Chương 117: Two Noobs

Meno wasn't going to bother with basic attacks. On Thorn's class, they were almost completely pointless unless they came attached to an ability, and every wasted swing meant the shield moved away from where it needed to be. The whole thing felt wrong in his hands. Swing Master had trained him to attack through pressure, but War Anchor Dominion wanted him to become pressure by standing still and cycling various banners. They had run out of prep time. Neither of them truly knew what the hell they were doing.

The four stone golems stepped out from the gates at the same time, and Meno planted Dominion over the middle of the arena before his nerves could argue. A medium-range circle locked into the dirt around him. He faced the northern golem and used Taunt, pulling its blank stone head toward him. Each golem walked toward him from a different angle, like the trial had opened by asking whether he could block four directions with one arm. After two stationary seconds, he reached 100 Anchor. That part worked.

Turning Thorn's plated body did not. The -35% Action Speed penalty sat in every movement, dragging his shoulder rotation and making the shield feel late before the first hit even arrived. Thorn, wearing Meno's gear, used Pump Infernal, spent 33 Chain on Cleave Infernal, and struck the eastern golem as Pursuit turned the attack into a projectile. The charge yanked him forward, and the double-strike effect began. The other three golems received Infernal Marks. Good. The northern golem raised a fist over Meno. Bad.

"Bring yours center," Meno said. Thorn's answer came rough and strained as he dodged an attack.

"Calm down, I am doing zero dps. Use Shockwave for aggro." Meno spent 100 Anchor on Shockwave. The flag burst hammered outward through the medium range, hitting all four golems and dragging their threat toward him with satisfying force. It also emptied his defensive resource right before the first overhead strike landed. He planted again and lifted the shield because stepping for a cleaner angle would delay the rebuild. The northern fist slammed into the shield and drove it inward, leaving him at 96% HP.

The eastern golem followed before he could rotate fully. The edge of the shield caught part of the hit, but enough force punched through to leave him at 92% HP. Thorn's body could take punishment, but blocking was not invulnerability, and Meno had already spent the resource that made this class work. Thorn attacked at maximum Chain and expected an explosion. Nothing happened. He overcorrected, missed the next swing, and Chain broke, triggering Break Infernal as he cursed.

"What the hell? Detonation failed."

"You only spent half of Pump's Chain," Meno snapped while twisting the shield toward the southern golem.

"Spend the rest or break it first." tank tutorial live Thorn in DPS jail Meno reading tooltips mid-punch 4 lanes 1 shield warmup wave golems slow The southern golem's fist crashed into the dirt beside Meno. The western golem forced him to turn the shield while still trying to remain planted. Meno finally reached 100 Anchor again and used Stun. The frontal cone caught the northern and eastern golems. Only those two. The western golem's fist descended from outside his shield line.

Meno triggered Diamond, reducing the blow by 90%, and all 100 Anchor vanished at once. The punch still rocked him hard enough to force him two steps back, leaving him at 90% HP. Before he could reset his guard, the southern golem clipped his side. Thorn's heavy armor and shield stats kept it from becoming a collapse, but with zero Anchor remaining, the hit dropped him to 80% HP. Meno felt the class arguing with itself. Spend Anchor to live now, lose Anchor, then die to the next ordinary fist.

Thorn restarted Chain with hurried attacks. Then he tried using a double-legged False Wings launch to escape the southern lane. The borrowed speed, Break Infernal, and unfamiliar aerial force launched him much farther than intended. He landed directly in front of the eastern golem as Stun ended. The golem punched him cleanly. Thorn flew across the dirt and hit the ground at 45% HP. Meno stared for half a breath despite the northern golem crowding him.

"Regen fast," Thorn growled. Thorn used a single-legged False Wings kick this time, correcting better but still overshooting. Meno activated Regen as Thorn crossed back through the radius. The healing restored 50% maximum HP over 1 second, bringing Meno to 100% HP and Thorn to 95% HP. That cooldown was gone for 30 seconds. He activated Sacrificial Dominion next, then spent another rebuilt 100 Anchor on Shockwave, choosing threat and AoE over the safety of Diamond.

If the golems scattered, Thorn would get deleted before he learned how to stand upright in Swing Master. Thorn dashed toward the nearest golem's back. The shockwave staggered their cadence but did not disable them. The northern golem struck first, and Meno blocked it down to 97% HP. The eastern golem attacked before the shield returned to center, and the partial block left him at 93% HP.

The western golem came from the opposite side while Meno stayed planted to rebuild Anchor, catching plate and dropping him to 88% HP.

