Chương 66: Sunken Spire

Meno wanted revenge on the entire Wheat Imp population. He even looked toward the field where the pebble murderer had gone back to waddling around in a straw hat like it had not just created the most humiliating clip of his career. His hands twitched toward the daggers, but he took one long breath, opened the map, and forced himself back toward Southreach before vengeance wasted his time. Chat had already moved from shock to worship.

starter zone victim go back avenge yourself pebble resistance build call chad"Guys, calm down. I'm only level forty-two. Still new at this," Meno said. He returned to Southreach's lowest ring and found the training yard behind a guard hall, where straw targets, wooden posts, and battered practice dummies stood in neat lanes under blue awnings. Meno prepared his daggers and squared up while chat continued posting tiny straw-hat emotes. One hit, Panic Pump, Chain Madness. Then he swung.

The axe blurred past the dummy and chopped the dirt. MISS dummy diff Wheat Imp sends regards EQUIP BRAIN SLOT again Meno reset. Hit. Panic Pump. Chain Madness. Swing the axe in a blur. Step back until combat state dropped. Repeat. The ability was insane in the least comfortable way possible. Chain Madness made the two-handed axe move so fast that his body rejected the information.

The weight vanished from his hands, but the swing still had to be real; he had to put the edge through the dummy instead of waving at the air and expecting the system to be impressed. Meno missed again.

"Shut up," he said before chat could type. The problem was not the skill alone. His brain had spent all of launch learning weapon weight, reach, drag, recovery, and how the Soma-X7 turned all of it into muscle memory. Chain Madness removed the weight but kept the need for exact pathing, so the smallest angle mistake became a wide miss that buried the axe in dirt instead of the target. It felt fake, which meant his real brain and the capsule were out of sync.

"I would not recommend this skill," Meno said, resetting again.

"If you can't control it, it is actively dangerous. If you can, it is probably broken." honest review 1 star killed by imp skill issue ability master it then stop prompt when He checked the clip against his better judgment. Views: 2, 031, 884 Meno stared at the number.

"I have killed raid monsters," he said.

"I dug a lightning prison. I survived at one HP. Apparently, this is what people want." yes content wheat imp > Vervenzal pebble meta never living this down He went back to practice. After twenty dry resets, he stopped dropping combat between attempts and began chaining the whole sequence together. Hit, Panic Pump, Chain Madness burst for five seconds, auto-swap back to daggers, stab the dummy for roughly seven seconds to earn another hundred Chain, then reactivate Madness. The rhythm was ugly, but it had shape.

The Stop prompts arrived in the third long chain. [Stop] A yellow warning flashed at the edge of his vision. Half a second later, the entire screen went red, thick and bloody enough that the dummy disappeared behind the glare. Meno's left dagger was already moving, and he stopped the stab halfway. The red faded. Meno exhaled.

"Okay. Yellow means prepare. Red means absolutely stop." STOP SIGN GAMING blood flashbang this skill hates daggers 0. 5 sec lol reaction test It was less unreasonable than he had feared and more annoying than it needed to be. If he attacked during yellow, the hit counted. If he struck anything during red, Chain broke instantly.

Half a second of warning sounded fair, but at ten attacks per second with an axe, or seven-ish with daggers, half a second was plenty of time for his hands to ruin his life before his brain signed off on it. The dummy could teach activation timing. It could not teach pressure. Meno stopped after another miss, lowered the axe, and opened his equipment. Chain Madness ignored Attack Speed and Action Speed changes during its window, which made full plate tempting.

He could stack Defense and let the axe burst remain untouched. For now, he kept the plate chest with the leather helm, pants, and boots. Full leather speed still made his timing drift, but the plate chest dragged him closer to normal without ruining the lightning reduction setup he had built. Sleepless Grip stayed on, even though the cloth bonus was useless.

"The key point," Meno said, checking the damage notes, "is that Chain Madness lets me deal more damage at lower Chain. Dagger ramp is good, but axe burst means I don't need to wait forever before the numbers matter." farm arc hit 50 dungeon time magma golems? Jaxxon hole"I am not going to Jaxxon's magma hole," Meno said.

