Chương 9: Prayer Bead God

Meno crossed the river with a stolen training post tucked under his left arm and a sword tapping against its far end. The rhythm looked stupid. Worse, it worked. [Compound Swing | Chain: 5 | Damage: +50%] Tap. Step. Tap. Step. The post shifted whenever his elbow relaxed, so he had to keep his left side locked and his right wrist loose. Rocks forced wide paths. Scrub caught the post's back end and tried to spin him sideways. Every correction looked like a man losing a fight with lumber. Chat had opinions.

pole saint enters combat post angle bad left left left Meno ignored them and took the first pull small. Small meant four outer camps. Small meant twelve orcs. The first raider saw him, roared, and charged. Meno kept tapping the post as he backed along the road, drawing the second camp with a hip-feint near a firepit, then the third by cutting across a sentry's sightline. The fourth came in ugly when a shaman turned early and threw a green hex bolt that forced him wide.

The bolt hit a raider's shoulder instead of Meno's head.

"Body-blocking," Meno muttered.

"Good. Keep being tall." The pack became noise around him. Axes chopped dirt. Shamans cast from bad angles, trying to thread hexes through the melee. Dodging while tapping the stolen post was nothing like river practice. Every sidestep had two jobs: avoid death and preserve the rhythm. [Compound Swing | Chain: 50 | Damage: +500%] A raider clipped the post with an axe and nearly knocked it loose. Meno jammed it back under his arm, overcorrected, and almost cut air. The sword kissed the wood at the last second.

Still valid.

"Ugly counts," he said through his teeth. By Chain 100, the orcs were bunched around him in a half-circle, furious and close. [Compound Swing | Chain: 100 | Damage: +1000%] [Hundredfold Cleave Ready] Meno triggered the technique on his next swing. [Hundredfold Cleave Activated] The hit spread. It did not flash like a spell. It did not explode into holy light. The sword strike carried through every hostile in medium range as if the same ugly cut had found them all at once.

Orcs staggered across the road, health bars plunging into red and slivers. They lived. Meno's chain vanished.

"Oh," he said.

"That's a problem." The wounded pack went feral. The next minute became a mistake with legs. The orcs attacked faster, or maybe wounded enemies just made worse decisions. A shaman forced him toward a rock wall with a hex bolt. A raider lunged from the other side. Meno ducked under the axe, tapped the post, kept the count alive, and used the bodies between him and the casters as moving cover. [Compound Swing | Chain: 50 | Damage: +500%] His wrist started to burn. The post kept slipping slick with sweat feedback.

He had to build another full chain while the wounded pack tried to cash in every debt he had created. At one hundred, he did not breathe. [Hundredfold Cleave Ready] The second cleave rolled through the pull and dropped all twelve. [Kill Confirmed: Redscar Orc Raider x8] [Kill Confirmed: Redscar Bone Shaman x4] [XP Gained] [Level Up | Level 11] The road went quiet except for bodies hitting dirt and Meno sucking air through his teeth. Then chat found its throat.

IT WORKS SECOND CLEAVE CLEANED lvl 11 pole fraud confirmed viable this is the dumbest thing I have ever seen do bigger pull Meno looted fast. Orc teeth, chipped axes, rough hide straps, a few copper, one cracked charm, nothing that made the risk feel sane. He sat behind a boulder for five minutes with the post across his knees. There was no stamina bar, only feel. His avatar could still stand. His body could still move.

But his execution was starting to lag behind intent, and the game let him know without ever putting a meter on-screen.

"Five-minute reset," he said. cowards rest smart rest bigger pull or unsub you were never subbed The XP was good. The time was worse than it looked. Pulling took setup. Two full chains took work. Looting took time. Resting took time. If the exploit was going to be worth the crime, he needed larger pulls and better aggro retention. He took eight camps next. Roughly twenty-four orcs. The valley became a moving wall of red-painted bodies. Meno ran wide, tapping the post every other step when the terrain got rough.

Shamans scattered across the back line, hex bolts firing from angles that forced him into the melee. Raiders kept leashing at the edges until he learned the pull range by feel: too far and the back camp turned away, too close and axes filled his entire screen. A player party on a ridge saw him coming. The tank, a broad player in layered mail, planted his shield.

"Train! Train on the road!"

"I'm not training you," Meno snapped, tapping the post.

"Stay back." A glass-cannon mage in red sleeves pointed at the swarm.

"That is the definition of training!" Their healer backed toward the wall, voice rising.