"Stop giving me speed," Thorn said.

"Makes control sloppy."

"Smaller movements. Get used to the speed." Thorn made a sound that could have been a threat or agreement. Meno held the center and refused to move. He kept the shield toward whichever golem had advanced furthest into a swing, accepting lesser hits against the edge of his guard rather than resetting Anchor again. A scrape across the shield dropped him to 85% HP. Thorn finally did something clean.

He intentionally broke a small Chain reserve, used Pump Infernal, spent all 66 Chain on Madness Infernal, and stored 1 Detonation. When Pursuit returned, the projectile struck the eastern golem and dragged him in. With Pursuit's double hits and Break Infernal active, he reached full Chain in roughly 2 seconds and triggered a proper detonation. The eastern golem took the direct blast, and the three marked golems erupted with black flame. The explosions overlapped, each golem damaging the others.

All four dropped into the mid-70% range before Pull Infernal dragged all of them on top of each other, into hugging distance. For damage, it was excellent. For Meno, it created a fist cage. All four massive bodies compressed close enough to surround him. Stone arms overlapped above his head, with windups starting from front-left, front-right, and both sides.

"Refresh Infernal Marks with Cleave, then repeat," Meno said. Meno spent the Anchor he had rebuilt on another Shockwave into the cluster. The AOE damage was good, and it interrupted their rhythm for a breath, but it returned him to zero Anchor again. He followed with Stun as soon as it came ready, catching all four. During the 2-second pause, Meno rotated the shield, checked Thorn's position, and shifted just enough inside Dominion to make only two golems recover with clean lanes.

Then he stopped moving completely and rebuilt to 100 Anchor. Thorn used the safe window for Cleave Infernal, marked three targets, rebuilt, and detonated again. Middle-band explosions rolled through the group. Pull Infernal compressed them right back into Meno's personal space again. The stun ended with multiple fists already halfway through their swings. The front golem pinned Meno's shield against his chest and left him at 82% HP.

The left golem followed before his slowed arms could recover, and the partial block dropped him to 77% HP. The right golem forced the real choice: step away and lose the rebuild, or stand there and take it through plate. He stayed planted. Full Anchor limited the hit, but he still dropped to 70% HP.

"Attack faster," Meno said.

"I can't hold it forever." Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Can't risk full engage if they turn on me, I am instantly dead," Thorn snapped. The next overhead strike came from outside Meno's best shield angle. He triggered Diamond and took the hit, leaving him at 68% HP, but the protection covered only that single impact. Another golem pounded the shield immediately afterward, dropping him to 64% HP, and a third clipped his shoulder while the guard was displaced, leaving him at 56% HP. The fourth golem began turning toward Thorn.

Meno had to step across Dominion and physically block its path. The movement prevented the next rebuild from starting. He shoved the shield into the golem's lane and taunted it back. Thorn tried to keep his damage rhythm while circling for safety. One precise False Wings kick worked. Then he added a second unnecessary kick and sailed across Meno's shield line. His next attack missed, Chain broke, and one golem pivoted after him, changing the entire attack pattern just as Meno had started reading it.

Meno caught that fist on the shield, but the rotation exposed his back. A rear hit drove him forward and left him at 44% HP.

"Stop changing the attack angles," Meno said.

"Blocking doesn't generate aggro, use your damn sword or Shockwave," Thorn growled. PBG tanking sus Thorn discovered mobility False Wings tax they gonna die lol One golem followed Thorn toward the edge of Dominion. Taunt was unavailable at that exact moment, and the other three kept battering Meno. He had to choose between maintaining the circle and letting the golem hit Thorn. He left Dominion. Any Anchor he had started rebuilding vanished instantly.

The other three followed their threat target and dragged the whole fight beyond the stationary circle. The Dominion circle vanished behind them, useless until its cooldown returned. Meno caught the escaping golem's attack with a late block and dropped to 40% HP, then a blind-side hit from the second golem lowered him to 34% HP.

"Stay in the circle!" Thorn shouted too late. Thorn's next Pursuit came ready, but the projectile missed when the target changed direction after Meno cut it off. Thorn lost the charge and double-strike window. The miss broke Chain, and he used the resulting Break Infernal burst to activate Pump and store a second Detonation with Madness Infernal. Outside Dominion, Meno needed four stationary seconds for full Anchor.

He blocked the next attack, but the impact slid him back a step and erased the small reserve he had built. Another golem swung from his blind side and forced a second adjustment before the resource could matter. Meno used Stun on three golems and planted. The fourth golem stayed active and attacked Thorn. At 75 Anchor, Meno stepped into its path, losing the entire reserve. He blocked late and dropped to 30% HP. He planted again.