"Too far without a mount. I'd lose an hour just getting there." Crystalstep was closer, but the memory of lightning glare, disorienting crystals, and the tunnel made his stomach reject the route before his head could argue. Serpent's Wake Coast sat near Southreach if he cut south and followed the shore east. It was a forty-to-fifty zone. High risk, but it had spires, cultists, and a lead from VantaRush about an underwater blacksmith tied to Meno's Nightmare.

A dungeon there could solve his XP route and maybe open a gear path he was not qualified to craft yet. Meno left Southreach by the southern road. He avoided Thornmire because shallow water, roots, and wasps had already claimed enough of his patience. The road took him through dry frontier grass, low hills, and scattered wagon tracks until salt wind started pressing inland. By the time the ground darkened under his boots, the coast had begun making its own noise.

[Zone Entered: Serpent's Wake Coast] Recommended Range: 40–50 Black rock stretched along the tide, jagged and wet where waves slammed hard enough to make the ground answer under Meno's boots. He kept his movement light and stayed off slick ledges. Standing still near the surf felt like volunteering to be grabbed by something. The first pack came low along the rocks. [Hostile: Tideborn Eel-Hound | Type: Brine Beast | Threat: Normal | Trait: Surf Ambush] Three translucent jaws flashed through spray.

The eel-hounds moved in snapping bursts, using wave crash and foam to hide their approach until they were already aiming at his ankles. Meno jumped back from the first lunge, stabbed the second through the neck with his Rune Dagger, and kicked off empty air before the third could cut behind him. Their bodies were narrow, wet, and ugly to track against the water.

"Normal does not mean polite," Meno said. normal btw dogs from water pet one NO Chain Madness test He stayed in combat, letting the Chain carry from one kill into the next. The first died around one hundred and eleven stacks to dagger burst alone. On the second, Meno triggered Chain Madness and flattened it in five seconds. The third lasted until his Chain passed two hundred, then folded under the damage before it could escape. Love what you're reading?

Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. The XP was barely noticeable. He kept moving east. The offshore spires came into view through sea mist and spray. Narrow curved buildings rose from the shallows, barnacled and blackened, their windows glowing green-blue under the waterline. Some leaned toward each other like broken towers caught mid-collapse. Wrecked ships lay between reefs, masts tilted, hulls split, ropes dragging through tide pools.

The fight proved almost nothing except that normal threats were still normal. Meno stopped above the first clear overlook. go swim dive now drowned tower cool spires do not swim yet"I am not swimming blind," Meno said.

"Water is where movement goes to die." He followed the coast instead, comparing clusters. Meno scanned the shoreline for anything dangerous enough to matter. The nearest spires were too scattered, and another cluster had cracked openings high in the stone but no obvious guards. Farther east, a loose ring of ancient spires rose from darker water, with green-blue lights glowing beneath the surface in stacked rows. That one went on the list. The first reef crossing forced him off the clean rock.

Exposed shelves rose between waves, and broken wreckage bridged the gaps where the tide had dragged planks and ribs from dead ships. Meno moved over the dry sections and waited between wave surges. He used False Wings only to cross gaps between shelves, because the skill did not let him walk on water. It gave him two directional kicks, then left the landing to momentum and timing. A wagon-sized crab smashed a wrecked hull in front of him.

[Hostile: Shipbreaker Crab | Type: Reef Beast | Threat: Moderate | Trait: Wreckcrusher] Its claws came down like hammers, splintering the ship ribs that had been Meno's next step. The partial bridge collapsed into the surf, boards turning and vanishing under foam. The crab did not chase fast, but it did not need to; it removed the path.

"Moderate route denial," Meno said.

"Cool." crab says no kill it durable shell axe time not worth He tested one dagger stab as the crab turned. The blade scraped shell and barely bit. Meno saw enough, jumped onto a higher rock, kicked twice with False Wings, and landed on a slanted wreck plank beyond the crab. The next claw shattered the rock he had left.