"Do not bring that here!" Meno could barely track them. Post rhythm. Hex bolts. Camp leash. Shaman positions. Hundredfold timing. His brain had no room left for anything else. At one hundred, the party was too close to the edge of the pull. Meno saw it as the sword moved. Too late. [Hundredfold Cleave Activated] The cleave tore through the orcs and clipped the players on the ridge. [PvP Encounter Initiated] You have damaged non-hostile players. The party shouted all at once.

"You idiot!"

"He flagged us!"

"My health!"

"Move, move!" Meno kept running.

"I said stay back."

"You hit us!" The wounded orcs pressed in, and the players could not reach him through the pack. The tank tried to angle around, got blocked by two raiders, and had to raise his shield. Meno rebuilt chain on the post while the entire valley tried to become evidence. [Compound Swing | Chain: 100 | Damage: +1000%] The second cleave killed the orcs. It also finished the wounded players.

[Kill Confirmed: Redscar Orc Raider x16] [Kill Confirmed: Redscar Bone Shaman x8] [Player Kill: StoneVow] [Player Kill: RedMoth] [Player Kill: PaleLark] [Player Kill: Knifewick] [Player Kill: EmberNell] [Karma Loss: Player Kill 10 x5] [Current Karma: -100] If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. [Level Up | Level 12] Meno stared at the five player corpses among the orc bodies.

Chat did not know whether to laugh, scream, or file a complaint, so it did all three. MURDER -100 KARMA he looting? he's looting BRO PvP gives no XP? lvl came from orcs, read Meno looted because leaving items on the ground was how poor people stayed poor. He got bandages, two cheap focus teas, a smoked meat roll, a Common III two-handed orc axe, and a pouch of mixed copper. The axe went into inventory. The meat roll went into his mouth. [Food Buff: Minor Recovery | Duration: 20 minutes]"That's rude," he admitted.

HE ATE THEIR FOOD villain arc this is why karma exists Level 12 felt good. No reward followed. The earlier camps began respawning while he sorted loot. Redscar horns sounded from deeper in the valley. Raiders moved back toward firepits. Shamans returned to their skull-marked circles. Meno looked down the full valley route. Twelve camps. Maybe thirty-six orcs. His pulse climbed. The number of bodies would make the pull harder. Axes everywhere. Hex bolts filling the air. Leash lines to manage.

The post catching on rocks. One mistake turning the whole trick into a death montage. The number of bodies would also make it easier. Melee orcs blocked shaman line-of-sight. The swarm became cover. Hundredfold did not care whether the medium range held twelve or thirty-six targets. Meno started tapping. [Compound Swing | Chain: 1 | Damage: +10%] The dead party returned while he was gathering the sixth camp. Their names appeared at the edge of the ridge, moving fast and angry. StoneVow looked ready for murder.

Knifewick, the rogue, kept low along the rocks. They stayed outside the pull at first, which meant they had learned something between deaths. Meno saw them. He also had thirty-six orcs trying to rearrange his organs.

"Later," he said. The first Hundredfold caught the orcs and clipped the party anyway. They were too close. [PvP Encounter Initiated]"You did it again!" PaleLark shouted. Meno's jaw set. The party tried to back off. He made the tactical choice before he had time to dress it up as an accident. He dragged the orc swarm toward them. Chat's tone changed. oh that's intentional that is so bad do it do NOT he's weaponizing pull rip karma The players scattered too late.

The pack rolled over the ridge edge, axes and bodies filling the space they needed to escape. Meno built the second chain while the orcs trapped everyone together. At one hundred, he struck. [Hundredfold Cleave Activated] Orcs fell. Players fell with them.

[Kill Confirmed: Redscar Orc Raider x24] [Kill Confirmed: Redscar Bone Shaman x12] [Player Kill: StoneVow] [Player Kill: RedMoth] [Player Kill: PaleLark] [Player Kill: Knifewick] [Player Kill: EmberNell] [Karma Loss: Player Kill 10 x5] [Current Karma: -150] [Level Up | Level 13] The silence after the number hit was worse than the first time. Meno looted quickly. More bandages. A Common III orc-carved staff with cracked green beads. A stack of cooked roots. A ring that turned out to be vendor trash. Player coins.

Orc junk. He took all of it.

"No reward," he said after the level notice failed to produce anything else. -150 they're coming back again 100% lvl 13 though orc staff nice The party came back before the next orc respawn cycle finished. This time, they did not wait for the pull. StoneVow charged first.

