Chương 106: Crownfall Whale Extermination

Meno woke the next morning with a dry mouth. He stumbled into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Empty.

"This is starting to become a serious problem." He closed the fridge, shook his head, and checked his stream setup. He had restreamed Oxy before logging out, but the stream was off now because she had stopped sometime while he slept. Good for her, probably. Less good for the channel, which had been left alone with Chadculator's math and then darkness. Meno sat down and did quick research instead of responsible grocery ordering.

The most popular Streamline clip from yesterday was his Essencefruit farming attempt, titled Can't Touch This.

"That is actually pretty clever." Then the current trending clip from a few hours ago caught his attention. Crownfall Whale Extermination Meno opened the full video on Kestrel's channel, already suspecting what it was about. The video began with Kestrel at the front of a huge white-wood warship decorated in gold and red trim. A tilted crown marked Crownfall's sails. The deck even had a small zubra catapult mounted near the rail, because why not. It was not a starter boat.

The deck had enough room for around eighty Crownfall players without turning into a pile of elbows. That was a serious group. A real one, with tanks, supports, ranged players, melee, backup tricks, and enough spare bodies to turn death into rotation planning. This was the first time Meno had seen Kestrel clearly. The guy looked mid-thirties, with both sides of his head shaved and a viking-ish haircut. Light-brown braids ran along the sides, tied into a knot at the back.

He had stubble, a lean build, and a calm posture that belonged in the thumbnail before the fight had even started. Kestrel stood beside a young guy with long white hair, early twenties at most, holding an unnecessarily long fishing rod that might have qualified as medium range by itself.

"Are you ready, Patience?" Kestrel asked.

"No mistakes." Patience kept his attention on the water ahead.

"Yes. It's still on the map, and we're almost on it. If it stays in the water, I won't miss."

"So he really had someone with level sixty Fishing," Meno muttered. Patience pulled the rod back until the whole thing started glowing gold. He cast the line far into the dark water ahead, where it hooked something beneath the surface. The entire ship lurched as the line went tight. A penguin burst out of the sea, flippers rigid with surprise. [Druunol — Level 102 — Korka Champion — Druid] Kestrel shouted, "Begin!" The first tank was already loaded into the zubra catapult.

A lever snapped down, and he launched off the ship, flying along the fishing line before activating a charge skill midair and crashing into the penguin hard enough to stun it. The second tank fired farther ahead, caught the stunned penguin with another charge, and turned the impact into a knockback skill that shoved Druunol onto the deck. Both tanks splashed into the water behind him, instantly demoted from the fight. Druunol hit the deck, the stun wore off, and Crownfall attacked all at once.

Druunol transformed into a bear the size of a small shed and slammed both forepaws down. An AoE shockwave rippled across the deck, but two tanks on the ship raised transparent walls from opposite sides, catching the impact before it deleted half the raid. Kestrel kept firing from near the front, each arrow doing almost no visible damage as small yellow orbs began circling Druunol.

"Orbit Prism Detonator," Meno said. Each shot from Kestrel stacked the orbs faster than the last, and the fight collapsed into chaos almost immediately. Druunol charged the tank in front of him, shattered the transparent wall, and swiped once. The tank vanished. Ranged DPS kept firing, but the Korka's HP moved at a snail's pace, each percentage point paid for with bodies and cooldowns. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The bear snapped into a panther and rushed straight for Kestrel. A warrior stepped out beside him with a hammer and bonked the panther away. Druunol smashed into the other side of the ship, where another warrior waited with a two-handed mace and bonked him back. For a few seconds, the level one hundred two druid became the angriest pinball in Veyrath. Kestrel kept attacking. Support buffs layered over him until his bow blurred.

His firing speed climbed so high Meno had to slow the video to understand the hand motion. Yellow orbs multiplied around Druunol, circling faster and brighter with every arrow. The next time Druunol reached Kestrel's side, a priest moved in front of the hit on purpose. He died instantly, and his death triggered a fear effect that forced Druunol into an uncontrolled walk toward the opposite side of the ship. The moment the fear wore off, Druunol transformed into a gorilla and smashed both fists into the deck.

The ship lurched hard enough to split wood down the middle, but Druunol's HP kept dropping under the overwhelming ranged fire. A warlock summoned imps around the gorilla to distract it. Druunol annihilated them instantly, moved too fast for anything that large, then leapt up the mast and dropped onto a clump of players. The impact deleted them all. A frost mage blinked next to the gorilla and extended one finger. Both the mage and Druunol turned into ice statues.

