Chương 113: Kill Cage

Meno turned the stream on as the XPro pulled him back into Veyrath. He appeared beneath the green-leaved tree in Naraltan, and before he even moved, he felt the difference. The XPro held his body like a warm embrace: no cheap capsule delay, no uneven pressure, no tiny hitch in the transfer that his old X7 had taught him to ignore because he had never known better. Meno flexed his fingers, and the response came smooth.

He rolled his shoulders, stepped sideways, pivoted, and tested small foot placements under the tree. Then he kicked once with False Wings, landed, kicked again, and watched the motion settle exactly where he expected instead of slightly behind his intent.

"Sorry about the delay, guys," Meno said.

"I got kicked out of my apartment." evicted streamer rich homeless classic PBG The XPro felt maybe five times smoother where it mattered while costing twenty-five times more than the X7. The price curve was brutal. Rich players were not paying for twenty-five times better; they were paying to remove the small failures that only started mattering once skill got high enough to feel them. The question was what to upgrade next.

If he wanted to chase Swing Master Titan through Core Revision, he had to be careful, because upgrading abilities he later replaced would waste Essence. Pump Infernal felt like the obvious choice. Instant Chain generation was always useful, and if the upgrade reduced cooldown, it could become stronger than old Panic Pump in a different way. [Pump Infernal] Activate to gain 66 Chain. Chain Detonation cannot occur until you spend at least 66 Chain or your Chain breaks. Cooldown: 10 seconds.

Old Panic Pump gave more Chain, but only at the start or after a break. Pump Infernal could be spammed. If he eventually changed his core away from detonation and back toward stacking damage, the "no detonation until spend or break" downside would barely matter.

"I bet upgrades reduce cooldown. They probably don't increase Chain gain because Infernal caps at sixty-six." He hovered the upgrade.

"Two seconds would be too much. Half a second would be lame. I'm hoping for one." He spent an Essence bringing him down to 51. [Pump Infernal I] Activate to gain 66 Chain. Chain Detonation cannot occur until you spend at least 66 Chain or your Chain breaks. Cooldown: 9 seconds.

"Bingo," Meno said.

"Called it." obvious dont get cocky free call Pump good Before he could upgrade it again, five players logged in directly in front of him. Meno froze for half a heartbeat, then recognized the muscle guy with cropped hair and a black beard standing at the front. It clicked together before the system prompt finished. [Thorn — 60 | War Anchor Dominion | RB | Stormhold] Behind him stood three warlocks and a priest, all level fifty-five. Damage over time squad.

They had built the party to kill someone who relied on evasion. You could not dodge debuffs once they landed. It was the correct idea if the target had no answers, which made Meno wonder how long Thorn had spent imagining this clip. AMBUSH STORMHOLD five stack under tree?? Thorn mad"Gotcha," Thorn said.

"You thought you could pull that and walk away? Try to run from this." He held an oversized shield in one hand. His sword vanished from the other, replaced by a blue flag. Thorn drove it into the ground, and a circle expanded around them to medium range. Transparent walls rose at the edge like a sealed arena as his sword reappeared in his hand. Meno stared at the kill cage, almost impressed. Maybe they had watched him struggle against level one hundred-plus champions and decided he was weak now.

That was possible if their brains had been left on a stove. His character could not cross a forty-level gap cleanly, but against other level sixties without Vervenzal-tier gear, he was stacked to a criminal degree. Especially with his sword. [Legendary III | Vervenzal's Verdict] Type: One-Handed Sword Durability: Indestructible Opening Decree: Attacks with this weapon deal 300% increased damage to enemies above 80% Health.

First Exposure: Attacks with this weapon ignore 100% of Defense against enemies above 80% Health. Final Decree: Attacks with this weapon deal 300% increased damage to enemies below 20% Health. Mercy Severed: Attacks with this weapon pierce shields against enemies below 20% Health. Infernal detonation with that sword against full HP targets was disgusting. A normal Detonation already packed 460 hits into one event. Against enemies above 80% HP, it became four times stronger and ignored Defense.

Meno only needed 66 Chain once, and he had no desire to run. Bringing low-mobility debuff casters into a locked circle was smart in theory. In practice, it gave him free targets, fixed spacing, and a closed area where he could build exactly what his class wanted. Thorn had locked his casters into a death trap. Meno unequipped Sleepless Grip. Then he activated Pump Infernal, spent Chain into Cleave Infernal, and manually triggered Break for the speed buff. Pursuit fired from his sword.

The projectile struck Thorn's shield as expected, and dragged Meno straight toward him. Thorn blocked. It did not matter. Infernal Marks snapped onto the three warlocks and the priest behind him. Three damage over time debuffs landed on Meno immediately. He reequipped Sleepless Grip. Thorn's shield began to glow, and a frontal cone burst from it with the swing. Sleepless Grip resisted the stun effect. Meno slid under the edge of the shield, cut once, and began attacking at full speed. Thorn was good.

