Chương 182: Swiiing Maaasteeeeer

The road kept climbing toward the fort, which now filled enough of the horizon for Meno to make out individual black-stone towers beneath thick sheets of ice. Then the road disappeared. There was no warning telegraph, color change, or suspicious cracking sound. One moment all five of them were crossing a wide stretch of frozen stone, and the next the entire section collapsed beneath their feet. Meno kicked off empty air.

Karmabeast and Arayu caught themselves with movement skills, while Kestrel launched sideways toward the remaining ledge. BrineSaint had no air movement. He dropped with the road, falling deep enough into the frozen ravine that Meno lost sight of him before the death notification appeared. Meno's Last Word did nothing because they were not in combat. Pure troll mechanic.

The other four had to wait for BrineSaint to resurrect outside the raid, walk back through everything they had already cleared, then take the longer route around the missing section of road. The fact that mounts could not be used inside instances only added another time tax. By the time he returned, nobody cared about the scenery anymore. The fort was close now.

Dark stone walls rose directly from the ice, with frozen sheets hanging from the battlements and blue-white frost growths spreading through the gaps between blocks. Thick iron bars sealed the main gate, and the fifth boss waited in the clearing outside. [Orzathuun, Keeper of the Frozen Road | Raid Boss | Level 101] The giant stood nearly twice Meno's normal height in full armor made from overlapping dark plates. A broad sword rested in one hand, while an oversized crossbow was strapped across its back.

"101," Meno said.

"This is where it gets real."

"The last one felt pretty real to me," Karmabeast said.

"The last one wasn't that hard," Arayu said before starting to sing.

"Because: Swiiiiiiing Maaaaaaaaaaaster. Swing, swing, swing Maaaaaaster." Meno looked between her and Karmabeast.

"You guys deserve each other."

"I can tank in a limited capacity now thanks to the Plate chest," BrineSaint said, adjusting Drovak's shield on his arm.

"The shield PBG gave me is high-tier too, but the rest of my gear is still subpar."

"Same approach," Kestrel said.

"Then we adjust." Meno opened hard as Orzathuun drew back the giant sword and swept it through melee. Meno sidestepped on instinct, and the moment the blade missed him, a purple pulse rolled across the entire raid. The 1-second Stun cut off Kestrel's opening shots and interrupted Arayu before her cast released. Sleepless Grip was still on strike. Meno purged his own with Crownmind, but Orzathuun was already winding up again.

He avoided the second swing too, triggering another purple pulse before everyone had recovered properly. Karmabeast stopped the third one. Instead of moving away, he stepped into the blade and caught it across one of his linked Massive weapons. The impact tore 78% of his HP, but the raid-wide Stun never came. Kestrel understood immediately.

"Stop dodging. Meet the blade. Brine, take one." BrineSaint Taunted Orzathuun around and raised Drovak's Roadblock. The next sword strike slammed into the shield without triggering the purple pulse, although another hit nearly folded Brine behind it. Meno kept attacking until his +500% Threat reclaimed the boss before Orzathuun could continue the sequence. The rule was straightforward: every normal sword attack needed to connect with someone. Blocking and parrying worked. A clean miss punished the entire raid.

The arena added another problem before they could settle into the rhythm. Five patches of frost began swelling and darkening around the clearing. Hands pushed through first, followed by heads and shoulders, giving the group several seconds to react before the ghouls fully emerged. Kestrel fired into the nearest cluster and tore most of them apart before they could move, but the repeated Stuns had everyone focused on Orzathuun instead of the ground. One patch had formed behind Arayu.

The ghoul climbed out and reached her before she noticed, transforming Arayu into one of them. Her body turned grey, her wand dropped to her side, and the spell she tried to cast simply failed. Trying to remove the transformation did nothing. Arayu tried everything, but Blink was the only skill that still worked. She blinked forward once, then again, with no effect. Since it was the only ability the transformation had not locked, it had to matter somehow.

On the third attempt, she blinked upward instead, high enough that the remaining ghouls could not follow, then let herself fall. She hit the frozen road, took a small amount of fall damage, and immediately returned to normal. Kestrel adjusted the call.