"Drop the exploit stick!"

"It's a post," Meno shouted, already tapping it.

"And you're wrecking my karma for no reason!" The sentence hit the air and stayed there, too deranged for anyone to answer cleanly.

"You killed us twice," RedMoth screamed.

"Spatial awareness issue." They attacked. Meno had prebuilt a chain while waiting near the firepit remains expecting them. [Hundredfold Cleave Ready] He unleashed it immediately. The cleave struck all five players and dropped their health hard, but nobody died. His chain ended. Now he had an actual fight. StoneVow stomped the ground in front of him. Meno jumped before the shock fully spread because Tremor-Slam had permanently rewired his legs. RedMoth fired a bolt of fire midair.

Meno twisted, raised the stolen post, and the fire burst against wood with enough force to shove him sideways. The post smoked.

"That's not a shield!" RedMoth shouted.

"It's multi-use." PaleLark tried to heal the group, hands glowing soft green, but the damage was split and ugly. Single-target healing could not recover everyone at once. EmberNell, the archer, fired three quick shots. One grazed Meno's side. One stuck in the post. One forced him behind StoneVow's shield. Meno kept tapping. [Compound Swing | Chain: 20 | Damage: +200%] Knifewick circled behind him, daggers low. The rogue wanted his back.

Meno turned the post with his hip, blocked one dagger with the wood, tapped the post's end with his sword, and kept moving.

"Stop ignoring me!" Knifewick snapped.

"Earn priority." The rogue lunged too deep. Meno pivoted and smacked him in the head with the training post. The damage was pathetic. The humiliation was clean. Knifewick stumbled. Chat made a noise made entirely of clipped laughter. StoneVow charged. Meno braced the post point-forward against the ground and his ribs. The tank hit it shield-first, expecting the wood to slide away. It did not.

The post kicked back into Meno's chest hard enough to blur his vision, but it redirected the charge off-line and sent StoneVow stumbling past him.

"You're cheating!" StoneVow shouted. Meno tapped the post again.

"I paid a guard for this." LEGAL DEFENSE: BRIBE post parry he bonked rogue this PvP is disgusting chain 60 healer won't make it in time RedMoth's fireball came in high. Meno ducked, tapped, stepped through the heat, and used the post to jam Knifewick's next angle. EmberNell tried to shoot his sword hand. He shifted the post across his forearm, took the arrow in the wood, and nearly lost rhythm from the jolt. [Compound Swing | Chain: 80 | Damage: +800%] The players started to understand the wrong thing.

They backed away from the sword. The post was the engine. By the time StoneVow shouted "Break the wood," Meno had already reached one hundred. [Hundredfold Cleave Activated] The sword struck the post, and the linked damage rolled through all five players at once. They dropped together. [Player Kill: StoneVow] [Player Kill: RedMoth] [Player Kill: PaleLark] [Player Kill: Knifewick] [Player Kill: EmberNell] [Karma Loss: Player Kill 10 x5] [Current Karma: -200] No XP notice came from the kills.

Then the real notice arrived. [Karma Threshold Reached: -200] Status: Disreputable Warning: City access may be restricted. Lawful NPC services may be denied or surcharged. Bribes, black-market contacts, or reputation repair may be required for entry. [Black Market Access Unlocked] Meno stared at the last line.

"That's new." BLACK MARKET criminal economy unlocked punishment or feature??? Disreputable city access restricted lmao he needs repairs too He looted the party again. More consumables. A few silver. Knifewick finally dropped a Common III dagger with a narrow black grip. Meno took it and felt only a small amount of shame, which was efficient. The players did not come back. Maybe death timers had stretched. Maybe their respawn point had shifted.

Maybe they had finally found a healthier hobby than feeding his karma problem. Chat argued all three and invented six more. Viewers: 3, 121. Meno farmed. The loops got brutal and compact. Pull camps. Tap post. Build one hundred. First Hundredfold wounds. Survive the fury. Build one hundred again. Second Hundredfold kills. Loot. Rest. Move to the next cluster. The exploit spread while he worked. Chat posted reports from other zones.

training yards guarded now in Bellrow fake carried dummy invalid in south kingdom clip? NPC refused bribe after global theft wave PATCH INCOMING use it faster guilds stealing posts lmao pole economy dead in 20 mins The clock got louder. Meno reached Level 14 with a thirty-orc pull and no reward. [Level Up | Level 14] The XP slowed after that. Orcs were good. They were not magic. The higher his level climbed, the less absurd the curve felt, and the more each larger pull asked for clean execution.

