouth went dry in a different way. The dragon was still asleep. The exit still belonged to it. He had gained no level, solved no softlock, repaired no karma, and closed none of the gap BrineSaint had opened while he was banned. His Common III sword was wearing down against a thing it had no business touching. His junk padding had thinned again.

Every death brought gear loss closer. But he had taken an Epic III dragon material with a trash sword at Level 15. The win did not open the door. It made the locked room valuable. Viewers: 5, 912 Meno sat on the shrine step and let his hand shake for a few breaths. Chat spammed prices, crafter names, warnings, guild conspiracy, accusations, and prayers to the post he no longer owned. He closed the inventory before the item could become a panic object in his head. Then he searched again, slower. The torches.

The shrine base. The wall cracks near the lavafall. The carved lines in the floor. He used the claw splinter's heat to test seams, holding it near old grooves and watching for a reaction. Nothing opened. No hidden door shifted. No ancient faction member stepped from the stone with a helpful speech. The cavern stayed exactly as trapped as before. Good, in a bitter way. Easy would have made the splinter feel fake. Meno looked back toward the rear claw.

The groove he had made was still there, a tiny wound on a body the size of a building. He could reach it again. He could maybe clean the route. He could maybe push past three hundred if his sword survived. He could maybe harvest another piece before the dragon decided sleep had gone on long enough. He stood, rolled his wrist once, and winced hard enough that chat noticed. rest farm dragon sell claw for house he can't leave softlock mining arc one more"Five minutes," Meno said. Viewers: 7, 304 He lasted three.

The dragon slept in the red-lit cavern, the exit behind it and the shrine behind him. Meno drew the battered Common III sword and started toward the junk markers again.

"Again," he said.