"Fall damage clears it. Watch the patches. Ghoul low HP target. Move before they emerge. Kill." That left Meno attacking while making sure every normal sword swing actually connected with someone. Parrying worked, but against a Level 101 raid boss, even a clean parry still bled damage through. The fight felt backwards. Most bosses rewarded clean dodge. Orzathuun punished it. At 30 seconds, he raised the sword overhead.

Purple energy gathered along the blade as a wide circle appeared beneath the intended impact point. Kestrel made the obvious call.

"Circle clear." All five moved out. The sword struck empty ground, and purple light spread beneath the entire arena before the road erupted. Conqueror caught the instant-kill mechanic and left all five players at 1 HP. BrineSaint immediately started recovering himself, but Arayu had no equivalent sustain. Meno could heal through Lifesteal once he started attacking again, except Orzathuun had already changed phases.

The giant put away its sword, launched into the sky above the clearing, and pulled the massive crossbow from its back before turning toward the farthest player. Arayu had retreated the most during the circle mechanic. The siege bolt targeted her. Karmabeast moved to intercept and slammed both Massive blades into the projectile, but the bolt ignored him completely. It stayed locked on Arayu, continued along the same path, and hit her anyway. She died. Her death triggered a raid-wide instant-kill pulse.

Conqueror stopped the instant-kill again, but most of the group was still sitting at low HP. The smaller hit that came first killed them before the instant-kill even mattered. Arayu had died first, taking Meno's Last Word with her. There was no recovery. DODGING IS ILLEGAL THE BOSS HAS AN ANTI-SKILL MECHANIC ONE HP INTO RAID PULSE GG ARAYU GOT HIT BY A BALLISTA They resurrected outside again, and Meno checked his shrinking gold balance. It was disappearing 50, 000 at a time. This was going to be painful.

The walk back gave Kestrel enough time to boil the first attempt down to four rules.

"Normal sword must connect. Heavy sword must connect. Crossbow targets distance. Nobody dies to the bow." The second pull looked better. Meno stopped treating Orzathuun's sword like a weapon and started treating it like an annoying fly he wanted to swat away. He stayed close, angled his glaive into each swing, and parried to satisfy the contact requirement without taking the full hit. It still hurt.

Each successful defense chipped away enough HP that Meno's recovery eventually started falling behind, so Kestrel rotated BrineSaint in before it became dangerous.

"Brine, two hits. Back. Meno, recover." BrineSaint used Taunt and caught two sword attacks on his shield. The blocks barely helped, but each still gave him a 33% Absorption shield, even if it vanished almost instantly, and forced a CC purge on the immobilize. His HP dropped hard enough that taking a third would have been stupid. Meno reclaimed threat while Brine withdrew and recovered.

Karmabeast kept Venom Tyrant active from the opposite side, lowering Orzathuun's Action Speed enough that Meno could read the sword animations instead of gambling his Chain on pure reaction speed. The ghoul spawns improved too. Kestrel watched the dark frost patches instead of waiting for bodies to emerge, so his arrows were already moving by the time the first ghoul stood upright. Arayu relocated as soon as a patch formed under her rather than trying to finish one extra cast.

Thirty seconds later, the heavy sword returned, and this time they tried the opposite answer by stacking all five players inside the circle. Orzathuun brought the supercharged blade down through the group, but because the attack connected with players, the arena did not erupt. Everyone simply lost a fixed 50% of their Max HP. It hurt, but they survived. The flight afterward was much messier.

They scattered while Arayu tried to figure out what could stop the siege bolts, and Meno deliberately moved farther away at one point to pull targeting off her. It cost him a Defiant proc to preserve Chain, while Kestrel's ghoul clearing also suffered from having to move. Kestrel changed the plan before the next flight even started.

"Do not repeat that spread. We need a fixed bow target." When the second heavy sword arrived, they stacked again because the first soak had worked. The problem was that Arayu had taken damage since then and never recovered above 50% HP, so the fixed loss killed her outright. The sword had dealt normal damage this time, which meant Conqueror could not save Arayu. Meno's Last Word did not work on its own wielder, so once she died, she stayed dead.

The next crossbow phase overwhelmed the remaining four, and they wiped. By the time they reached Orzathuun again, Kestrel already had the next adjustment.