The mage got dispelled a moment later and backed off, while Druunol remained frozen and ate another storm of ranged attacks. Melee players stayed back, which Meno approved of for once. When the ice broke, the gorilla became a panther again. Druunol activated a speed skill and chased down the frost mage, killing him in one swipe. A rogue appeared beside the panther and started stabbing with a green-glowing blade. Druunol bit him, but a cheat-death passive kept the rogue alive long enough for one more stab.

The blade flared brighter, locking Druunol in paralysis while Kestrel received what looked like ten different buffs at once. Then he activated a skill, and each arrow applied two orbiting orbs instead of one. The yellow lights around Druunol thickened into a swarm. Another priest ran at the panther as paralysis faded, died instantly, and failed to trigger fear.

"Status immunity threshold," Meno said. A rogue waiting behind Kestrel adjusted instantly, hooked him under both arms, and burst toward the other side of the ship with a speed boost while Kestrel kept shooting. Druunol transformed into a bear and stomped hard enough to delete the side Kestrel had just left, but another tank raised a transparent wall in time to save everyone else.

Crownfall was running out of tricks, but Druunol had dropped to 40% HP, and that was close enough for players to start running at the bear one at a time as pure sacrifice. Each one bought Kestrel another second to stack orbs. Druunol rampaged through them, one-shotting anyone without cheat death. Eventually, only Kestrel remained alive on the broken deck, attacking relentlessly while the ship creaked under him. Druunol shifted into a gorilla and jumped at him.

Kestrel activated a skill that shoved himself into the sky, dodging the landing. The gorilla jumped after him a moment later. Kestrel triggered another skill and appeared back on the deck where he had launched from, never stopping the attacks. The gorilla shifted into a bear midair and came down in a charge. Kestrel dashed forward in a blur at the last second, avoiding the impact, then snapped back to his previous position with the same movement skill when the bear charged again.

"Now!" Kestrel shouted. A transparent cage snapped into place around Druunol. The arrow waiting in Kestrel's bow flared bright for one sharp moment, then vanished. Every yellow orb circling the druid burst into an arrow at once. The arrows struck the cage walls, split in two, and curved back into Druunol from every side. The druid vanished inside a pincushion of light as his remaining HP disappeared in one violent burst. [Global Announcement] The Korka invasion has been averted by Crownfall.

Kestrel let out one sharp laugh as notifications flooded his screen, but he did not open any of them. The ship was a wreck by the end. Broken planks, collapsed mast sections, and cracked railings covered the deck, leaving it barely functional and maybe sinking, though Meno still did not know if ships counted as true vessels or special mount types. Kestrel crossed the ruined deck to the orca-headed body, where loot beams shone from the corpse. He ignored them all except one. The scroll. Meno's scroll.

Kestrel picked it up, held it toward the camera, and smiled.

"Thanks for the mythic. See, guys? This is Crownfall." The video ended. The bastard had cut the stream before showing the loot or notifications, leaving Meno sitting there in silence, profoundly unpleased. Kestrel had someone with level sixty Fishing for some reason, and Patience had never crossed Meno's radar before, which was probably the point.

Crownfall's strategy had been annoying, expensive, well-executed, and brutally practical: four raid groups worth of players, status-chain planning, body sacrifices, knockbacks, walls, and Kestrel stacking his class mechanic until the burst became lethal. It had almost failed anyway. Druunol was high level, but not a raid boss, so status effects worked until immunity built, and Crownfall had abused that window perfectly.

Meno hated giving them credit almost as much as he hated having donated the mythic quest starter item to Kestrel. Orbit Prism Detonator looked like ranged Swing Master Infernal. Low damage for most of the fight, stack orbs, explode everything. Kestrel also had those back-and-forth movement skills, which were sick. Meno wanted an instant reposition skill too, but warrior-type classes probably did not get clean escapes like that. The knock came while Meno was still thinking about ship repair costs.

He looked up, and for one second, he thought it might be his mother checking on him after seeing some clip titled "Meno Dies to Angel Monk." He opened the door cautiously, then almost closed it immediately. A shorter figure stood outside in a teal zip hoodie and baggy sweatpants, hood up, sunglasses on indoors like someone about to rob him. For one second, Meno thought a crazy fan had found his address. Then he caught the barely visible smile under the glasses, and recognition arrived. She pushed the hood back.

"Heeey." Meno's thoughts stalled.

"Oxy? What are you doing here?" Oxy did not answer. She only caught the zipper on her hoodie and pulled it all the way down. Meno followed the motion. Nothing underneath.

"Oh."