Chương 98: Lightning Rod

The Harbinger's feet flashed with lightning. It took one step, and then it was in front of Meno's face with a punch already moving. Meno's heart rate spiked hard enough to throw a capsule warning into the corner of his vision. For one brief instant, everything slowed, leaving him trapped between the punch, the water, and a decision his body had to make first. He acted before his body could move. He used Preypool, and water erupted around him.

In the same motion, Meno swapped his offhand dagger for Dreamchain Aegis from inventory and ate the huge one-second Action Speed penalty from switching. The Harbinger's fist ignored the sudden water completely and slammed into the shield. The impact hit like a car, launching Meno inland over the glowing stone. His HP shield absorbed the hit, but still dropped to 5%. His level was too low to block the strike cleanly. Tank passives would have been nice.

shield saved HE BLOCKED BrineSaint move monk punch run The move would have broken his Chain any other time, but right now, there was no Chain to break. Meno landed with a downward kick, skidded over the blue stone, and started rushing away as fast as he could. He jumped, kicked behind himself, and used Splitwing to put distance between him and the raid boss. The Harbinger had been hard before. Now it was not a fight. He needed a single Chain stack somehow.

Then he could let it break, regain Panic Pump, and refresh his shield. Unfortunately, Naraltan offered him nothing to hit except the lightning itself. The upgraded raid boss chased him faster than before, forcing his full attention into movement and avoiding lightning strikes. Dying would probably be cleanest: respawn, drop combat, lose the thing. Meno refused to give up yet, he stayed outside the raid boss's attack range until movement appeared in the distance. Finally.

Something rode toward him and the Harbinger on a huge rhino-like mount, charging across the glowing expanse with confidence. [Bruuwol — Level 105 — Korka Champion — Warrior] As the rider neared, Meno saw an eight-foot orca-headed humanoid with a broad black-and-white scaled body, plate armor, and a huge sword across its back. The rhino mount lowered its head and thundered past Meno toward the boss. whale with legs actual whale Korka champion ask for gold whale noises chat"Even this place isn't safe from whales.

And please stop spamming awooo in chat." Bruuwol ignored Meno completely, riding straight at the Harbinger. Meno stopped for half a second to watch and nearly paid for it when lightning struck beside him and sent tendrils spreading across the ground. He jumped, slid, and barely dodged the homing threads afterward, ending stomach-down on the warm blue stone.

"Focus. Right." Bruuwol dismissed the mount like a player, launched off its back, and drew the two-handed sword midair, raising it into a straight downward chop aimed at the lower-level raid boss. The Harbinger was not impressed. Lightning flashed under its feet, and it stepped sideways to appear beside the airborne warrior before smashing both fists downward. Bruuwol hit the ground hard enough to make the stone erupt in a shockwave. Meno used the moment, jumping and kicking twice to rocket behind the raid boss.

His sword cut once across the Harbinger's back as he landed. [Compound Swing | Chain: 1 | Damage: +10%] Then he kicked away. Bruuwol exploded out of the cracked stone with his own shockwave, collected himself, and swung the huge sword into the Harbinger's side. Meno barely avoided the expanding impact ring, and when his Chain broke, he immediately triggered Panic Pump to restore his shield. Meno stopped outside long range while Bruuwol went to work.

The Korka was tall, but the blindfolded monk was still more than twice his size, and that did not seem to bother him. Sword clashed against lightning-infused fists, each collision popping sparks and pressure through the air. Then the Harbinger stopped attacking and clasped both hands. The ground around it turned gold in a huge circle, the edge almost reaching Meno's boots. The old circle mechanic had changed. Instead of convenient inner safe zones, it offered a wide holy danger field.

"Get out of the circle!" Meno shouted. Bruuwol ignored him and triggered a skill that turned his entire body gray, making him grow taller as the golden circle erupted upward into a wall of holy flames. Even from outside, the heat brushed Meno's face and left his skin itchy for a second. average raider he stood in it why tank move out classic"Yeah," Meno said.

"Nobody ever listens. Guy is like the average raider." The flames cleared, and Bruuwol lay smoking on the ground. Raid bosses were built different. The level one hundred five champion had lost half his HP in one raid mechanic. The gray buff faded, his body shrank back to normal, and he bounced up from the stone. The Harbinger stepped behind him with a punch already coming in fast enough to turn him into paste, but Bruuwol was ready this time.