"Full soaking isn't sustainable. We under-soak it. One body, not five." BrineSaint became the test subject. At the first heavy sword, he Taunted and stood alone inside the circle while everyone else cleared it. The hit triggered its instant-kill, and Conqueror caught it, leaving Brine at 1 HP while the rest of the party took no damage. That was much better. Brine went back into the circle alone, but this time the preliminary damage killed him before the instant-kill could trigger.

The sword still counted as hitting a player, so there was no arena-wide punishment. Meno's Last Word activated and restored Brine at full HP with all his resources recovered. Kestrel immediately locked the interaction into the plan.

"Sword sacrifice works. Brine's revive spent. Keep Arayu clean." Meno had spent both heavy sword windups behind Orzathuun, attacking the entire time instead of joining the circles. That solved the sword. The bow remained a disaster. Kestrel established himself as the farthest player and made only small adjustments to his position, but nothing they tried could reliably stop the siege bolts. Kestrel died triggering the raid-wide instant-kill pulse before Meno's Last Word restored him.

Conqueror caught it and left everyone at 1 HP again. They scrambled to recover. The ghouls kept crawling out of the ground, forcing everyone to watch their footing so nobody got transformed. They died fast, but the constant spawns were a distraction. Karmabeast could not deflect the bolts, Brine could not block them, and ordinary spells damaged them too slowly. Arayu tried a different approach, launching a slow fireball into the siege bolt's path before sending a faster icebolt after it.

The icebolt caught the fireball from behind. Their collision expanded into a much larger burst at the exact moment the siege bolt passed through, shattering the projectile in midair and returning some Mana through Arayu's gloves. Kestrel immediately understood what had happened.

"That worked. Detonate it right in front, not on the projectile." The hard part was doing it consistently. Arayu tried to lock down the spacing, but a mistimed collision let a projectile through and killed Kestrel again. His death triggered the raid wipe. The third attempt ended there. Arayu spent most of the fourth attempt counting her casts. Fireball. Icebolt. Then again.

Every third cast in her setup changed the timing because of the instant-cast effect, and every emergency spell thrown at a ghoul shifted the count. Once she found the rhythm, the crossbow mechanic stopped looking impossible. Arayu launched each fireball before the siege bolt entered the dangerous part of its flight, then sent the faster icebolt through it. The collision exploded directly in front of the incoming projectile and destroyed it instead of trying to redirect it.

Kestrel remained the farthest target and moved only in small, announced shifts whenever a ghoul patch formed beneath him. Karmabeast used Sky Tormentor to keep Venom Tyrant active on Orzathuun, while BrineSaint focused entirely on the ghouls. Meno found another use for the bolts. The new False Wings rules prevented living bodies from restoring air kicks, but projectiles still counted.

During one aerial phase, Meno passed close to a siege bolt near Orzathuun's crossbow and planted one foot against the upper side of the shaft. False Wings reset, and he immediately kicked back toward the boss. Kestrel recognized the lane.

"Upper flight belongs to Meno. Break them farther out." For the first time, the crossbow phase could help Meno maintain Chain instead of threatening it. Then Arayu destroyed one too early. Meno had already committed toward the siege bolt expecting a foothold, but the shaft vanished before he reached it. He spent his remaining air kick correcting downward instead of returning to the boss, stretching the gap between attacks far enough for Defiant to trigger and preserve Chain.

Arayu looked up to adjust her timing, lost track of her cast count, and opened a gap in the firing sequence. Her next fireball came late, the icebolt followed even later, and the surviving siege bolt hit Kestrel. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it The attempt ended there. They had solved the crossbow mechanic and still wiped because Meno and Arayu needed different timing from the same projectile. Kestrel fixed the call during the walk back.

"Feet clear, then break it. No early detonations." On the fifth attempt, they pushed Orzathuun below 50% HP. The boss exploded. The giant's body separated into twenty physical pieces that scattered across the frozen road while a purple core remained floating above the center. Armor plates, gauntlets, weapon sections, leg pieces, and heavy joint parts landed everywhere as a 30-second timer appeared. Everyone immediately grabbed something, which turned out to be mistake number one.

Meno carried a huge shoulder plate toward the core. BrineSaint wrestled with a curved chest section that kept slipping from his arms, while Arayu gathered several smaller pieces and Kestrel took the crossbow assembly. Karmabeast ran the opposite direction for one of the legs. Their routes started crossing almost immediately. Large armor sections blocked vision, a curved plate slipped from Brine's arms, and then ghouls started spawning beneath the delivery paths. Meno had an even bigger problem.

