Chương 122: Titan Subclass

Meno was still celebrating when Thorn appeared beside him out of nowhere. For one heartbeat, Thorn's restored character did not move, like Veyrath was still figuring out how to put him back together. Then he surged forward and wrapped Meno in a crushing hug.

"You crazy bastard, you did it!" Thorn laughed hard enough to make the whole thing even stranger, then let go before it could get too awkward.

"That exploit was sick," Thorn said.

"Thought you didn't like exploits."

"When did I say that? I love exploits."

"Sure." Meno opened the stack of notifications waiting at the edge of his vision.

"Rewards first before I get banned. Celebrations after." Viewers: 13, 732, 118 true banned for sure worth it we will protest PBG gang rise up The first notification expanded. [Level Up! Level 62] Two levels for all of that felt like a scam, but Meno still liked the result. He had wasted a ridiculous amount of leveling time farming Essence recently, so jumping straight to sixty-two repaired some of the damage. He dismissed it and opened the reward he had actually entered the Titan Trial for.

[Select Reward] Bloodwake subclass detected. [Option 1: Merge Reward with Bloodwake] Trigger Subclass Evolution. Three evolution options will be presented. [Option 2: Upgrade Bloodwake] All Bloodwake effects will be massively enhanced. [Option 3: Titan Subclass] Titan class evolution unlocked. Titan Subclass cannot be replaced while Titan class evolution is active. Titan (Passive): Kicking a target below 10% HP kills them instantly. Bypasses all effects. TITAN EXECUTE all effects??? pick fast cheat death bypass?

RAID BOSS -10% HP insanely broken Meno's attention caught on the last sentence. Bypasses all effects. Three words. Too many dangerous interpretations. He did not bother wasting time on the other options. Meno selected Option 3 immediately. Thinking about it had no upside. Whatever punishment was coming, Meno wanted the Titan reward welded to his character first. He would have picked Titan even without the absurd passive.

Unlocking the Titan class evolution had been the whole point of chasing the key, and losing Bloodwake was a tiny price. Swim speed and underwater breathing were convenient. Preypool was fun. None of them came close to instantly killing anything below 10% HP. Especially not when the passive claimed to bypass all effects. Cheat deaths counted as effects. Invulnerability should count as an effect. Boss protections probably counted as effects too, unless Veyrath had decided to become very creative with definitions.

Beside him, Thorn finished reading his own reward and accepted the same option.

"I'm Titan now! This passive pumps in the best way possible." Meno closed his reward window.

"It clearly bypasses cheat deaths, but do you think it works on raid bosses?"

"For sure, with that wording. Stormhold is about to kick raid bosses to death."

"You think you can lift your leg in all that plate? I played your mud class firsthand. Not sure it is kick viable." Thorn's expression hardened.

"Very funny." Once they had both accepted the subclass, blue light twisted together behind them and formed a swirling exit portal. Meno looked at Thorn.

"Are you going to reroll Dominion to Titan?"

"And how am I supposed to get Essence for that?" Thorn said.

"Maybe later. How about you join Stormhold?"

"You can't afford it, and I'm Grave Crown."

"That's right." Thorn paused.

"I kind of destroyed my office after the deletion, so I'm going broke." lmao anger issues SoloBeadGod just pay him bro join join join Thorn rich all ok do not join Meno turned toward him.

"You destroyed your office?"

"It's fine. If you change your mind, Stormhold is always open. Just let me know. You don't have any faction gear, so swapping should be easy." Meno ignored the argument breaking out in chat.

"So you won't miss my class? You were getting the hang of it by the end." This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"No," Thorn said, with enough force to bury the idea permanently.

"It was fun, but nothing beats standing in front of a building-sized raid boss, feet planted, taking its hits and daring it to make you move. I'll probably make an alt later when I get the time."

"Yeah, I don't understand your obsession with getting hit at all." Meno frowned as the second part registered.

"Also, you can make alts now?"

"Unlocked after the first week."

"Cool. Probably a waste of time."

"Check the leaderboards instead," Thorn said.

"I'm rank two. Stormhold rising! You got an extra level from that Punishment session. Makes sense." Meno opened the global rankings, curious how much the competition had changed while he had been messing with Essence farming and the Trial.

[Launch Leaderboard | Global Level Rank] [1] PrayerBeadGod — 62 | Swing Master Infernal | GC | GraveMistake [2] Thorn — 61 | War Anchor Dominion | RB | Stormhold [3] Kestrel — 60 | Prism Detonator Eternal | RB | Crownfall [4] BrineSaint — 60 | Dawn Bastion Paragon | RB | No Guild [5] Pike — 60 | Terra Channeler Tempest | RB | Highbanner [6] VantaRush — 60 | Tempo Blade Oracle | RB | HypeForge [7] Moon — 60 | Mercy Herald Devout | RB | Silverwake [8] JaxxonVale — 60 | Rift Warlock Myriad | RB | No Guild [9] Oxy — 60 | Blood Juggernaut Profane | GC | GraveMistake [10] Honeygrave — 60 | Rot Savant Astral | SC | No Guild Fractera had to be difficult to navigate if BrineSaint was still level sixty.

Meno had expected him to find the progression route almost immediately, but apparently everyone was struggling. The more interesting part was that the leaderboard finally displayed class evolutions. Kestrel choosing Eternal was the biggest surprise, but the logic was obvious. Eternal rewarded perfect script execution, and Kestrel was exactly the kind of person who would call a raid wipe on purpose because one player had ruined the rotation.

