CHAPTER 32: CHAPTER NO.32 FUCK YOU SYSTEM, REALLY!

[Location: Penalty Zone]

"Alright... desert bastard..." My voice cracked like a whip in the dry night air, but the words still scraped out of my throat. "If I can’t kill you... Then I’ll survive you. That’s the quest, right? Just survive."

Bravado. A paper-thin veneer lacquered over the shattering wood of my body. My legs trembled with every shift of weight, wobbly stilts jammed into the sand. My throat was a strip of fire, my tongue cracked and swelling, each swallow like glass shards grinding against raw flesh. My stomach was a pit, clawing itself hollow after two hours of enduring this cursed zone’s endless punishment.

But the wyrm didn’t give a damn about speeches, defiance, or human grit.

The desert exploded ahead of me. A muffled boom cracked the stillness as an entire dune collapsed into a smoking crater. From its depths, coils thicker than towers surged upward, shattering the moonlight with scales as hard as obsidian, split with glowing fissures that pulsed orange like the breath of a forge.

The Scorchfang Wyrm.

It was enormous—an unending pillar of muscle, scale, and molten rage, winding across the desert floor, tunnelling back into dunes only to erupt elsewhere like a nightmare tide. Its head alone was the size of a mansion, jaw lined with fangs jagged as canyon rock. When it opened its maw, a blast of air rolled out—hotter than a forge, drier than bone. The night bent, the stars above warping in the shimmer of heat.

And I did something no sane creature would.

Most people, when cornered, run. They fight only when there’s a sliver of a chance, an escape route in reach, a margin to cling to. But when the enemy is a predator whose power eclipses your own like a bonfire swallowing a candle? When its rank sits at A, while you’re scraping bottom at H? Running is the most rational choice, right?

No.

Because even when running, there are many factors to be taken into consideration, like a favourable environment, terrain, or allies at your back. I had none of those. Just sand. Endless, treacherous, heat-scorched sand that slipped and betrayed every step.

The Wyrm knew that. It owned this place.

The sand heaved again, a dune swelling unnaturally before erupting in a geyser of molten grit. I dove, lungs screaming, rolling across grit that tore open my elbows and knees. The shockwave hurled me like a ragdoll, rattling my bones until black spots burst across my vision.

"Gh—kchh—!" My breath snapped short, chest caving like bellows squeezed dry. The penalty debuff clawed at me—Lethargy shackles digging deeper, muscles twitching with rebellion every time I tried to force them into motion.

But I moved anyway

. Crawling, stumbling, staggering, dragging my carcass forward. Not to fight. Not to win. Just to not die.

The Wyrm’s shadow stretched over me. Its head lowered, scales grinding, molten glow flooding its throat like a volcano about to spit.

[Penalty Notice: Environmental Hostility Escalation Triggered. Survival Rate: 14%.]

"Fourteen?!" My voice cracked. "That’s your pep talk, System?!"

The molten beam ignited. A ribbon of searing fire shredded across the dunes, cutting a canyon of glassed sand straight through where I had been standing seconds earlier. Heat ripped my skin raw, blistering across my arms.

[HP -17]

[HP -9]

[HP -23]

"Fuck you, System, really!" I spat, staggering up, half-mad with thirst and fury. My throat felt like it was smoking, but still I laughed—a dry, cracked rasp. "Two more hours?! I’ll—" I coughed, nearly collapsing as my knees buckled. "—I’ll out-stubborn

this lizard bastard!"

The Wyrm roared, a sound so massive it shook the sand beneath my feet into avalanches. My ears bled. My head swam.

But I didn’t run. Not anymore. I forced my spine straight, shaking, eyes locked on its molten glare.

"If this zone’s rules are survive, not slay..." I muttered, wiping blood from my lip, "...then I’ll turn this whole damn desert into my battlefield. Come on, furnace-face. Let’s dance."

And then it lunged.

It was then that I did something which only stupid manics would do... it was at this moment I found out something new about myself that is... I’m a fuckin’ battle manic.

So when it lunged... I lunged in.

Not away. Not sideways. In.

Every survival instinct in my body shrieked traitor, but there was a sliver—no, a crack in the beast’s rhythm, the faintest twitch in its jaw as it opened wide to devour. At that last possible moment, my iris flashed red—sign of Observation Grid in use, while my fingers coated in Armament core’s black sheen, wrapped around them. That was the limit; I was already exhausted from the dungeon. Even this much was from the food I devoured before being thrown here.

...And slide under its maws as they snapped shut, shallowing a mouth of sand instead at the place I was supposed to be. The air hissed like it was boiling around me, teeth snapping shut mere inches above my head, and the desert itself seemed to pulse with the Wyrm’s fury. My chest burned, lungs screaming for air I didn’t have, but every step, every inch forward was a gamble I refused to lose.

I couldn’t run, so I clung where it couldn’t reach... It’s chin or whatever it’s called.

