"Haah… haah…"
I let my body drop into a half-kneeling position, my breath ragged like someone forced to sprint through poisonous fog while carrying a boulder. The leftover heat rising from my skin wasn't from the environment, but from inside my own body—like the organs behind my ribs were loudly protesting after being used far beyond their factory limits. The blood coating the slimy throne room floor smelled sharply of iron, but even that was drowned by a harsher scent: the heat of my own flesh, almost burnt from the inside.
In front of me, the Goblin King's body finally collapsed—the green giant fell like a rotten tree struck by a storm. Its thud echoed slowly through the stone corridor, bouncing against the black pillars and crashing back into my ears with an almost hollow resonance.
I won.
Somehow, I won.
"Haah… damn… if not for that technique… I would've been his dinner appetizer."
From floor five to here, the difficulty had risen like a curve intentionally designed to kill anyone reckless. Regular soldiers, knights in dull iron armor, elite troops radiating viciousness like starving hyenas—each waited in every corridor, every corner, every narrow room that offered no breathing space. And when I finally reached the throne door, two goblin generals stood guard like hell's gatekeepers trained specifically to slaughter humans dumb enough to try reaching floor ten.
There was no way I could break through them without Sanguine Heartburn.
That technique… even remembering it made the inside of my chest feel squeezed.
I could still feel its leftover traces roaming in my body—unstable rapid pulses, Inner Power flow not fully recovered, and something darker: a quiet hollow behind my sternum, like a machine recently forced to run at an RPM it was never meant to reach.
Sanguine Heartburn wasn't a technique made for sane humans. Even the murim—who loved inventing suicidal techniques—would call it "excessive."
The technique forced me to force-open the heart meridian's awareness.
A meridian that normally required years of gentle breathing practice—I kicked open in seconds, forcing my heart to work like a furnace doused in oil.
Then, even crazier:
I mixed Pure Inner Energy with jing essence—the vital essence of life that acts as the foundation of someone's entire spiritual metabolism. And instead of processing it harmoniously, I injected that mixture directly into my bloodstream, circulating it through muscles and tissue.
The result?
My body turned into a kind of war machine fueled by gasoline mixed with its own blood. The metabolic reaction increased tenfold—not metaphorically, but literally. My blood boiled.
My muscles felt like metal wires heated until glowing red.
My nerves trembled like exposed cables drenched in a thunderstorm.
It was a "power-up."
Five-minute duration.
If I exceeded that—my heart wouldn't just fail…
my heart would explode.
I swallowed, my throat feeling like I had gulped hot sand.
'Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. Why did I just use that?'
On one hand, the answer was simple: if I didn't use it, I'd already be a decorative piece on the Goblin King's trident, the same one that roasted the air with enough pressure to crack stone.
I exhaled shakily, scanning the throne room now ruined by the short yet brutal battle. The smell of ozone, blood, and dust mixed into a boiling soup of chaos in the air.
Whatever. At this point, the only thing I could do was chug the potion to the last drop. Its heat slid down my throat, leaving a bitter sting that slammed into my stomach. The side effects still churned like a vicious loop inside my body, and every inch of muscle felt twisted without mercy.
It was ridiculous—who willingly tortured themselves like this and still expected to wake up alive afterward? Maybe only idiots like me.
'I'm not even sure if my ribs are still intact… but at least I can still stand. That's worth something, right?'
[Fighter → Elite]
The text appeared right in front of my face, bright and satisfied like it was patting my shoulder.
Of course, the system never actually cared. But today… somehow it looked like it was grinning.
'Seriously? You show up NOW? After I almost died three times more than scheduled?'
I thought that was all. It wasn't. Another notification followed, drifting calmly like an angel delivering mercy—or at least a cheap imitation of one.
The system gave me an additional reward.
Because I climbed farther than normal. Because I pushed my body past the breaking point.
Because in the final moments, when I should've given up… I chose to make yet another stupid decision.
"So I get rewarded for being stubborn, huh? Damn… in that case I should've pushed even harder!"
My laugh sounded bitter, but for the first time today, it felt like victory.