Chương 94: Flightless Fledgling

A wave washed over Meno and Kaerthalan, but at first, the world did not change. They were still inside the innermost ring of the Lost Temple, beneath the broken cathedral top where Vervenzal had died. The difference came through the system silence: the raid pressure vanished from the air, the boundary loosened, and the place no longer felt like an instance holding its breath.

Meno was already caught inside Chain Cannon's slow attack motion, his legendary sword swinging toward the sky while the skill locked him into its three-second preparation. Golden-laced pale ivory light gathered along Vervenzal's Verdict, brighter with every second. He could not move, only watch Kaerthalan hover above him with contempt burning in his dragon eyes.

When the swing timer completed, Vervenzal's Verdict pulsed bright white, and a sliver of light tore upward from the sword with a boom that dragged Meno back to the drone simulation, to acceleration hitting his mind before his body had permission to understand speed. It was faster than any projectile he had released in Veyrath, cutting through the air in a clean arc toward Kaerthalan's chest.

The dragon swiped at it, too arrogant to dodge, and the light punched through his claws, struck his chest, and flaked away a small patch of ash-black scales. Kaerthalan shrieked hard enough to shake the entire cathedral. A health bar manifested above him with 99% HP remaining.

"That is not great." DRAGON HP 99??? you scratched him run CHAIN CANNON HIT Meno why Kaerthalan opened his jaws, and fireballs poured from the sky in a roaring firestorm. They were not neat raid markers or fair circles. They were angry burning balls dropping at different angles, dragging smoke trails and impact flashes behind them, leaving very little room. Meno had five seconds to connect and maintain Chain. His eyes widened as focus snapped into place hard enough to slow the edges of the room.

Maybe it was the residual Soma-XUltra effect, maybe his brain had finally decided normal speed was optional, or maybe panic had found a new gear. A capsule warning flashed, and Meno ignored it. He sidestepped the first fireball. The second came low, and he jumped, angled his shoulders toward a narrow gap, and kicked with both legs using Splitwing. The launch fired him upward like an arrow, heat grazing his side as another fireball passed close enough to light the edge of his vision orange.

His second kick cut him sideways on one leg, letting a third fireball miss beneath him. Meno twisted diagonal, used the final kick with both legs, and rocketed past a fourth fireball as his sword arm lined up with Kaerthalan. Hunt Beyond Reach came ready through the Pursuit helmet, and his swing became a medium-range projectile. The pale strike hit the dragon's wing. The charge yanked him forward. The immobilize did nothing obvious to something that large, but the pull held.

Meno slammed onto the wing, grabbed a ridge of scale with one hand, and chopped downward with Vervenzal's Verdict. The attack struck twice. [Compound Swing | Chain: 106 | Damage: +1060%] HE LANDED ON THE DRAGON DRAGONBEADGOD HELMET PROC SPLITWING VALUE WHO IS THIS GUY Viewers: 7, 024, 118 Kaerthalan beat his wings wildly, and the force almost ripped Meno free. Meno crawled higher onto the wing with his fingers wedged under scale edges, chopping with his sword whenever his body aligned enough for a real swing.

The world tilted and swayed around him like he had been thrown into a washing machine with a grudge. The speed did not scare him. His brain had tasted Mach 9, so this was just violent and rude. Kaerthalan banked hard and drove his side toward the temple wall, trying to mash Meno into the broken stone. Meno jumped off at the last instant. The dragon smashed into the cathedral edge, and Meno kicked with False Wings to get back onto his back before the distance opened too far. He kept swinging, but Chain came slowly.

Too slowly. Even the sword's normal three attacks per second was impossible when he had to climb, grip, and avoid being scraped off. The one bright spot was Vervenzal's Verdict doing real work above eighty percent HP, with Opening Decree and First Exposure biting through defense while Kaerthalan remained barely scratched. Meno considered Chain Madness, then dismissed it.

The Ashwake Cleaver had not been repaired after the raid clear, and it had survived a two-hour chain boss exploit by grace, spite, and Maximum+ durability. Breaking it now against a dragon at 99% HP would be stupid. The sword was Legendary III anyway, and until he tested numbers, he could not even be sure the axe was worth using. Kaerthalan shrieked again and curled his entire body into a burning ball with Meno still on his back.