The core could not be hit, and with Chain already running, he needed another target fast. He searched for a ghoul, but Kestrel had already killed all of them. Three seconds passed without anything to hit, but Defiant saved his Chain. With the core untargetable and Kestrel still clearing the ghouls, it broke anyway once the protection ended. They kept hauling pieces, but twenty separate trips were too much.

Nineteen pieces reached the core before the timer expired, leaving the twentieth stranded somewhere on the road. The entire arena detonated. TWENTY PIECE RAID BOSS PUZZLE BRINE DROPPED THE CHESTPLATE DELIVERY SERVICE FAILED THEY MISSED ONE PIECE Conqueror caught the instant kill, but the failed reassembly had already ruined the attempt. Orzathuun returned empowered and began teleporting behind a random target every second, spearing them on his sword for massive damage and deleting them one at a time. It was a wipe.

Kestrel adjusted before the next pull.

"No individual trips. Bring pieces to Karma. Leave targets for Meno." The courier strategy worked. BrineSaint and Arayu gathered pieces instead of trying to deliver them. Heavy armor sections were stacked across Karmabeast's arms and chest until he looked more like he was stealing the boss than rebuilding it. Then he used Venom Step. One trip moved several pieces at once. Karmabeast dropped them beside the purple core, which pulled each into place, then returned for another load.

Two large deliveries accomplished more than five independent runners had managed before. Meno kept Chain alive by killing one ghoul just before every 3-second Chain cutoff, which forced everyone else to keep kiting the remaining ghouls without letting them touch anyone. The strategy worked and made the whole process miserable. The first problem arrived during the second load when a ghoul emerged beneath the armor pile.

BrineSaint could not see it through the stacked plates, and by the time anyone noticed, it had already reached him and turned his body grey. Worse, Brine was still very low HP after soaking the previous heavy sword. Karmabeast finished unloading, teleported back, lifted Brine into the air, and dropped him. The fall damage cleared the ghoul transformation. It also killed him. Meno's Last Word had already been spent on Brine, so this time he stayed dead.

Karmabeast discovered another problem when he tried to recover the transport rotation. He had used Fatebreaker while Mush was on cooldown, which locked Fatebreaker behind the same long Divine timer. His emergency reset was gone, and the attempt unraveled from there. Kestrel reduced both mistakes to one rule set on the next walk back.

"Check health before dropping anyone. No early Mush from Karma. We need the short refreshes through the assembly phase." The seventh attempt was safe, and that was the problem. They handled the normal sword swings properly, every heavy sword received a body, Arayu kept the crossbow lane controlled, and the reassembly finished with time remaining. Nobody made a catastrophic mistake. They also did not deal enough damage. Meno played it too safe.

He landed one attack after each parry, took broad aerial loops between crossbow shots. Orzathuun reached 6 minutes with way too much HP left and Enraged. The boss had a hard timer. Great. The boss vanished from Meno's range, reappeared across the road to swing at another target, then disappeared again while the mechanics kept coming. The careful formation fell apart, and with Orzathuun constantly leaving melee range, Meno could no longer maintain Chain. The wipe followed.

Seven failures had now cost both Meno and Karmabeast 350, 000 gold. Kestrel was getting riled up.

"DPS is too low. You should be landing two hits a second outside Mush, four during it. Karma needs to step up his damage too. I can't believe we're wiping to this. Pull it together, PBG." SO TRUE CALL HIM OUT swing master needs buff obv PBG losing on damage classic raid mechanic overload SWIIING MAAASTER do more damage coward"You're right," Meno said.

"I'm playing way too tank-brained. Going full pump." They started with five clear jobs.

"Meno holds. Brine relieves. Karma attacks. Arayu owns the bow. I clear the ground." Meno took Orzathuun's front while Karmabeast attacked from one flank instead of stepping in to eat hits for the tank. His job was damage now. BrineSaint stayed nearby to Taunt and tank a few hits whenever Meno's incoming damage started getting too high, even outside the heavy-sword circles. Kestrel took the back position down the road, with Arayu between him and the boss so she had a clear lane for her spell combos.