Another golem came out of Stun with an offset swing, and Meno slid one foot while catching part of it, resetting the second rebuild and leaving him at 27% HP.

"Stupid negative action speed," Meno said.

"You are moving too much," Thorn said. Without Pursuit, Thorn needed sustained hits to reach detonation. He managed roughly four seconds of ugly attacks and triggered a direct blast into the cluster. The middle-band damage helped, but the golems did not care enough to stop. Two swung nearly together. Meno caught the first on his shield and dropped to 24% HP; the second landed against his side before the guard recovered, leaving him at 20% HP. He planted and committed to full Anchor. Three golems crowded his shield.

One blocked strike landed while Anchor was still low, dropping him to 17% HP. A second caught the edge of the guard with only part of the bar rebuilt and left him at 14% HP. He refused to move and finally reached 100 Anchor. Thorn spent 33 Chain on Cleave Infernal and landed the mark. Pursuit came ready mid-cycle. His maximum-Chain attack turned into the projectile, hit, and triggered the direct plus marked Detonations.

Pull Infernal dragged the scattered golems back into a cluster, and Pursuit charged Thorn into the center as he used Pump to store his third Madness Detonation. The compression stopped the wide flanks. It also put all four golems within immediate punching distance again. One stone arm blocked Meno's view of another windup. He blocked the first fist and took the hidden second swing against his armor. Full Anchor kept him alive at 12% HP.

"Every Pull turns them into a wall around me," Meno said.

"The wall is why all four eat the explosion overlap," Thorn said. Meno got greedy and spent full Anchor on Shockwave trying to increase his threat level because all four golems were grouped. The damage was useful. The defensive cost arrived instantly. With zero Anchor outside Dominion, he could not move without delaying the next rebuild and could not remain still without accepting overlapping attacks. The front golem struck the shield and pinned it low, leaving him at 9% HP.

The left golem's fist landed on his upper arm before he could recover and dropped him to 6% HP. The rear golem attacked a moment later. Meno turned enough to avoid taking it straight through his back, but the side impact left him at 3% HP. He used Stun as an emergency pause. Thorn had Pursuit and Break Infernal active. During the 2-second window, he produced two quick direct Detonations into the cluster. The damage was good, but Meno could feel the math closing around his borrowed body.

The golems froze with fists midway through descending swings. When Stun ended, Meno had positioned for the first two. Another strike came from behind those bodies and clipped him through the guard's edge, leaving him at 2% HP. The shield shook in his hand, and for a second he understood why Thorn cared so much about standing still.

"REGEN FAST!" Thorn barked. Regen finally returned and pulled him from 2% to 52% HP. Meno followed with Sacrificial Dominion to deal actual damage for the next 10 seconds, then planted himself, rebuilt Anchor, and endured with ordinary shield blocks. Thorn started a Cleave Infernal sequence, only for Sacrificial Dominion's movement speed to push his correction too wide. He missed the attack that would have completed the cycle, breaking Chain while the existing Infernal Marks remained.

One golem attacked Thorn during the miss. The blow clipped him, and Sacrifice redirected half the damage to Meno. Thorn landed at 81% HP, while Meno's armor and partial Anchor reduced the redirected portion enough to leave him at 41% HP. Meno could not step without losing the rebuild, so he used Taunt to pull that target back.

"Movement Speed plus Action Speed buff is too much," Thorn said.

"You picked this skill, stop crying." Meno kept the golems close through Taunt, body position, ordinary shield nudges, and the pulsing damage from Sacrificial Dominion. He stayed planted long enough to build meaningful Anchor again without spending it. The first blocked strike left him at 38% HP. A second caught the shield edge and dropped him to 35% HP. Thorn's Pump Infernal returned. He spent all the Chain on Madness Infernal, bringing the stored count to four, then used Release.

Four medium-range Detonations erupted in rapid succession across the clustered golems. Black bursts hammered stone bodies, stripping a large chunk of their middle health and bringing them into the upper-20% to high-30% range. Release broke Chain and granted Break Infernal. Their fists kept descending through the explosions. Meno used the flash between bursts to read the third attack, but the fourth golem struck during the final Detonation and drove him back. Anchor limited the hit, leaving him at 30% HP.

"Almost there," Meno said. Meno reached full Anchor and gambled it on another Shockwave. The AOE shoved the weakest golems near 20%. He immediately used Stun to freeze all 4 before they punished the zero-Anchor state. While they were disabled, he rotated so the two healthiest would be in front when they recovered. Thorn's Pursuit hit, and with Break Infernal active from Release, he reached full Chain fast and triggered a direct Detonation. The Infernal Marks erupted.