His sword vanished, a giant hammer appeared in both hands, and he swung from the hip straight into the fist. The collision produced a wide shockwave and stopped the punch. Raid bosses did not care about status effects unless the system specifically made them care. Whatever knockback the Korka had expected from the hammer blow did not happen. Bruuwol seemed unfazed. He swapped back to the sword and attacked again.

The Harbinger sat at 93% HP, which was actually solid considering the fight had barely started and Bruuwol was fighting alone with Meno contributing one opportunistic poke. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Then the Korka glowed red, and his HP started regenerating one tick at a time.

"Self-heal warrior," Meno said.

"Cool." He watched, fascinated despite himself. Class evolution waited in his notifications, but that was not something he could rush while a raid boss and a whale-headed warrior traded hits in front of him. One wrong choice could ruin his build. He needed peace, quiet, and possibly Chadculator yelling numbers. Then Naraltan made a cruel joke. A thick lightning bolt slammed into the Harbinger mid-punch and caught Bruuwol in the same strike.

The Korka dropped to 1 HP instantly, saved only by some kind of cheat-death trigger that refilled him to 20% HP as he scrambled backward. LIGHTNING AGAIN no no no dont evolve bugged whale almost died"Don't tell me an evolved thing can evolve again." The Harbinger stood inside the lightning glow, and Meno watched in total disappointment as it began to evolve again.

[Saint of the Second Dream | Level 100 | Aberrant Raid Boss] When the glow faded, the boss was still a half-naked monk, only now it stood three stories tall. The eye covering was gone, replaced by two golden orbs burning where eyes should be. Script covered its skin and flickered with lightning, while its feet had turned transparent and lifted slightly above the glowing stone. ABERRANT COOL ZONE FULL HEAL HUGE run now AI cooking poison Meno put a hand over his face.

"I really need to log out and get some pizza." The commotion drew another champion: a strange creature riding toward Bruuwol on a mount that looked like a huge tractor tire rolling across the plain. It dismissed the mount, and Meno saw the weirdest thing Veyrath had shown him so far, which was a strong statement after the smoke-head archer and rude bird necromancer.

[Azttur — Level 117 — Faol Champion — Shaman] Azttur was taller than Bruuwol, with one powerful spring-like leg, four long arms, and a baseball-sized head perched on a flexible neck. Gem eyes stared from the tiny head above a circular empty mouth. For half a second, the creature looked absurd. Then Meno saw the four carved wooden idols in its hands and the ritual robe covered in colored stones and gems. pogo stick four arms unfair shaman is a thing?

AI cooking hard what is that NPC designs wild"Don't call it pogo stick," Meno said.

"That's rude." The Saint did not wait for introductions. It latched back onto Bruuwol. The boss lifted its head toward the sky, and countless tiny golden circles appeared across the ground, overlapping past long range until even the stone beneath Meno's feet was marked. There was no safe zone. Meno jumped immediately, kicked forward, raised Dreamchain Aegis toward the sky, and barely cleared the blast area in a tumble.

The sky erupted, and a thousand golden spikes fell from above, crashing into the ground around the boss until a jagged forest of radiant stakes surrounded it. Meno rolled to a stop and checked the champions, but he did not see them at first. Then a huge earth elemental, half the size of the raid boss, crumbled under the spike field. Golden spikes stuck from its back like spears in a dead fortress, and as the elemental collapsed into rocks, Bruuwol and Azttur appeared alive beneath it.

Bruuwol looked at the Faol with distrust. Azttur's long neck bounced its head in what might have been irritation. support shaman earth wall saved whale NPC teamwork raid mechanic nasty This was going too far. The AI needed to chill out with these evolutions. Nothing in Lost Temple Invocation said the raid boss could evolve. Meno could not be blamed for an unintended interaction. People would still blame him. The golden spikes did not vanish.

They stayed stuck in the ground, creating a navigation hazard around the boss. Azttur started waving all four hands while hopping on one leg, and air condensed in front of him, twisting into a cyclone. An air elemental formed and blasted toward the Saint, but the boss spread its hands as if catching it. Lightning snapped between its palms, and the Saint gripped the elemental and erased it completely. Bruuwol was not idle. The Korka dodged around the spike field and reengaged the full-health boss.