Heat erupted through the scales, dropping Meno's shield from 25% to 15 almost instantly.

"Nope." He jumped away. Kaerthalan canceled the burn the moment Meno left his back and snapped into another firestorm. Fireballs flooded the air between them, forcing Meno to spend False Wings kicks on survival instead of approach. He tried to line up the Pursuit projectile, but Kaerthalan had already seen the trick and climbed higher. Smart bastard. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Meno's Chain broke.

Break Surplus activated, saving it for a breath, and Meno triggered Panic Pump immediately bringing his shield back to 25% maxHP. He had a short window and no real way to hit. Chain Cannon remained on cooldown, Hundredfold Cleave was out of range, and Kaerthalan stayed above the fireball field like a smug airborne raid boss. When the firestorm expired, Meno hung below the dragon, out of reach. With his last False Wings kick, he launched not toward Kaerthalan but toward the side of the ruined raid structure.

[Chain Broken: Inactivity] Kaerthalan looked down at him, fire gathering in the dragon's mouth until it looked less like a spell and more like a building-sized sun being assembled. Meno landed against the side of the structure, crouched, and jumped. Both legs kicked upward once, then a second time, as Splitwing launched him like a bullet straight toward the forming fireball. Kaerthalan took the bait and spat the massive sphere down at him. The fireball was the size of a small house.

Meno flattened his body horizontal and used his last kick sideways, slipping out of its path at the final instant. As Hunt Beyond Reach came ready again, he swung Vervenzal's Verdict toward Kaerthalan's belly. The projectile struck. The charge pulled him through smoke and heat. The immobilize failed again, but the movement effect dragged him to the dragon. Meno grabbed a belly scale, swung his body sideways, and caught one of Kaerthalan's legs with one hand.

He activated Panic Pump for 100 Chain and drove his sword into the leg. Kaerthalan shook hard, then raked down with the other leg, trying to scrape Meno off. Meno kept climbing hand over hand, landing slow strikes whenever his body aligned enough. Pursuit made each hit strike twice for ten seconds, helping him fight toward the dragon's back where False Wings could reset properly. Chat had become a wall of disbelief and screaming numbers. DRAGON RODEO he is climbing stop?

do not stop Kaerthalan lost patience, leveled out, and shot downward like a rocket. Meno's stomach flipped as the Lost Temple platform rushed up from below. He almost flew off, caught himself with one arm, and abandoned swinging to focus entirely on not becoming ash-colored paste. His Chain broke again, and False Wings still had not reset. From high above, Meno saw the four archmage NPCs on the platform open portals and step through them back to their cities.

"Cowards." Then he saw the players below. Too many of them were looking up. Kaerthalan hit the platform in a maddened crash. About twenty players vanished under the impact, and Meno released at the last second, activating Preypool to save himself. The water evaporated the moment it touched the dragon. Then Meno struck the stone hard enough to empty his vision. [You have died.] [Lone Resolve Applied] [Death Penalty Applied: -400g] He respawned at the shrine on the platform.

"Almost." A huge fireball blasted him from the side. Meno skipped across the platform, smoking, and nearly rolled over the far edge. His HP dropped from full to 10% in one hit. Dreamchain Greaves were the only reason he survived, because he had respawned standing still, and every equipped item counted as at least High+ Defense for that instant. SPAWN CAMP NPC GRIEFING shrine protection??? DRAGON TOXIC Meno coughed smoke.

"Asshole!" Kaerthalan did not give him room. The dragon beat his wings and blasted toward him. Meno realized, that he might have been hasty. Apparently NPCs could spawn camp and ignore shrine protection now, which felt illegal. Kaerthalan remained at 99% HP because Meno had barely built stacks, barely attacked properly, and spent most of the fight inventing ways to not die. Of course, he had never planned to kill Kaerthalan. He only needed to make him fly to Naraltan.

"You want to play more?" Meno said.