The first middle-band blasts pushed two central golems below 20%, and the later overlapping hits caught Final Decree from Vervenzal's Verdict. Two golems died. They collapsed inward instead of vanishing cleanly, stone bodies crashing into the center and blocking both Thorn's path and Meno's shield rotation. The surviving pair came out of Stun from opposite sides. One fist hit Meno's shield and left him at 29% HP. The other landed before he could bring the guard across, and with no Anchor, it dropped him to 21% HP.

"Stop the DPS brain nonsense and tank," Thorn said. 2 DOWN this is so dumb lol PBG never tank again Thorn worst dps confirmed Titan Trial cooking With only two golems left, Meno could finally read both windups. He planted behind the shield and ordered Thorn to keep both survivors in the same frontal angle. The first attack landed cleanly on the shield and left Meno at 20% HP. He let the second scrape across instead of stepping away, reaching 50 Anchor, then 75, while the hit dropped him to 17% HP.

Thorn tried crossing the fallen stone bodies with False Wings while keeping Chain. One single-legged kick cleared the obstruction perfectly. Then he added a second kick. He passed both surviving targets, missed his next attack, and broke Chain again. Meno used Taunt instead of moving when one golem turned after Thorn. That preserved the rebuild. The other golem attacked during the Taunt animation, forcing a late block and leaving him at 14% HP.

"The first kick was enough," Meno said.

"Instruction arrived after the second."

"That's because I assumed you had eyes."

"Keep your shield up." Meno completed four stationary seconds outside Dominion and reached 100 Anchor. For once, he used the class the way Thorn intended. No Shockwave. No panic step. He positioned the shield so both surviving golems had to attack through the same narrow angle. The first golem began its swing, followed a fraction later by the second. He blocked the first with full Anchor and dropped to 12% HP.

The second arrived before his slowed guard fully recovered, so he triggered Diamond, sacrificed his Anchor, and ate the punch. The hit forced him sideways, almost knocked him off his feet, and left him at 11% HP. Thorn used Pump Infernal, spent 33 Chain on Cleave Infernal, then manually broke Chain to clear the Pump restriction and trigger Break Infernal. Pursuit turned the next attack into a projectile. It hit one golem, marked the other, and charged Thorn into melee.

With Pursuit's double strikes and Break Infernal active, he reached full Chain in roughly 2 seconds and detonated. Both golems were below 20%, close enough to eat the direct and marked blasts, and the sword amplified the overlap. They died together. Meno stayed behind the shield and absorbed the collapsing momentum rather than celebrating early. Stone bodies hit the dirt around him, dust rolling across his boots. He ended at 11% HP, no Anchor, and a strong desire to ragequit the Titan Trial.

tutorial over WORLD FIRST DELETE SOON next wave RIP for sure time for last words Thorn landed nearby at 90% HP, breathing hard like he had survived by skill and not by borrowing the most unfair sword in Veyrath.

"That was a mess," Thorn said. Meno lowered the shield.

"They should have all died at the same time," Meno said.

"Some had higher HP than the others. Makes no sense." The first wave ended at roughly 55 seconds, and the next prompt appeared immediately. [Wave 2 begins in 5 minutes] No fancy mechanics had been required. The golems had only used size, offset attack timing and body obstruction. Meno had received both Regens, triggered Diamond several times, and still nearly died while Thorn's missed attacks and False Wings mistakes kept stretching the wave long enough for the borrowed tank kit to bleed out.

Thorn looked at the four fallen golems, then at Meno.

"If wave two is worse, we're dead." Meno checked the timer.

"Don't panic, I am getting the hang of this." Thorn gripped Vervenzal's Verdict with both hands.

"Swing Master is ridiculous. I am attacking so fast from this nonsense Action Speed buff that I can barely see where I am hitting. Six times a second, and if any hit lands slightly off, the whole thing resets to nothing. Meanwhile, I have to watch out for being randomly flattened."

"You are planting too much when you attack," Meno said, trying to make the point land.

"Keep moving with the target."

"Why am I drawing aggro when my hits do no damage? The target I use Chain Detonation on generates way more threat than the repeat explosions from the Infernal Marks. You have to save Taunt for that."

"Taunt is on a ten-second cooldown. You detonated between two and six seconds. Do the math."

"PBG, my character is about to be deleted," Thorn said, uncharacteristically emotional.

"Probably."