The first sword came straight at Meno. Every instinct told him to sidestep, but he held his ground and angled his weapon upward. The weapons met. Damage still bled through the parry, but there was no purple raid-wide pulse. Meno immediately used the recovery to land another attack before Orzathuun reset his stance. Karmabeast kept Venom Tyrant active from the flank, making each swing easier to read while increasing the damage both melee players dealt.

Meno took another sword, then another, until his HP started slipping.

"Brine, take two. Meno, keep hitting." BrineSaint Taunted and stepped forward. The first sword crashed into the shield, followed quickly by the second. Meno never stopped swinging during the exchange. Lifesteal worked through the uninterrupted damage window, restoring the HP he had lost while handling the previous sword sequence. BrineSaint withdrew after two hits and healed himself while Threat snapped back to Meno. Five dark patches began swelling across the road.

Kestrel moved before the first ghoul emerged, stepping away from the spawn behind him while his arrows spread toward the other four. Karmabeast waited until all five ghouls were targetable, then spread Venom Tyrant through the group. For a brief window, Orzathuun and the five ghouls gave him six extra Multi-Strikes on every attack. He dumped all of them into the boss. Kestrel detonated the prism formation, killing the ghouls before any reached the party.

They had taken the extra damage window without greedily extending it. At 30 seconds, Orzathuun raised the supercharged sword. BrineSaint Taunted and moved into the agreed side of the circle while Meno shifted around the boss's heel, staying within melee range without entering the impact area.

"Solo soak. Brine stays. No dodge." Everyone else cleared, and the sword came down on Brine. Conqueror caught the instant kill and dropped him to 1 HP while the ground remained quiet. BrineSaint withdrew to an already-cleared patch. The next heavy sword would kill him and spend his resurrection, but until then, he could no longer safely take normal sword swings for Meno. Orzathuun took off and pulled the crossbow from his back. Meno jumped to follow.

Kestrel remained the farthest target, while Arayu had already launched a fireball into the lower section of the expected firing lane. The giant pulled the trigger, sending a siege bolt across the sky. Arayu fired the faster icebolt after her own spell. The two collided cleanly, and the enlarged burst destroyed the siege bolt before it reached Kestrel. She already had another fireball in the air.

"Far left. New line after this shot. Finish the current bolt." Kestrel shifted only after the current projectile was resolved, keeping the targeting predictable. A ghoul patch formed near BrineSaint, but he cleared it with his thrown glowing weapon instead of risking his low HP body by crossing the road. Meno had his own problem overhead. The ground phase had left him low, and repeatedly kicking after Orzathuun was not giving him enough time on target to recover. Once he reached the boss, Meno activated Mush.

His body tripled in size, full flight engaged, and Quadrillionator ripped through Orzathuun at more than four hits per second. Even with Lifesteal capped at 5% Maximum HP per damage instance, the repeated hits restored Meno quickly while Chain climbed. Six seconds later, Mush expired, but Meno stayed in the air. Another siege bolt was coming. He used his last kick to meet it, planted one foot on the shaft as it passed, and felt False Wings reset. Meno immediately kicked back toward Orzathuun and kept swinging.

Arayu let the siege bolt carry Meno away from Orzathuun before blowing it up farther down the lane.

"Feet clear. Break it. Meno, short return." Meno had gotten his kick reset, Arayu had cleared the bolt, and they finished the first flight without losing Chain. They finished out the flying phase cleanly and returned to the normal rotation. BrineSaint was still low on HP when the next heavy sword started charging.

"Brine stays. Spend the revive. Everyone clear." Brine took the circle alone. The smaller hit killed him before the instant-kill could trigger, but that was enough to satisfy the mechanic and stop the arena-wide punishment. Meno's Last Word brought him back, letting him retreat safely before the fight continued.

"Brine's protection spent. No more cheap deaths." Meno attacked through the entire wind-up and recovery before Orzathuun launched into the air again. Kestrel returned to the far lane, Arayu restarted her fireball-and-icebolt rhythm, and Meno went straight back to using siege bolts for False Wings. Each pass stayed tight: hit the boss, drop onto a bolt, reset the kicks, then launch straight back up. Karmabeast timed Sky Tormentor for the aerial phase.