He blocked every strike. He did not chase Meno's movement with greedy sword swings, only turned his shield and held defense. Meno circled with short skips, little side hops, and single-kick False Wings bursts so the 20% maxHP shield while airborne from False Wings would soak as many damage over time ticks as possible. The normal attacks dealt no damage anyway. Meno only cared about contact.

With Pursuit's double-strike effect and Break Infernal V, he could build Chain fast when Thorn kept presenting a shield to hit. 6 Chain per attack. Doubled Action Speed. 36 Chain per second at max speed. The numbers climbed while Thorn blocked everything like a pro. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Three more debuffs landed. The priest dispelled the Infernal Mark from himself.

Thorn clearly understood how Meno's class worked, because as the Chain count approached 66, he triggered a defensive cooldown. Diamond-like plates hardened across his whole body, but Meno's hits still registered, and the first proper Chain Detonation of his Infernal life triggered. Black smoke erupted from Thorn, and his diamond skill swallowed most of it. The warlocks did not have diamond anything. All three Infernal Marks exploded in black flame and they died instantly.

[Hostile Player Defeated x3] [Karma Gained: 30] [Gold Acquired: 1500g] WARLOCKS DELETED one shot Thorn brought snacks Infernal online three coffins The priest survived because he had cleansed his mark. Pull Infernal did nothing useful. If the warlocks had lived half a second longer, the pull could have dragged them onto Thorn and shared the disaster. Instead, the detonations triggered first, killed them, and left no bodies for the pull to use. The detonation broke Chain and Break Infernal refreshed.

Meno kept circling, skipping, cutting, and building again as Thorn glanced toward the empty spots where his warlocks had stood.

"Tss," Thorn said.

"Useless." The warlocks would respawn here in about a minute, right under the shrine. They were irrelevant: too low level, PvE damage gear, not enough defensive layers. The priest could not cleanse four marks inside the two-second window that mattered. The priest hesitated because Thorn was not taking real damage, and Meno kicked off Thorn's shield toward him. Thorn triggered a wall between them, so Meno struck the transparent barrier with his foot, pushed off, and reengaged Thorn instead.

The temporary wall was annoying, but not a full answer. Most of Meno's tools were still coming back. Then Thorn summoned another flag and drove it downward. Meno jumped high on instinct, not knowing the effect, but when the flag touched the ground, a shockwave erupted upward and knocked him out of the air because Sleepless Grip was still on cooldown. He activated Cannon Infernal as he fell. The three-second swing started. Too slow.

Thorn's sword lit with a charging attack, and Meno canceled the Cannon, broke Chain, refreshed Break Infernal, hit the ground in a skip, and dodged as Thorn released a sword projectile through the space where he had been. The XPro made the dodge feel clean. Meno kept attacking normally, circling Thorn until the Chain climbed again. The priest used a cooldown that made Thorn glow orange. Meno pretended to commit to the next swing, then launched forward with both legs instead. False Wings fired like a rocket.

The wall had expired. Meno flew at the priest, swung midair, and detonated him instantly. [Hostile Player Defeated] [Karma Gained: 10] [Gold Acquired: 500g] PRIEST GONE five stack btw PBG woke up angry gear diff He tucked into a forward somersault, brought his legs around, and used the second double-legged False Wings burst to shoot back toward Thorn. The fight had been going for maybe seven seconds. Meno sat at 89% HP, with his False Wings shield smoothing the debuff ticks that had already expired.

The warlocks would return before the priest, and without the dispel available, he could blow them up again. A minute was infinite time when the enemy tank could not pin him down. Thorn kept blocking. He did not have many offensive options, or he was hiding them. Full defense build. Main tank brain. A walking raid wall with a guild master's ego bolted to the front. He counted Meno's timing well enough to use defensives whenever Chain approached the limit. Meno tried delaying.

Meno stopped attacking and used the full three-second Chain upkeep window to see whether Thorn's diamond effect would expire, but it lasted too long. He had to send the Detonation before Chain broke, and the blast only carved about five percent off Thorn's HP. Nineteen more. About forty seconds at full speed, assuming Thorn had no healing. They kept circling inside the transparent cage. Thorn adjusted by summoning smaller walls between them at critical moments, trying to force a miss, but Meno reacted too fast.

Jump, kick, clear the wall, land back on the shield, unload more contact hits. Meno began using Pump Infernal as it came off cooldown to store Detonations with Madness Infernal, which turned out to be the right call. At 50% HP, Thorn summoned another banner and drove it into the ground. The flag pulsed once, and Thorn's HP regenerated back to full. Meno sighed at the extremely annoying guy.

"We can do this all day," Meno said, still attacking.

"Your buddies respawning won't help either." Thorn blocked another strike.

"You will die. I have all day." Meno had zero desire to keep this up for hours. The medium-range cage still held strong, probably tied to Thorn's Dominion evolution, and Meno had no idea how many Detonations he needed to store to kill through Thorn's diamond defensive. If a full blast did five percent under cooldowns, stored blasts started at half that, then scaled with Madness Infernal. If he released too early, Thorn healed to full.

