Chapter 110: Bringing Back Terry, Surprising Challenge Reward

He called Gravemark Bastion Orlun forward.

Orlun was one of the seven new Mythic-rank combat units, a heavy defensive build with a tower shield and nothing much behind the eyes yet. It had never been in a fight.

"You understand what I am asking?" Logan looked up at it.

Orlun looked at the broken core in Thessaris’s chest. Then it looked back at Logan and lowered its shield to the ground.

That was answer enough.

Logan put both hands out. Thessaris passed him the core, and Orlun stepped into reach, and Boundless Genesis woke up in his chest like it had been waiting all match for this.

```

[ Merge: Terravault Sentinel (Mythic+, critical damage) + Gravemark Bastion Orlun (Mythic) ]

[ Warning: Uneven merge. Lower-rank material will be fully consumed. ]

[ Proceed? ]

```

"Proceed."

The light that came off the merge was not the usual soft glow. It was harsh and white, and it climbed twenty meters into the air above the plaza.

Orlun’s frame came apart and poured into the crack in Terry’s core. The crack did not seal. It filled.

Then the pieces on the plaza stone began to rise, one after another, and the light started fitting them back together in a shape that was not quite the shape they had come from.

He came out bigger.

The plating was thicker and layered differently, and it ran in overlapping bands instead of solid slabs. There was a second set of shoulder mounts that had not been there before.

```

[ Evolution complete. ]

[ Bulwark Eternal Terravault ]

Rank: Mythic+

> Ironwall Barrier (upgraded)

> Aegis Transference (upgraded)

> Bulwark Convergence (upgraded)

> New: Second Stand. Once per battle, upon taking fatal damage, remain standing at 1 HP for ten seconds.

```

Terry opened his eyes and looked around at all of them.

Then he looked down at himself, and then at the crater he was standing in, and his voice came out like gravel being poured.

"How long was I out?"

Billy made a sound that was not quite a laugh and not quite anything else.

Solveig got there first. The Vorpal Lord grabbed Terry by both shoulders and did not say a word.

Logan let them have it. He was busy reading that last line again.

’Second Stand.’ He felt something settle in his chest. ’He will not go down like that twice.’

Then he remembered the gauntlets.

"Solveig." He tossed them over without ceremony. "These are yours. Light and Fire."

Solveig caught them, looked at them, and put them on without a single word of thanks.

The crimson light in his armor turned gold at the edges.

---

They took the second dog out the next time they left.

This one was smaller and twice as loud, and it took three tries to get it to hold still long enough to open the portal.

The place on the other side was not a cave.

It was a flat stone platform floating in empty white space, about eighty meters across, with nothing around it in any direction.

```

[ Challenge Spot Detected ]

[ Rank: Mythic ]

[ Two tasks. Both must be completed. Unlimited attempts. ]

[ Task One: Deal 150,000 damage in a single instance. ]

[ Task Two: Block 150,000 damage worth of attack with a single move. ]

```

Alice read it twice and started laughing.

"That is it?" She sounded almost offended. "No boss? No monsters? Just numbers?"

"Do not get comfortable." Logan was reading the second line. "A hundred and fifty thousand in one instance is a lot. That is not a normal hit for either of us."

A training dummy rose out of the platform stone in front of them. It was plain and grey and roughly person-shaped.

Alice cracked her knuckles.

"I will take task one."

"You sure?"

"Logan." She was already stringing an arrow. "I have three stacking effects, a Talent that ignores armor, and a crit multiplier that triples damage on a fatal point. This is literally the thing I am built for."

She started shooting.

The first arrow did four thousand damage. So did the second.

But every arrow that landed gave her a stack of Starfall Cadence, and every stack made the next one come faster. By the thirtieth arrow, she had stopped drawing individually.

By the hundredth, the sound coming off her bowstring was one continuous note.

```

[ Starfall Cadence: 400 stacks. ]

```

Then she stopped, all at once, and the silence was startling.

"Now." Alice drew back further than she had all match. Silver light gathered along the shaft. "Death Star."

She chose the fatal point. Arrow Intent found it. Puncture made sure nothing in the way mattered.

The arrow hit the dummy’s core and went through it, and the number that came up was obscene.

```

[ Damage dealt: 168,400. ]

[ Task One complete. ]

```

Alice lowered the bow. Her hands were shaking a little.

"Okay," she said. "That felt good."

---

Task two was Logan’s.

The platform made a cannon for him. It grew out of the stone at the far edge, enormous and ugly, and its barrel pointed directly at where he was standing.

```

[ Incoming attack: 150,000 damage. Block with a single move. ]

```

Logan looked at it and felt his mouth go dry.

’One move. Not a stance. Not a shield wall. One move.’

He ran through everything he had. Grimspire Lance was for reach, not defense. Overgrim Slash would not stop that.

Then he settled, and it was obvious.

```

[ Blade Veil Counter ]

```

Swing a blade. Create an arcane veil for one second. Deflect any attack.

Any attack.

"It is a deflection skill," he said out loud, mostly to steady himself. "It does not care how big the number is. It cares whether I swing at the right moment."

"And if the timing is off?" Alice asked.

"Then I find out what a hundred and fifty thousand damage feels like."

The cannon fired.

The beam was as wide as Logan was tall and it crossed the platform in a fraction of a second, and he did not swing early.

He waited. He watched it come. He felt Sword Intent lock onto the exact instant the beam would reach him.

Then he swung.

The veil opened in front of him, thin and bright, one second long.

The beam hit it and bent. All of it. The whole column of light folded around him and went past into the white void behind, and Logan stood in the middle of it with his blade still extended.

```

[ Damage blocked: 150,000. ]

[ Task Two complete. ]

[ Challenge cleared. ]

```

The platform went quiet.

Then the reward panel opened, and both of them stopped breathing.

```

[ Challenge Reward ]

[ Player Grace Fruit x2 ]

[ Leon Flanke: 1 ]

[ Ruby Starviel: 1 ]

```

Two fruits dropped out of the air. Logan caught one. Alice caught the other.

"No." Alice was staring at hers. "No, these are not real. These do not just come out of challenges."

"They do here." Logan turned his over in his fingers.

```

[ Player Grace Fruit ]

> Rank: Special

> Effect: grants 20 unassigned stat points.

```

He had chased three of these across an entire previous match. He had fought a Treasure Guardian for the first one.

’And this one came out of a stone platform for solving two math problems.’ He almost laughed.

They ate them at the same time.

```

[ You have gained 20 unassigned stat points. ]

[ You have eaten one Player Grace Fruit this match. You can only eat two more if you find them. ]

```

```

[ Match Announcement: Two Player Grace Fruits have been found and eaten. Only four remain. ]

```

Alice looked up sharply at that last panel.

"That announcement goes out to everybody," she said. "Every player still in this match just found out two fruits are gone."

"And that four remains." Logan’s expression cooled. "In duo mode games, there are a total of six fruits for the pairs of players. Good to know."

They looked at each other.

"Eight dogs left," Alice said.

"Then we should probably hurry."