He stuck to Orzathuun and kept Venom Tyrant active while Meno cycled through the False Wings resets. One pass was late enough to put Chain in danger, but Defiant triggered before it could break. Meno kept the ramp, but he had spent his save.

"Tighten the passes. No wide turns." They did. The fight kept cycling between grounded and aerial phases. Another heavy sword came up before BrineSaint's self-heal had recovered from tanking hits, forcing Kestrel to take the soak instead. He entered the circle alone, Conqueror dropped him to 1 HP, and Orzathuun immediately launched back into the air. Kestrel dashed to the far lane and used the burst he had been saving.

Arrows began circling Orzathuun, prisms forming along their paths before detonating into a multiplied volley. His Lifesteal was weaker than Meno's or Karmabeast's, but every separate hit healed him. The burst pulled Kestrel well clear of 1 HP before the next dangerous mechanic arrived.

"Karma, clear my ground. Arayu, hold the bow lane." Karmabeast gave up some of his boss damage to clear the ghouls spawning beneath Kestrel while he recovered. Arayu never broke her firing rhythm. The next mistake belonged to Meno. Back on the ground, he recovered from a parry with too much sideways movement and let Orzathuun's next normal sword cut through empty air. Purple light pulsed across the arena, stunning everyone for 1 second just as another ghoul wave finished crawling out.

Kestrel cleared the Stun and detonated the arrows already circling the spawn points, killing the ghouls before they could reach Arayu.

"Meet the next blade. Brine, back after two." BrineSaint Taunted for a short relief window while Meno rebuilt his HP through Lifesteal. The mistake had cost them damage and cooldowns, but not Chain. Karmabeast reapplied Venom Tyrant and went straight back to attacking instead of staying defensive after the danger passed. Midway through the third minute, Orzathuun reached 50% HP and came apart. Twenty physical pieces scattered across the road while the purple core floated above the center.

Nobody ran randomly this time.

"Karma carries. Brine, heavy pieces. Arayu, small pieces. Meno keeps Chain. No full ghoul clear." BrineSaint gathered broad armor plates into one collection point while Arayu used her mobility to retrieve smaller armor parts farther away. Karmabeast put away his weapons and stacked the first load across both forearms. Meno moved between ghouls whenever Chain needed another hit. Karmabeast came back for the next load.

BrineSaint stacked curved armor against his chest while Arayu wedged smaller joints between the larger pieces. Karmabeast braced the unstable pile with both arms, teleported beside the core, and let the reconstruction effect pull everything away from him before returning for another batch. They were limited by how much physical armor Karmabeast could carry, not by any one-piece delivery rule.

"Leave that one. Next wave, same. Load the crossbow across the top." Meno kept a nearby ghoul alive until Chain needed another hit, then struck it once and kept moving. The second load left just as another dark frost patch formed beneath the edge of the armor pile. A ghoul emerged where BrineSaint could not see it and touched him, turning his body grey with a breastplate still caught awkwardly against his side. Kestrel cleared the surrounding ghouls first. This time, nobody immediately threw Brine off something.

They checked his HP. Safe. Karmabeast finished the delivery, returned empty-handed, lifted Brine into the air, and dropped him from only high enough to trigger the required fall damage. Brine hit the road, the transformation vanished, and he stayed alive. Karmabeast activated Fatebreaker, refreshing the short movement and defensive tools he had spent during transport. He had kept Mush unused, so the refresh remained useful.

"Brine clear. Last load. Meno, take the left ghoul." Meno hit the designated ghoul, and Karmabeast delivered the final pieces with several seconds left on the timer. Orzathuun rebuilt, and the group immediately returned to the normal rotation. Meno caught the first sword on his glaive while Karmabeast reapplied Venom Tyrant, Kestrel resumed ghoul control, with Arayu assisting. BrineSaint took another two-hit relief window for Meno before backing out to heal.

"Back to positions. Sword contact. Prepare for the next bow." Chain had survived the entire intermission, but they had lost 30 seconds of boss damage rebuilding Orzathuun. The 6-minute Enrage had not gone anywhere. A little past three and a half minutes, Mush returned during the first aerial phase after reassembly. Meno was already losing HP from the ground exchanges, so the moment he reached Orzathuun, he transformed. Karmabeast transformed too.