"Nope. Scouting objective. Not crab dinner." Past the reef shelf, the coast changed. Wet stones leaned slightly toward the tide even when the waves pulled back. Meno slowed and watched the movement. A drowned-sailor shape drifted above a tide pool, robes hanging as if underwater, pale hands open at its sides. [Hostile: Brine Wraith | Type: Drowned Spirit | Threat: Normal | Trait: Undertow Pull] The wraith drifted. Loose water, pebbles, and slick stones crawled toward it.

Meno planted one boot, felt the stone under him tilt, and jumped before the pull could turn balance into a slide. His first False Wings kick dragged him backward instead of forward.

"This is the no-return boundary," he said. no-return? wraith magnet fight it ghost tug"Past this point, even Normal threats get help from the coast," Meno said.

"If the ground wants to feed me to the water, I leave." The next spire cluster sat close enough to reach without full submersion. Meno saw the barnacle masks before the cultist prompts appeared. They knelt on a flat black shelf facing inward toward open water, not the shore, their shoulders rocking as they chanted toward something below. [Hostile: Serpent Wake Cultist | Type: Brine Human | Threat: Normal | Trait: Wake Chant] The chant rolled across the rocks and caught at Meno's knees. His next step dragged.

He ducked behind a ridge before the slow finished settling into his legs. The sound kept pressing through stone, weaker but present, a low vibration that wanted him upright and exposed. High threat, long range, movement interference.

"Found the problem," he said. Cultists they face center interrupt direction clue summoning ritual Meno watched them from a distance. All three faced the same offshore channel leading toward the ring cluster. Their chant was not spreading at random. It aimed down the water, where foam stirred in a narrow lane and drifted toward the darker center. He needed confirmation. Meno slid around the ridge until he could approach from behind. The chant caught him again, slowing his knees, but not enough to stop a jump.

He sprang from the rock, kicked once with False Wings, and landed behind the nearest cultist. Hit. [Compound Swing | Chain: 2 | Damage: +20%] Panic Pump. [Current HP set to 1] [Compound Swing | Chain: 102 | Damage: +1020%] Chain Madness. The axe appeared. This time, he did not swing wide. He kept the swing compact, downward from shoulder to hip, and let the speed happen inside that line.

The axe hit the cultist's back, then again, then again, the impacts coming so fast the barnacle mask shattered before the body finished turning. [Compound Swing | Chain: 202 | Damage: +2020%] The daggers returned. A yellow Stop prompt flashed. Meno froze. The remaining cultists turned. Red filled his vision for half a heartbeat, then cleared.

"Annoying," he said, and moved. One cultist lifted both hands. The chant snapped tight around Meno's knees, dragging him toward the shelf's edge. He stabbed through the caster's wrist to break the pull, took a shallow brine slash from the third, and cut them down one by one before they could complete the next verse. Meno immediately retreated upward instead of forward. The water answered.

A Wake Serpent broke through the foam in the lane the chant had marked, slick black scales rising in a coiling surge faster than its size allowed. Its head snapped through the space he had occupied two seconds earlier, jaws closing with a sound like wet stone breaking. [Hostile: Wake Serpent | Type: Sea Serpent | Threat: High | Trait: Foam Surge]"High threat response confirmed." SERPENT RUN do not duel chain it? NO ONE HP Meno did not duel it.

He used the ridge to cut off its angle, jumped from one black rock to another, and let the serpent's next lunge smash water over the shelf instead of his body. The direction mattered more than the fight. The cultist chant and serpent response both pointed toward the same offshore channel.

"That way," Meno said.

"Likely dungeon route." The mid-route took him through wrecked ships caught between reefs. The black rock receded behind him, and the spires stopped looking distant. They rose around the reef like broken walls, hollow openings glowing above and below the waterline as green-blue light flashed between waves. Torn sails dragged from masts, chains bumped against hulls, and every step had to be chosen before the surf chose it for him. A Reef Ogre stood knee-deep in the water ahead.

[Hostile: Reef Ogre | Type: Coral Giant | Threat: Moderate | Trait: Surf Brute] Coral grew through its shoulders and along one side of its jaw. It carried no weapon because its arms were already large enough to make the point. When it turned, the water around its legs surged outward, turning shallow footing into a moving trap.