This time, with the level gap in his favor, they died in one hit. Viewers: 4, 721. His wrist hurt. His shoulders hurt. His post arm had gone numb in three places. The stream had climbed again because crime plus leveling plus patch speculation was a better retention package than responsible play. He kept tapping. He pulled the far camps, clipped two shamans early, nearly lost the chain on a rock, recovered with a half-contact, and cleaved the packed valley road. [Level Up | Level 15] A second notice followed.

[Leaderboard Eligibility Confirmed] You have entered the Global Level Top 100. Select Leaderboard Display Name: [__________] Note: Display name may be changed once every 30 days. Meno stopped in the middle of dead orcs and scattered junk. For the first time since launch, the board had opened for him. Chat detonated. PRAYERBEADGOD TRASH BARON POLE SAINT CRIMES PER SECOND MENO PLEASE DO IT DO NOT BE A COWARD dont listen these idiots boring streamer name no He typed Meno. Clean. Human. Marketable.

Sponsor-safe, assuming sponsors still touched people with black-market access. The booing in chat became weather. Meno stared at the name for one second too long. Then he deleted it. He typed PrayerBeadGod. [Leaderboard Display Name Confirmed: PrayerBeadGod] [Launch Leaderboard | Global Level Rank] [Rank 1: BrineSaint — Level 17] [Rank 2: Kestrel_Crownfall — Level 17] [Rank 3: JaxxonVale — Level 16] [Rank 4: OxideChoir — Level 16] [Rank 5: Honeygrave — Level 16] [...] [Rank 100: PrayerBeadGod — Level 15] Meno stared at it.

"Oh no." The chat overlay became unreadable. He had made the board. Barely. At the bottom. With a meme name he could not change for thirty days. It felt like winning a fistfight and waking up in a clown suit. [Class Milestone Reached | Swing Master Level 15] Choose one Passive Modification. Finally. Meno opened the options with his heart climbing again. [Option 1: Heavier Rhythm] Compound Swing damage bonus increases from +10% per stack to +15% per stack. Violent. Immediate. At Chain 100, +1500% instead of +1000%.

Simple enough to make every sane damage player nod. [Option 2: Double Beat] Every second clean hit grants one additional chain stack. That solved the real problem. Ramp speed. Two hits became three stacks. Easier early fights, faster Hundredfold setup, fewer chances for the world to kick the rhythm out of his hands. [Option 3: Unbounded Chain] Compound Swing no longer stops increasing at Chain 100. Meno's mouth went dry. It did almost nothing for sane play. It did not make him faster. It did not help him live.

It did not fix bad first hits, bad gear, caster pressure, or stolen post patch risk. It only removed the ceiling. Chat screamed for Option 2. A chunk screamed for Option 1. The maniacs screamed for Option 3, and Meno hated that they understood him. Rank one did not taste like a safer floor. It tasted like a higher ceiling. He focused on Option 3. The menu flickered. The text blurred. Meno's stomach dropped before his eyes finished reading.

[Option 1: Account Suspension — 8 Hours] [Option 2: Account Suspension — 8 Hours] [Option 3: Account Suspension — 8 Hours] His hand was already moving. Momentum and horror arrived faster than thought. He clicked Option 3. The world went black. [Account Suspended: 8 Hours] Reason: Exploit Abuse — Portable Training Object Invalid Interaction. A second notice appeared beneath it. [Bug Finder Credit Awarded: 1] Redeemable in the merchandise store. A third line landed like a boot. Thank you for improving Veyrath.

Meno screamed. The rig opened around him. The apartment returned in pieces: dim light, sweat smell, cheap plastic, dead rice bowl, his own voice still echoing too loud. He tore the head rig off, threw himself backward onto the bed, and kicked the blanket hard enough to wrap it around one ankle. The compression sleeve bit into his wrist as he punched a pillow twice, badly, with no power and a lot of noise.

"Eight hours? Eight hours after letting me do it all valley? After giving me leaderboard? After the options? You let me pick suspension like it was a build!" The stream was still live. His camera had not captured the whole room, but it caught enough: the bed edge, one flailing leg, a pillow getting punished for system policy, and Meno's voice breaking into a sound no professional streamer would allow to exist. He realized it three seconds too late.

He scrambled to the desk, half-tripped over the blanket, and slapped the stream controls.

"Do not clip that." Chat had already become links. Viewers: rising. The ban timer had started. So had the clips.