"Let's play." Meno activated Panic Pump and kicked upward with False Wings, letting the charge pass beneath him before swinging down to trigger Pursuit. The projectile hit, and Kaerthalan's charge slammed Meno onto the dragon's back. Meno started hacking again. Time stretched into chaos. They fought across the broken temple, through the air above the platform, against cracked walls, over the heads of fleeing players, and inside fireball trails that painted the sky orange.

Meno bounced on and off the dragon, dodging claws, wingbeats, and sudden rolls as Kaerthalan grew increasingly crazed, less like a wise ancient NPC and more like a boss that had discovered spite as a new phase. Without Chain Madness, building stacks was miserable. Panic Pump returned him to one hundred whenever his Chain broke, but getting above three hundred felt impossible.

Every time Kaerthalan curled into the burning body effect, Meno had to disengage or watch his shield melt, and every disengage broke apart the fragile Chain he had worked so hard to build. Kaerthalan learned too. He created more space, anticipated the Pursuit charge, climbed before Meno could line up the shot, and used wingbeats to ruin False Wings timing. Every return to his back became harder than the last. The next time Kaerthalan tried to smash into the platform, Meno timed the fall.

He waited until the ground surged close. Then he triggered Chain Cannon. The three-second preparation suspended him in place. AIR BRAKE CHAIN CANNON FALL CANCEL NEW TECH HE FOUND ANOTHER ONE Kaerthalan slammed into the platform beneath him. Meno hung in the air with his sword glowing as the dragon tumbled in a furious roll below him. Chain Cannon fired, and the railgun strike punched into Kaerthalan's back with only one hundred forty Chain behind it, doing absolutely nothing.

"Come on." The dragon had raid-boss HP deep enough to drown numbers. After the cannon, Meno let himself fall, landed lightly, and swung the moment Pursuit came ready, charging back onto Kaerthalan while the dragon was still grounded. Bystander players scattered in every direction, trying not to get erased. Many failed. Kaerthalan rolled onto his back to crush Meno off.

Meno ran across the dragon's chest like a log rolling in water, chopping with Vervenzal's Verdict while the entire scaled monster thrashed to scratch him loose. Every step threatened to throw him under a scale ridge or into a claw, but he kept moving, kept swinging, and kept asking himself whether any of this had a point. He could bolt for the Westmarket portal. He could leave. That would be lame. So he kept hacking as fast as he could without being turned into paste. Then Kaerthalan stilled.

"ENOUGH!" NO WAY HE TALKED DRAGON SURRENDER PEST WIN DO NOT STOP STOP? Meno ignored it, because attacking was still available.

"YOU ARE THE MOST ANNOYING PEST," Kaerthalan roared.

"I WILL TAKE YOU TO NARALTAN. CEASE YOUR ATTACKS." Meno kept chopping.

"I don't believe you," he shouted.

"Start flying and I will stop." Kaerthalan snarled, then his wings beat hard enough to shake the platform. He lifted into the air with Meno still clinging to his scales, and Meno only stopped attacking once they passed over Eastveil and continued toward the sea.

"See?" Meno said.

"Could have skipped all this if you weren't so lazy." Kaerthalan growled under him. Meno's UI began to flicker. The world-state choice window flashed once, and for one hopeful second, he thought the AI had updated the options. Daxolon, Fractera, Rimvolen, and Let the World Choose blinked at the edge of his vision. Then they vanished. A global announcement opened for everyone. [Global Announcement — Forced World State Progression: Naraltan] Vervenzal has been vanquished. Sleepwalkers no longer appear.

The kingdoms of Veyrath have lost their reason for cooperation. All factions are now hostile until alliances can be agreed upon. Region opened early: Naraltan Recommended Level: 100+ Naraltan will not scale down. The level cap has been lifted to #ERROR#. Visit the royal ports to build vessels, cross the Jagged Sea, and establish a faction foothold on Naraltan. Meno stared at the message.

"What?! One hundred? Not scale down?" Chat entered total collapse. 100 PLUS error cap NARALTAN REAL rip Veyrath epic fail no scaling?! Meno looked up at the sky like the system might be hiding there.

"AI, are you drunk? Just change the numbers!" Kaerthalan flew on toward the sea.

"Idiot human."