I pulled Murasama from the system inventory while sliding, and plugged it into its chin at such an angle that even a blind person could sense the precision behind it. Muramasa hummed in my grip, veins pulsing faintly as if aware of the imminent carnage. The moment its edge kissed the molten scales of the Wyrm’s chin, the blade seemed to drink in the creature’s heat, venomous aura intertwining with the molten fury like two predators circling each other. Sparks erupted where blackened steel met superheated mineral, and the hiss of venom mingled with the sizzle of molten scales, a symphony of destruction only Muramasa could conduct.

I screamed—half from exertion, half from the sheer audacity of my own actions—and drove the blade deeper, letting the lifesteal siphon do its quiet, surreptitious work. The Wyrm thrashed violently, sand flying like jagged shards of glass, the shockwave slamming into my chest so hard my lungs begged for mercy. Every muscle in my body screamed rebellion, but my will clenched like iron chains. This wasn’t about defeating it. That was impossible. This was about surviving—turning the A-rank predator’s raw power into a scale I could manage, a rhythm I could ride.

I held onto the blade, even using Armament Core for grip reinforcement, but the scene meant even looking stupid from the outside perspective. As a grown ass teenager hanging while holding a sword lodged deep inside Wyrm’s chin as the Wyrm thrashed its head to shake me loose, I felt my spine jarred, ribs compressing like they were about to snap. Pain roared through me in waves, each one a bell tolling my imminent death. And yet, I didn’t let go. Couldn’t. Survival wasn’t about comfort—it was about sheer, unflinching stubbornness.

The sand exploded around us as the Wyrm twisted, trying to dislodge me. I wrapped both arms around Muramasa’s hilt, veins of my Armament Core blackening in desperate reinforcement. Observation Grid flickered, picking up micro-tremors in the scales beneath the blade: the Wyrm’s nerve-like heat veins, the minuscule cracks in its molten armour. My grip tightened with deadly precision, every ounce of SPIRAL energy I could scrape together feeding into Muramasa’s veins.

Sparks of black-green venom hissed against the molten surface, smoke curling into the dry night like serpents escaping some hellish forge. The Wyrm’s roar turned into a tremor that rattled my bones, yet a part of me—stubborn, manic, absurdly alive—grinned behind the ragged mask of exhaustion.

I pulled. Just an inch. Then another. Muramasa drank, its lifesteal quietly nudging my HP upward as the adrenaline-scorched desert wind tore at my skin. My legs, already jelly, found purchase in the burning sand, anchoring me like stakes driven by sheer willpower.

The Wyrm reared, molten eyes slashing in fury, and I reacted instinctively—dashing along its neck, sliding over the churning scales as they shifted under my weight. Each movement was agony, every step a battle against both gravity and exhaustion. Yet, step by step, inch by inch, I kept moving. Survival wasn’t a sprint; it was a bloody crawl along the edge of death.

Muramasa pulsed, veins flaring as if it too recognised the insanity of our combined heartbeat—the predator and I, locked in a deathly tango. Heat shimmered off its molten scales, hissing where venom kissed flesh. I dared a glance down: the blade had carved shallow channels in the Wyrm’s neck, steam rising like sacrificial incense. Lifesteal nudged me higher, but it was minimal compared to the SPIRAL drain. I didn’t care. Every hit, every pulse of blood siphoned, was a promise I would not be undone.

The desert stretched endlessly, stars above molten and bleeding into heat haze. But for the first time in two hours, the penalty zone’s suffocating weight felt like it could be fought, not endured. My throat burned. My body screamed. My mind wavered at the edge of delirium—but for the first time, my hands didn’t tremble from fear.

I bit back a scream, pulling Muramasa deeper, letting the venom interface with molten heat. Sparks flared, the Wyrm’s thrashing slowed ever so slightly—a crack in its rhythm. One miscalculated twist, one wrong angle, and it could have flung me into the desert to roast alive. But the thrill of surviving, of actually taking the fight to it, surged through me like wildfire.

[Penalty Zone Update: One hour remaining...]

I gritted my teeth. "You think you own this desert? Hah! I’ll survive you, you furnace-faced bastard. And I’ll laugh while doing it."

The Wyrm hissed molten breath, the air scorching my lungs, yet I held, even danced along its neck, each move measured and insane. My SPIRAL reserves flickered with every pulse of Conqueror’s Will, Armament Core barely keeping my grip from ripping my hands apart. The desert wasn’t just a setting anymore—it was a co-conspirator in my defiance, each burning grain of sand a reminder of the impossibility I was staring down.

It lunged again, jaws snapping mere inches behind me. Reflex, desperation, and sheer maniacal adrenaline fused into instinct. Muramasa slashed along the Wyrm’s molten cheek, venom hissing into molten cracks. Pain erupted from every inch of my body, but I didn’t falter. Survival was no longer a goal—it was a declaration.

And in the pulse of heat, sand, and molten fury, I realised something terrifying...

It can breathe fire.

***

Stone me, I can take it!

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