Chương 187: The End

Thank you for coming along on Meno's journey. Somehow, what started with a guy fighting boars and trying to make Swing Master work turned into more than 2, 000 pages of optimization, broken mechanics, world-firsts, increasingly questionable science, and one player pushing his class so far that Divine Evolution simply stopped mattering. I genuinely appreciate everyone who stuck with the story along the way. Every rating, review, comment, recommendation, and bit of support helped keep me writing.

I know the ending may feel abrupt to some readers, so I wanted to explain a little of the thinking behind it. By this point, Meno had reached a state where he was simply unstoppable within Veyrath. Velnir was supposed to be the wall. It demanded tank swaps, ranged pressure, healing, dispels, aerial control, and enough burst damage to beat a hard timer.

Meno's group went in massively underleveled, without a healer, failed repeatedly, learned the encounter, and then Meno revived Chain Madness to kill the raid endboss in 24. 4 seconds. Any boss strong enough to genuinely stop him would have to be tuned so aggressively around Meno's build, mechanics, and ability to adapt that it would be effectively unbeatable for normal players. More HP, harsher mechanics, stronger counters, none of those were impossible for Solar to create.

But if they were strong enough to wall Meno, they would crush everyone else. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. And Meno had already fallen for the "Evolution" trap once. At Level 60, he accepted what was supposed to be an upgrade and Solar used it to reshape and restrict Swing Master. He spent a huge part of the story clawing his way back from that, eventually turning Tyrant EX into something far stronger than what he had started with.

When Divine Evolution appeared, Meno had no reason to make the same mistake again. He had a proven build that had just destroyed the hardest released content in seconds. Divine Ascension was irreversible. Mortal Pantheon could not undo it. And the game refused to tell him exactly what he would receive. From Meno's perspective, taking that deal would have been a massive throw. So he didn't. That refusal is what finally broke the relationship between Meno and Solar.

Solar had run out of answers that could stop Meno without breaking the game for everyone else. So it shut down Veyrath. Rank One or Bust. Meno got both. That said, this may not necessarily be the last time you see Meno and the rest of the cast. I have thought about continuing their story in a different game, picking up from where this leaves off and seeing what happens when Meno gets dropped into an entirely new system with none of his old advantages. I have not decided whether I will do that yet.

A lot will depend on reader interest. So if you'd like to see Meno, Karmabeast, BrineSaint, Kestrel, Arayu, Thorn, and the rest return, leave a comment and let me know. For now, though, this is the end of Swing Master Rank One or Bust. Thank you for reading, and for sticking with Meno all the way to the end. PrayerBeadGod won. -RankUnlisted