For the first time that attempt, both Divine forms were active together. Full flight kept them on opposite sides of Orzathuun while their Massive weapons ripped through the boss without letting up. Below them, another ghoul wave started crawling out. Karmabeast's Mush spread Venom Tyrant across the group, briefly adding extra Multi-Strikes to every attack on Orzathuun before Kestrel cleared the wave.

"Full damage. Keep the bow lane clean. Clear ghouls on approach." Arayu continued destroying siege bolts despite the two enlarged Tyrants fighting around Orzathuun. She kept the rhythm going, launching a fireball and sending an icebolt through it to destroy one projectile before immediately setting up the next. Nobody abandoned their job just to watch Orzathuun's HP finally start dropping. As soon as Mush expired, Karmabeast activated Fatebreaker, refreshed every cooldown, including Mush, and transformed again.

"Second burst. After this, normal cooldowns only." Meno's Divine form expired first, and he returned to using siege bolts as footholds, touching them near Orzathuun before Arayu destroyed each projectile farther down the lane. Karmabeast stayed on the boss through the rest of his second Mush window, and by the time Orzathuun returned to the ground, they had built a real damage lead. They had also spent their flexible cooldown reset, turning the final minute into a resource problem.

There was no fixed heavy-sword sacrifice anymore. BrineSaint's resurrection was gone, Kestrel had already needed one recovery burst, and every circle had to go to whoever could survive it and recover afterward. Brine took one when his self-heal was available, Karmabeast took another and healed himself through the next attack window, while Meno absorbed one because preserving everyone else's positions was worth the HP loss. Arayu never entered.

During normal sword swings, BrineSaint still relieved Meno for two hits at a time, but no longer. Anything more would cost too much HP to recover before the next mechanic. Karmabeast used Venom Cloak around one safe ghoul spawn, spreading Venom Tyrant through the pack and gaining several extra hits on Orzathuun before Kestrel cleared them.

"Brine, heal first. Karma takes circle. Meno, keep hitting." Every assignment was built around preserving damage now. Near the end, Orzathuun took off again just as a ghoul wave started forming beneath Kestrel's far position. He could not stay there, but moving wherever he wanted would ruin Arayu's spell timing and remove the predictable siege-bolt line Meno needed for his next foothold. Kestrel adjusted immediately.

"Far right. Current bolt unchanged. Move on the next shot." Arayu finished the spell collision already in progress, destroying the current siege bolt before Kestrel moved. Orzathuun tracked his new position and fired the next projectile along the shifted lane. Arayu immediately launched another fireball into its path. Meno adjusted near the crossbow, dropped one foot onto the passing shaft, reset his kicks, and launched back toward Orzathuun.

Only then did Arayu's icebolt catch the fireball and destroy the siege bolt behind him. Kestrel cleared the ghouls chasing his old position without losing track of the bow phase. Meno's Chain had climbed into the high fifty-thousands. Losing it now would be pure troll. [Chain: 58, 200 | Damage: +582, 000% | Total: 5821x] Orzathuun landed with less than 30 seconds remaining before Enrage and very little HP left. Nobody changed assignments.

Kestrel kept clearing the ground, Arayu moved away from the next ghoul patch before anything emerged, and BrineSaint stayed ready to Taunt instead of greeding one final attack. Karmabeast remained beside Orzathuun and kept Venom Tyrant active. The boss swung its normal sword at Meno. He could have dodged. He did not. Meno planted his feet, caught the sword with Quadrillionator, and took the damage. No purple pulse followed. He ripped the glaive back through Orzathuun.

"Hold formation. No greed. One more hit." Meno attacked again. Orzathuun dropped below 10%. The giant started another movement, but Meno crossed the short distance before the next mechanic could begin and kicked. Titan triggered. The timer stopped at 5 minutes 54. 31 seconds as Orzathuun collapsed across the frozen road. [Raid Boss Defeated: Orzathuun, Keeper of the Frozen Road] [Level Up! | Level 101] DPS GOD IS BACK crazy chain count LEGIT WORLD FIRST KARMA NR1 SUPPORT PLAYER kestrel griefing his own guild SWIIING MAAASTEEEEER ARAYU SNIPER GOD LOOT LOOT LOOT"THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! CROWNFALL IS THE BEST!" Kestrel shouted.

"Crownfall?" BrineSaint asked, pumping one fist.