His sword flashed, but the Saint's punches came faster now, forcing Bruuwol to spend more time dodging than attacking while the spikes stole space from every angle. Meno watched the shaman wave its hands in a circular pattern until green light engulfed Bruuwol and healed him back to 50% HP.

"So they can assist each other," Meno said.

"Great." npc party no faction rules support works healers robbed cheating NPCs"The raid boss disables player parties and raids and makes the zone free-for-all PvP, but NPCs do not use our group system." The Saint pressed harder, its punches blurring with lightning. Bruuwol was good, genuinely good, but his movement stayed on the ground. No False Wings, no vertical correction, no air kicks.

The spike forest limited him more than the boss did, forcing him to chop golden stakes apart with his sword just to clear space.

"You cannot chop wood while fighting that thing," Meno said. Bruuwol got hit and flew backward, but a green heal landed on him before he could crash again. Azttur went offensive. The Faol jumped on its one leg and dropped forward onto its stomach, planting all four idols into the ground in a strange ritual pattern. Fire spread through the nearby spike forest and turned the golden stakes to ash before gathering at the center, shaping into a firebird, and crashing into the Saint. phoenix?

that's sick player class when totem build pogo caster"Shamans are pretty cool," Meno said.

"I wonder if it is NPC-only or if some classes evolve into the archetype." Meno's viewership stayed around seven million, and he avoided looking at the counter because the number was ridiculous enough to make him self-conscious. The boss answered with a downward chop, and the skill teleported the still-dazed Bruuwol right in front of the strike. The firebird reformed midair and slammed into the Saint's arm, shifting the blow just enough for it to miss.

Bruuwol scrambled up and resumed attacking, and the firebird kept reforming after each collision to pelt the boss with burning dives. For a moment, Meno almost believed they could do it. Bruuwol tanked, Azttur healed, the firebird interrupted, and the Saint's HP finally began moving again. Then another lightning bolt hit the raid boss.

"This is one hundred percent bugged." LIGHTNING ROD bugged boss stop storm AI trolling report now"This thing is literally a lightning rod." Bruuwol got lucky. He had disengaged just before the impact and survived outside the main strike. Both champions backed away from the boss as the glow gathered again. The Saint stood still, soaking in blue-white light while the sky above flashed silently. A global notification appeared.

[Regional Calamity Declared in Naraltan: The Second Dream Opens] The Banished God has answered a call from the beyond. Naraltan's storm has begun reconstructing Vervenzal. Defeat the Second Dream before it is too late, or The Banished God will claim the zone as its new domain.

"I need a break. Seriously." The boss prompt changed. [Second Dream Incarnate | Level 120 | Zone Calamity] The glow faded, leaving the monk mostly unchanged at the same huge height except for one major addition. White angelic wings spread from its back, and its HP returned to 100% HP. Meno looked at chat.

"A raid boss that can fly. Guys, how do I send a support ticket? This needs to be shut down immediately." support ticket vervenzal resurrection? he made Vervenzal 2 fly boss PRAYERBUGGOD fight it coward For no reason that made sense, the Second Dream Incarnate turned toward Meno and looked at him for half a second. A golden javelin manifested in its hand, crackling with lightning. Meno moved immediately and raised Dreamchain Aegis, but the throw still reached him.

The javelin crossed the distance faster than his body could finish the dodge, punched through the shield angle, detonated against his chest, and erased him. [Death Penalty Applied: -400g] deleted ONE SHOT support ticket denied beg for forgiveness Meno came to under a large tree with green leaves. Actual leaves. The ground around it still glowed blue, and Naraltan still stretched into the distance with silent lightning overhead, but this tree formed a small oasis in the otherwise awful zone. The raid boss was gone.

So were the champions, the cliff, and any useful sense of direction. Meno had no idea where he was. [Catastrophic zone contamination detected in Naraltan.] [All players Level 40 or higher may vote to choose which continent will be unlocked.] [Daxolon] A continent swallowed by the deepest eternal night will reveal itself. [Fractera] A barren expanse split by ancient fractures will open, along with the vast underground secrets buried beneath it.

[Rimvolen] A frozen continent of brutal winds, endless snow, and glacial silence will awaken.

"Great," Meno said.

"I guess it was worth it."