If he saved too long, the warlocks respawned and forced him to spend the bank deleting them. Deadlock. The irony annoyed him. Thorn, of all people, had become the full-defense wall that even Meno's Defense penetration could not simply erase. BrineSaint at least punished blocked attacks with retaliation. Thorn mostly survived. Meno's Sleepless Grip kept countering the frontal shield stun, and Thorn could not land normal hits against Break Infernal V speed. It felt like fighting a target dummy with infinite HP.

Then the Titan Trial thought arrived. Thorn's build would be useful there. Meno disliked the guy, but he could look past that if it got him through the door. The trial required another player at his level or higher, and Thorn was level sixty: tanky, stubborn, high reaction, guild master, and too proud to admit fear on stream. Thorn had also spent days calling Meno's accomplishments exploits, broken-class nonsense, and unfair AI attention.

Titan Trial was a chance to prove Stormhold's "fast and agile" philosophy was not panel filler. If Thorn refused in front of millions, he looked scared. If he accepted, he risked his character but gained a shot at a unique subclass. Meno kept attacking while he spoke.

"You keep saying my build is fake. Fine. Titan Trial. You and me." Thorn's shield shifted.

"If you survive, you also get the Titan subclass," Meno said.

"If you die, I power level you back to sixty. What do you say?" TITAN TRIAL NO WAY permadeath content Thorn do it"Power level my nuts," Thorn said.

"You think I accept your handouts? It might take a while, but you will die." Meno shook his head. The guy was too tilted, too stubborn, and too trapped by the fact that he had brought a full party and still could not kill Meno. Pride was a debuff with no visible timer. The three warlocks resurrected at the shrine, and Meno released five stored Detonations. Black flame erupted inside the closed circle.

The first blast took the warlocks to around 25% HP, the second finished them, and all five slammed into Thorn's face while he braced behind his shield. Then Thorn planted the regeneration flag again and returned to full HP. Meno kept moving.

"You wanted 'Stormhold Deletes PrayerBeadGod,' but you are getting 'PBG Farms Stormhold Four-Stack, Thorn Too Fat To Die.' Is that what you want?" Thorn said nothing.

"I know you can't stop without looking cooked," Meno said.

"So turn it into something else. PBG and Thorn Team Up For Titan Trial. That passes ten million viewers easily with the permadeath content bait." He struck, broke, skipped over a wall, and kept going.

"Start thinking like a guild master, not Karmabeast. There is zero reason to keep wasting time." Thorn did not respond immediately, so Meno started storing Detonations again. He was about ninety percent sure Thorn had a cheat-death ability too. It would fit the build perfectly. Even if Meno stacked high enough once, the fight probably would not end unless he could do it twice or catch Thorn after the defensive chain ran out.

A quick test with False Wings confirmed the medium range circle around them refused exit completely, unlike Thorn's temporary blockers. The priest respawned. Thorn tried to save him with a wall, but stored Detonations ignored the barrier. The priest survived four blasts via cooldowns and healing himself mid-cascade, then died on the fifth. No Karma or gold appeared this time, anti-grief protection cutting off shrine farming rewards. Meno returned to normal Detonations on Thorn.

Maybe he could break through if he timed stored blasts at 50% HP to overcome the regeneration banner, then kept attacking through the next minute before the respawns mattered. Tedious, but possible. Thorn seemed to realize the same thing, and his composure cracked.

"Fine," Thorn snapped.

"I'm done with this crap. Let's do it." Meno stopped attacking. Thorn lowered his shield slightly.

"The damage from your stupid sword is ridiculous. Losing five percent HP through my ninety percent damage reduction skill is a joke. Your status-block gloves are also a joke and your speed makes you an annoying fly."

"Trash balance," he added. Meno let the sword hang at his side.

"You got it backwards. My gear is insane, and you are still impossible to kill. That regeneration banner is a bit much."

"I am specced to tank raid bosses," Thorn said.

"RAID BOSSES. It is one thing if I can't kill you. You should not be able to deal this much damage."

"Let's stop arguing balance." Meno looked at the cage wall.

"We need to get out of here and go to Templefall Hollow to enter the Titan Trial." Thorn made a sound through his teeth.

"I didn't come here just to kill you over the Thornado meme. That is kid stuff." Meno did not believe him for one second. Thorn had absolutely come here angry about the Thornado meme and brought a kill squad to make it look strategic. Now he was trying to exit with dignity, which was fine.

"I want two Essence," Thorn said.

"To replace my channeled projectile attack. It provides no defensive value. Useless."

"And how do you want to accomplish that?" Meno asked.

"Do you think you can survive a champion onslaught?" Thorn lifted his chin.

"Why are you complaining? Cook some AI poison up. That is your specialty, is it not? I am an ethical person." He said it with a straight face. Unbelievable. The guy actually meant it.