"Calm down, Kestrel," Meno said.

"Last time I checked, there are three GraveMistake players in this group. Clearly our world first."

"Raid leader counts as at least four," Kestrel said, finally calming down.

"Love that I've become a truck with a debuff," Karmabeast said.

"Fits you perfectly. Debuff IRL, debuff in Veyrath. Love the consistency," Arayu said, still clapping.

"But it's a strong debuff. Powerful," Karmabeast corrected, apparently immune to her trash talk. The XP hit almost as hard as the boss had. Meno finally reached Level 101, while Karmabeast came close, his bar stopping just short. The others all hit the maximum 5-level gain from a single kill. BrineSaint jumped from Level 88 to Level 93, Kestrel went from 88 to 93, and Arayu climbed from 85 to 90. Meno finally got a drop this time, and it worked insanely well with the boots he had gotten from the second boss.

[Legendary VI | Orzathuun's Mortmain] Type: Mail Chest Defense: Medium Durability: Indestructible | Empowered Mail Bonus: +5% Defense Pierce [1] While at Full HP, gain +100% Cooldown Recovery Speed. [2] While at Full HP, this item's Defense is boosted to Very High, but you generate 500% Threat. [3] Your Maximum Lifesteal is fixed at 10%. [4] While your Defense Pierce is at least 100%, gain Unpierceable. Unpierceable: Your Defense cannot be Pierced. [5] You cannot be turned into an Undead.

[6] When you die outside an instance, leave behind a Gravestone for 24 hours. Other players may press [Forsaken] to pay respects, becoming Undead until entering combat. With the boots, Meno was always considered to be at Full HP, which pushed Mush down to a 1. 5-minute cooldown through the Cooldown Recovery. It also doubled his Lifesteal cap and made him Unpierceable, all massive upgrades. The Undead part was the unfortunate downside. Pure streamer bait.

People would want to snipe him just so they could pay respects at his gravestone. Meno equipped the item and checked what Arayu had gotten. Just reading the tooltip nearly broke his brain, but she seemed happy. Then he reached the line starting with "Action Speed no longer" and immediately filed the item away as trash. [Legendary VI | Orzathuun's Iterance] Type: Ring [1] Whenever you activate a skill, gain +50% Action Speed for 1 second. Does not stack.

[2] After activating a non-Instant skill, its next activation becomes Instant. After that Instant activation, the skill resets to normal. [3] Whenever you activate an Instant skill, gain -50% Action Speed and +50% Movement Speed for 1 second. Does not stack. [4] Action Speed no longer multiplies Attack Speed, Cast Speed, or Movement Speed. For every 10% Action Speed you have, gain 1 Multi-Action and 10% more Damage. Multi-Action: Instant skills activate 1 additional time per Multi-Action.

Kestrel got the third item, sparing them the drama of having to hand him something just because he had paid for Meno's Last Word. The Leather chest he received was either insanely broken or completely useless. It was impossible to say. He did love the sixth modifier, though. Kestrel definitely did not have six modifiers on any of his rings.

[Legendary VI | Orzathuun's Exaction] Type: Leather Chest Defense: Medium Durability: Indestructible | Empowered Leather Bonus: +2% Action Speed [1] The first modifier on your Helmet has triple effectiveness. The fourth modifier has no effect. [2] The second modifier on your Gloves has triple effectiveness. The third modifier has no effect. [3] The third modifier on your Pants has triple effectiveness. The second modifier has no effect. [4] The fourth modifier on your Boots has triple effectiveness.

The first modifier has no effect. [5] The fifth modifier on your Amulet has triple effectiveness. If your Amulet has no fifth modifier, gain 75% Damage Reduction instead. [6] The sixth modifier on each Ring has triple effectiveness. If either equipped Ring has no sixth modifier, gain [Poverty] instead. [Poverty]: Your Death Penalty is tripled.

"Exaction pairs well with Manipulator," BrineSaint said.

"If Manipulator doubles the triple effect, that becomes six times."

"True, but picking a Prestige based on one item is exactly the kind of thing I'd kick someone from the guild for," Kestrel said.

"So Manipulator is off?" Meno asked.

"No," Kestrel said. He started toward the fort gate, which had finally opened to let them inside and face the Cryarch. It was final boss time.