GASP!
For the second time in less than five minutes, I inhaled deeply as if I had been drowning in a sea of tar. My knees slammed against the hard ground. Vomiting was an immediate reflex. There was nothing in my stomach but gastric acid and bile, yet my body insisted on purging the "memory" of death.
"Ugh... damn it..." I wiped my mouth with the back of a trembling hand. "Dragon tastes... disgusting."
[Stop whining. You got the data. Did you memorize the pattern?]
Celine's voice rang in my head with utter clarity, like a church bell tolling inside my skull. I looked up; the blob was still there, but in my mind, the white-haired girl was smiling and waving an imaginary pointer.
"Memorized the pattern?" I screamed hoarsely, struggling to stand. "I was chewed up! Do you know what it feels like to be ground between millstones? I felt every single one of his teeth!"
[Good. Pain is the best teacher. Now, look at your "Death Card."]
A translucent red window appeared before my eyes. It wasn't a friendly blue window like in normal novels. It was red, the color of coagulated blood, and the edges looked like fractured bones.
[Death Log] Killer: Vargas (Bone Dragon Guardian). Cause of Death: Mechanical crushing of the ribcage + partial acid dissolution. Reward: "Predator's Eye" (Level 1). Effect: You can see the "Path" your killer's attack will take 0.5 seconds before it happens.
"Half a second?" I laughed bitterly. "Are you kidding? That's not even enough time to blink!"
[For a normal person? Yes. For a maniac like you who's going to die a hundred times to learn? It's an eternity. Now, get back down there. The dragon won't kill itself.]
I looked over the edge. The fear was there. It was cold and slimy, crawling up my spine. But there was something else... rage. A cold, dark rage. This world treats me like a piece of meat? Fine, I'll be a very poisonous piece of meat.
I jumped.
Death No. 2: I landed. The dragon roared. This time, I saw a faint red line tracing the path of its bony tail before it moved. "Duck!" I threw my body to the left. The tail whizzed past my ear, the compressed air alone nearly rupturing my eardrum. "Ha! It work—" The dragon stomped with its left foot. I didn't see that coming. I turned into human paste.
Death No. 15: "Tail, claws, acid breath, then spin." I was muttering the pattern like I was memorizing a poem. Dodged the tail. Slid under the claws. "Now!" I stabbed my rusty dagger (which I found among the rocks) into its knee joint. Snap! The dagger broke. The dragon looked at me with disdain, then sneezed. Yes, sneezed a cloud of toxic gas. My lungs melted in seconds.
Death No. 47: My body moved on its own. I wasn't thinking anymore. I knew when it would lift its foot. I knew the exact angle of the acid breath (35 degrees to the right). Celine was singing a sarcastic cheerleading song in my head: "Die, die, die, my darling~". I reached its neck. There was a blue gem pulsing inside the ribcage. The weak point. The usual cliché. I reached out... but slipped on some slime. Fell into its open mouth. "Screw physi—" Crunch.
Death No. 99:
I landed on the cave floor for the hundredth time. I didn't scream. I didn't shiver. I didn't vomit. My eyes were dead, cold as Antarctic ice. I looked at the dragon, Vargas. He seemed slow to me. Very slow. His movements, which once seemed like a tornado, were now like a boring slow-motion movie.
"You're boring, Vargas," I whispered in an emotionless voice.
The dragon lunged. I took a step to the right without looking. The tail struck the spot where I had been a fraction of a second ago. I ran. I didn't run in panic; I sprinted with calculated steps along its extended tail, up onto its back. It tried to shake its body. I jumped with perfect timing (which I paid for with a broken neck in Death No. 30) and landed on its shoulder.
"Blind spot, third cervical vertebra," I muttered.
I had no weapon. My dagger broke many attempts ago. But I didn't need a weapon. In Death No. 70, I discovered something. Dragon bones are sharp, but brittle on the inside if struck at a specific angle. I picked up a pointed bone fragment from the ground (remains of a previous victim), and with all my body weight, and all the hatred I had gathered in 99 deaths, I drove it into the tiny fissure between the scales of its neck.
GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
The dragon writhed, but I held on like a tick. "Celine! Now!" I screamed.
[Access Authorization: Granted. Activating: "Hand of Death."]
I felt the blob on my head extend black tendrils through my arm. It wasn't muscle strength; it was "conceptual" strength. My hand punched through its magical defenses and ripped the pulsing blue gem from inside its neck.
The dragon stopped. The fire in its eyes turned to smoke. The mountain of bones collapsed with a deafening crash, and I fell with it, covered in slime and bone dust.
I gasped for breath, holding the glowing gem in my blood-stained hand.
[Congratulations. You have killed the Threshold Guardian.] [Reward: Skill Absorption.]
The gem shattered, and cold blue light flooded into my chest.
[New Skill Acquired!] Name: Breath of Decay (Rank: B+) Description: You can exhale a cloud of concentrated acid that melts metal and flesh. Side Effect: Your breath will taste bad forever.
"Great..." I fell onto my back, laughing maniacally. "I killed a dragon... and now I have killer breath."
I stood up minutes later. There was light coming from the cave exit the dragon had been guarding. I climbed out with difficulty. My fingernails were bleeding, and my clothes were just rags.
I emerged onto the surface. The air was fresh, and the sun was painfully bright. But... there was a cold blade touching my neck the moment I stepped out.
I slowly raised my eyes. It wasn't a monster, but the aura radiating from her was even more terrifying. Before me stood a blonde girl, her long golden locks fluttering wildly in the wind like a war banner. She wore light silver armor engraved with intricate royal symbols, accentuating her athletic physique and lethal grace.
But most striking wasn't her sharp beauty, but the giant sword she held in one hand as if it were a feather, its cold blade pointed steadily at my throat. Her blue eyes were as clear as the sky, but they looked at me with icy disgust, as if I were a cockroach that had just crawled out of a sewer.
"You monster," she said in a firm voice, a noble tone that brooked no argument. "How did you survive the abyss? Are you in league with the demons of the deep?"
I smiled, my teeth stained with black blood and the remnants of my filthy battle. "Hello, Miss. Do you have any mint gum? Because I think I'm gonna puke on you."