"Moderate bruiser in bad footing," Meno said.

"So, not moderate." fight it fancy normal skip ogre water boss moderate liar Meno skipped the fight. The ogre swung once anyway, its long arm smashing into a wreck mast as he jumped away. The mast cracked, fell, and turned his planned landing into splinters. Meno kicked with False Wings, landed in knee-deep water, and immediately regretted it. Water dragged at his legs. A second Tideborn Eel-Hound pack noticed.

Meno cursed, stabbed the nearest eel-hound through the jaw, then kicked out of the water onto a tilted hull piece before the ogre could wade closer. The remaining eel-hounds circled low, one feinting from the front while another cut in from the foam line.

"Clear your followers before diving," Meno said.

"Basic rule." Then he followed it. Meno did what normal-threat monsters hated most. He spammed Hundredfold with Panic Pump, used False Wings to keep hopping between wreck planks, and let the shield buffer do its job. No loot. No pause. The larger spire cluster waited beyond. This one formed a ring. Cultists knelt on three separate shelves, all facing inward. Wake Serpents circled the darker center but did not enter it, their bodies passing around the boundary like guards respecting a line.

Beneath the surface, rows of green-blue light descended into the dark.

"That's it," Meno said. dive dive dive central tower DO NOT TOUCH TAR Sleepwalker where Meno checked the water for the tar-slick Sleepwalker field and found it farther down the coast, black and thick under a rotten-egg haze. Hard detour. No streamer-brain science. He climbed onto a half-collapsed spire roof connected to a wreck mast and looked down into deeper blue-black water.

The seafloor dropped away beneath the ring, and green-blue light continued down the submerged stone in vertical lines, fading into dark water where daylight weakened. The route had changed. Coastal scouting was over, and now he had to swim.

"Okay," Meno said.

"The last time I went into the ocean IRL, I almost drowned, so hopefully this goes better. We follow the current line." LOL no wings underwater drown? can you drown test breathing He jumped from the spire roof. Meno saved False Wings until the first wave lifted him, kicked forward once above the water, then kicked again toward the darker channel. The skill carried him farther than a normal jump. Then he hit the sea. Cold closed over his head. The world muffled immediately.

The surf roar turned into pressure in his ears, and every motion slowed under drag. Meno kicked, pulled with one arm, kept the daggers tight, and aimed for the current line where foam fed inward between the spires. A shadow passed below him. Wake Serpent. It circled under the surface, not breaking through, making the water bulge in a long moving line. It did not attack. It pressured him, turning whenever he drifted too far from the inward pull.

"Of—" Meno tried to speak, got a mouthful of seawater, and snapped his jaw shut too late. It tasted like salt and weeds. don't speak he almost drown streamer brain The green-blue glow below grew clearer than the daylight above. Barnacles thickened on the spire walls. Lit openings passed beside him, revealing water-filled rooms where fish moved through torn sails and chains swayed in slow loops. The outer spires were not separate buildings at all.

Below the surface, they joined into one larger structure of dark stone spirals, drowned arches, and broken halls. Fish scattered ahead of him as he swam deeper. The pressure built in his ears. Far below, one central tower continued down into black water. Meno angled toward it, following the current that pulled at his arms like the tower was inhaling. Daylight thinned above him. The sea noise faded into a low hum from the windows, the stone, or whatever lived inside the ruin.

His held breath tightened in his chest, a steady warning from Veyrath that staying underwater too long would kill him. Then he saw the entrance. A vertical opening split the side of the submerged tower, glowing green-blue from within. Water pulled inward through it in steady pulses, dragging loose chain links, bubbles, and torn sail cloth toward the dark interior. It looked less like a doorway and more like a wound in the stone. The system finally noticed.

[Dungeon Discovered: Sunken Spire] Recommended Range: 40–50 Party Size: 1–5 Meno grabbed a barnacle-crusted edge to stop himself from being pulled in immediately. Chat exploded across the overlay. FOUND IT 40-50 DUNGEON go in underwater dungeon arc Meno realized this was probably the worst possible dungeon type for him, because False Wings was useless underwater. He entered anyway.