Paragon sounded like something BrineSaint would pick, although Meno wanted to know what it meant mechanically. Tempest, Oracle, Devout, Myriad. There were enough evolutions on the board now to lose hours guessing how they worked. Oxy getting Profane. Meno killed that thought before it opened and moved his eyes lower. Honeygrave had Astral, and since he was here at The Pearl, Meno could probably ask him about that one.

"Now let's get out of here before the portal vanishes and we get stuck," Thorn said.

"Let's go. I hope someone attacks me so I can test the Titan kick." Thorn laughed as he stepped toward the portal.

"Yeah, let's do that." Thorn entered the portal and disappeared. Meno followed him through, expecting Templefall Hollow to replace the arena, but the world cut directly to black before anything loaded. [Account suspended. Pending review.] Meno looked at the message for several seconds and felt almost nothing except exhausted amusement.

"Of course." NOOO time to spam forums RISE UP unacceptable NOT EXPLOIT IF TRIAL IMPOSSIBLE damn that's lame unban him cowards"At least it allowed me to take the reward," Meno said.

"I guess I should be happy." There was nothing else available from the suspension screen, so Meno logged out, opened the XPro, and climbed out of the capsule. It was still Saturday afternoon. He had time before he needed to sleep for tomorrow's promo thing, except Veyrath had just banned him and deleted the only plan he had for that time. Fantastic. Meno changed, sat down at the computer, and checked the stream.

More than thirteen million viewers were still there, which made ending it immediately feel like throwing money off a balcony. He sent Thorn a voice invite instead. Thorn accepted a moment later.

"Calm down."

"I am calm." Meno was calm, mostly because the Titan Trial had wrung the anger out of him. The suspension was irritating, but the Punishment fight had been sick, Thorn's character was restored, and Titan had unlocked exactly as he had hoped. Even if Solar kept him out for a while, the afternoon had already been worth it.

"Great," Thorn said.

"Then don't worry about it. We're not letting this stand. You got a mathematically impossible challenge and were forced to exploit. It was bait. They can't bait people into getting banned." Meno leaned farther into his chair.

"I've got contacts at Feltforge. We'll sort this out." That almost made him laugh. Thorn had no idea what Meno's relationship with Feltforge Systems actually looked like. Morlando could not remove the ban and would not interfere even if Meno asked. Nobody else at Feltforge could do much either. Veyrath belonged to Solar in every way that mattered, and if the AI wanted an account suspended, the decision was 100% Solar's. Still, Meno doubted the suspension would last long.

Solar wanted Veyrath popular, and banning someone in front of more than thirteen million viewers right after an impossible trial clear was exactly how you turned enforcement into bad content.

"That's cool. Thanks," Meno said.

"Where are you from, by the way?"

"Skyline."

"How can you stand that place? All skyscrapers, no grass." Thorn laughed.

"I don't go outside much. I have my own gym. That's enough." That sounded about right.

"Moon wants to join the call," Thorn added.

"Is that okay with you?"

"No. She trolled me at one of my lowest moments on stream. I really do not like your sister."

"Yeah, I know she has personality issues, but I think she wants to apologize."

"Don't care for it at the moment."

"Sure. I get it." Meno appreciated that Thorn left the subject there instead of turning it into an argument. He pulled Thorn's stream onto another monitor and watched the tank moving through Templefall Hollow while Stormhold players gathered around him.

"What are you planning to do now?"

"Going to Fractera. Already sent people to scout good entrances, but nobody found a dungeon yet. Monsters are very sparse, so XP is nonexistent at the moment. Something doesn't add up about the place." That explained BrineSaint sitting at level sixty.

"What about underwater entrances from the shore instead of climbing into fracture lines?" Thorn went silent long enough that Meno checked whether the call had disconnected. On the stream, Thorn's character had stopped moving completely. PBG KNOWS take notes facepalm moment NOWAY actually possible?

"Haven't thought of that," Thorn eventually said.

"Worth checking out. But based on the description, it's supposed to be a find-the-good-hole-and-descend, then repeat kind of zone."

"You're probably right. The AI just likes getting funny like that, which is the only reason I'm suggesting it." Meno thought for another moment.

"I'd also check the sky somehow. There might be hidden rifts that teleport you deeper. Makes no sense, but the Rift Kings thing suggests nonsense like that."

"Nobody has tier three flying mounts. That would be total ragebait."

"Exactly why I wouldn't rule it out." Thorn grunted, and Meno watched him begin moving again as messages clearly started passing through Stormhold. The post-trial exhaustion was catching up properly now. With no Veyrath available to distract him, sleep was beginning to sound better than spending the afternoon staring at a suspension screen.

"I think I'm just going to restream you and catch up on some sleep," Meno said.

"I've got this promo thing tomorrow, assuming they don't cancel because of the ban."

"They won't. You should also raise the price after today if you haven't signed anything yet." Meno had not, which made the advice sensible.

"Yeah. Anyway, good luck."

"You too." Thorn was quiet for a moment before continuing.

"And thanks for the invite. And the cleanup. I don't know what I would've done if my character actually got deleted. I never considered it possible."

"Don't worry about it. I'm actually glad you died so I got to do that fight."

"What?!" Meno ended the call before Thorn could continue. He switched his stream over to Thorn's POV, confirmed the restream was working, and left the computer running for the millions of people apparently willing to watch somebody else through his channel. Then he walked into the bedroom and collapsed across the king-sized bed. From eviction to getting banned, today had sure been great. Tomorrow he had to drive a racecar in real life, and he had not driven anything in years. Should be fun.