Byung's consciousness hung in a fragile limbo, trapped within the labyrinth of his own mind. The cavernous hall, once a bastion of ancient grandeur with its obsidian walls and pulsating runes, began to warp and twist like flesh under a butcher's knife. The glittering ore veins that had pulsed with ethereal light now bulged grotesquely, resembling throbbing arteries ready to burst. Shadows elongated into clawing tendrils, scraping against the stone floor with a sound like nails on bone. The air, once thick with metallic power, grew suffocating—dense, acrid, laced with the metallic tang of blood and decay. It cloyed in his throat, each breath a labored rasp that burned his lungs, as if the atmosphere itself had turned toxic, conspiring to drown him from within.

He was labeled a destroyer, the Goblin King's words echoing like a death knell through the distorted space.

"You cannot claim it... You are a destroyer, and I cannot allow you to wake up." The king's emerald eyes, flecked with gold, now gleamed with malice, his regal features contorting into a mask of condemnation.

But there was something twisted about this place, something Byung hadn't noticed before. The runes on the floor flickered erratically, their glow shifting from warm amber to a sickly crimson, as if the hall itself was rejecting him—or perhaps revealing its true nature. Was this truly the domain of the First King, or a corrupted facsimile born from Byung's fracturing psyche? The boundaries blurred; reality and illusion bled into one another, the king's form shimmering at the edges like a mirage in a fever dream.

A sudden affliction seized him, insidious and unrelenting. It started as a dull throb behind his eyes, escalating into a vise-like pressure that squeezed his skull. Byung clutched his head, fingers digging into his scalp, but the pain only intensified. He had no idea what was going on— was it the king's doing, or some supernatural power the King had access to in this plane? Warmth trickled down his cheeks, and when he pulled his hands away, they were slick with blood. It poured from his eyes in thick rivulets, staining his vision red, blurring the warped hall into a nightmarish haze. The metallic scent overwhelmed him, mingling with the choking air until he gagged, his body convulsing.

Byung screamed in pain, a raw, guttural cry that tore from his throat and reverberated off the grotesque walls. He had never felt this much agony in his existence—not in his human life, not in the brutal rebirth as a goblin, not even during the savage beatings from Drekk or the orcs. It was as if every nerve ending had ignited, a symphony of torment that radiated from his core, splintering through his limbs like shards of glass in his veins. His muscles seized, forcing him to double over, vomit rising in his throat but choked back by the relentless vise. Tears of blood streamed unchecked, pooling on the rune-etched floor where they sizzled and smoked, etching new, jagged patterns into the stone.

He fought it, sheer willpower surging through the haze of suffering.

"No... not like this," he growled through gritted teeth, forcing himself to his feet.

Each movement amplified the pain tenfold—his joints screamed, his vision swam in crimson waves—but he refused to yield. This was his mind, damn it; he wouldn't crumble here, not when the goblins needed him, not when Maui and Murkfang waited in the waking world. The king looked down on him, his elevated form towering now, as if the hall had stretched to emphasize his dominion. Those piercing eyes held no pity, only cold judgment, a sovereign appraising a usurper.

The king raised a hand, and the sky above—once a vaulted ceiling of endless black—parted with a deafening crack. Clouds roiled like boiling blood, and from the rift descended a sword, not the legendary blade at the king's side, but a colossal facsimile, its edge gleaming with light.

It plummeted toward Byung with overwhelming force, aimed to slice him in half, the air whistling in its wake like a death knell. Byung was stunned—did this goblin have powers, or was it because this was a plane he controlled? The affliction should have rooted him in place, his body a prisoner to the curse, yet instinct propelled him. He shouldn't have been able to dodge it, not with blood blinding him and pain sapping his strength, but he rolled aside at the last instant, the blade embedding into the floor with a thunderous boom that shattered runes and sent cracks spiderwebbing across the ground.

"Stop!" Byung barked, his voice hoarse and desperate, blood bubbling on his lips.

The sorrowful cry was proof of the excruciating pain that overwhelmed him.

"This makes no sense! Killing me destroys the system too—why would you sabotage yourself?" The question hung in the air, a plea wrapped in logic. Why was the system trying to destroy itself? Was this the Goblin King's true intent, or a glitch in the hybrid framework that bound Byung's soul?

The king paused, hand still raised, but his expression remained the same, a mask of unbroken resolve.

Then, amid the chaos, a faint chime pierced the torment—a familiar alert blooming in Byung's subconscious.

[Ding!]

[Skill upgrade available!]

[Cost: N/A]

[Upgrade? Y/N?]

"The system still works!?" Byung thought to himself because this didn't make sense, why would it still function if he was fighting it? Shouldn't it restrict his access to it to make it easer?

Byung didn't care at this moment, he had no idea which skill the system was even talking about in that moment.

Hope flickered through the agony, a lifeline in the storm. Byung's mind raced—accept? Reject? Time was slipping; his heartbeat thundered erratically in his ears, growing fainter with each pulse. Four minutes—that's all he had before it stopped forever.

Byung looked at the cyan screen but before he could choose, he was impaled from every direction, he had no idea where these many swords came from but it couldn't stop him.

"Y-Yes! Upgrade the fucking skill!" Byung thought to himself and the moment it did, a bright light emanated from him.

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