The path of slaughtering stones was as myriad as the stars in the sky. For example, if you had asked Zayn just a couple of minutes ago, he would say there were two methods to beat the damned stoneheads. Either crush their head or tear a hole through their chest.

  However, desperation was the mother of innovation. He had discovered another method since then—the path of choking stones.

  

  Wrapping Raka’s chains around its stony neck, Zayn pulled as hard as his muscles humanly allowed. They scuffled on the ground, filling the quiet woods with thumping noises.

  Stone and steel clashed against each other as he held onto the haywire golem. The golem thrashed its arm around on the ground, as if it was really getting choked. The resulting aftershock skittered up his bones—wave after wave.

  Zayn had no idea what he was doing. Since it worked, it worked. If it didn’t work, he would force it until it did.

  Clenching his jaw, he sent a wave of kicks at its stony face. Despite the crawling numbness all over his legs. Despite his leather jacket eating more dirt.

  He’d like to deny it, but something broke inside him once he learned that his body wouldn’t fall apart at previously life-threatening injuries, and once he leveled up, even those would start healing.

  Even so, a broken common sense never impeded the newest show in the jungle—Man vs. Rock—where only one would emerge alive!

  The scattering rock splinters confirmed that he was indeed the popular choice.

  After playing around with a few stone golems, he had gotten the hang of them. Slow and dumb they might be, but they still had their preference and style

  Their favourite, absolute go-to move was ‘The Stone Slasher’—he named it himself—a big fuckoff stone slab shot with enough velocity to slash through woods. Higher-level golems might be able to penetrate through steel and break concretes like it was butter. He wasn’t all that eager to find out.

  ‘Splatter’, their only other move, was harder to dodge. It was a wide-area attack with nail-sized clasts splintering in all directions. While it wouldn’t kill him for certain, it could still skewer like the pincers of a porcupine.

  As it did just now.

  

  The splintering clasts sliced through his thigh and legs, leaving new streaks of blood on his already blood-soaked jeans. But what scared his soul out was the marble-sized pebble that shot towards his crotch—striking far too close to his sacred weapon.

  A newfound strength rushed out of nowhere—either borne out of pure desperation or sent by his future generations wishing to survive—and he kicked the golem’s shoulder with his entire weight.

  Raka’s chain bit deep into his palm as the golem turned around fiercely. Fresh blood greased the iron, turning it slick. Zayn roared, twisted, and wrapped the chains around his wrists.

  When it came to stubbornness, he’d never lose.

  Eventually, the thumping noises died out. The golem accepted its demise, saying its final words to the stone gods. Then its neck broke with a loud snap.

  

  Energy rushed up his body. Zayn huffed, feeling sensation return to his limbs. His body had healed, pink skin covering his former wounds. But the pain still lingered, replaying in his mind.

  

  

  

  Zayn pursed his lips. The idea of strangling them definitely bounced in the back of his mind. This time, though, it was out of necessity.

  He curled up on a tree root, feeling the weird burning energy run amok inside his body. It started from around his abdomen, then radiated towards his entire body, reaching up to his veins and capillaries. He felt his muscles twitch for a second in excitement before stabilizing.

  Was the energy forcing a hypertrophy? Something like a forced cell division. He couldn’t tell. It might just be doing something different. Something beyond the science of mankind, for all he knew.

  Warm light fell through the woods, lighting up the forest in an eerie, otherworldly hue. The faint breeze should have settled down the nervous feeling in his stomach. But it was amplified.

  To an unsuspecting glance, it looked picturesque. But like those unsettling paintings, the longer he looked, the worse it got.

  For all its vibrance, the forest was a corpse pretending to breathe. There was no living soul in this hellscape of trees. Not an insect, nor a bird, and certainly no other monsters, except for the stone golems.

  But what creeped him was the land. While the forest was an empty husk, the land was very alive—open-jawed, waiting to

  He stared down at the ground below him in a daze, still picturing how Raka’s fork got swallowed. After that, he’d searched far and wide like a madman, trying to find the rest of his motorcycle’s parts. But they’d vanished all the same.

  Only the chains were left now, wrapped tight around his right arm. Their coldness kept his unravelling sanity in check.

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  Eventually, he stood up on his feet. A wave of disorientation rushed to his head. But once it was over, he felt more solid than ever. The shift in his body was minute enough to not be externally visible, but he could feel the internal changes.

  A wild wave ruffled his long hair—filling him with an irrational feeling of invincibility—that he could break mountains and crush stones. He was not mad enough to try to crush a stone. Not yet.

  Instead, he walked up towards a tree, taking a deep breath.

  He threw a hook. His fist sailed wide towards the tree, powered by every fiber in his body. With a sharp crack, the tree shook violently, rustling the leaves like wind-tossed bells. Watching as the leaves rained down on him, he gaped at the spot he’d hit.

  The bark had dented like wet concrete.

  “Status screen."

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  With the added two in strength, the stat sheet looked somewhat balanced. Somehow, he caught the habit of checking his stats every time he got an upgrade. Watching the numbers go up was rather addicting.

  He looked at another tree nearby. This one had Bell-shaped fruits that hung high on the tree branches. Almost too high and too thin for him to climb. But maybe he could now...

  He noped out. The constant fighting on the edge had gotten to him, brewing a bone-deep exhaustion. Taking up a rock, he threw it at the fruits.

  It missed.

  After a couple more tries, he realized it was a terrible idea. He’d never been a good shooter. Add the fact that the newly added stats only messed with his hand-eye coordination as well; it became a near impossible venture.

  But before he could decide his next step, the entire area shook. The leaves rustled as if coming to life. Faint at first but stronger with each passing second. As if a titan treaded the land, heading exactly toward his direction.

  Darting his eyes around in haste, he scanned every direction. When he finally turned a whole one eighty degrees, he saw a head peeking from behind the trees, staring back at him with its beady eyes.

  

  Its rocky head was flattened and streamlined—like a snake. Despite being as large as a one-story building, its ellipsoid body was held up rather well by its four titanic limbs. Sizzles rang from its joints, turning the surrounding air steamy.

  Licking his lips, he backed off. Food had to wait for some other time. He pretended to appear as non-aggressive as possible, even putting his hands up.

  That was the worst possible choice.

  The turtle stared at him like he’d chosen death, then roared, spurting a plume of steam at him. He dodged with an inch of his life, feeling the heat just about blister his skin.

  A laugh of ridicule left his lips. He was right when he thought that he had used up all of his luck to survive. Now, it was as if all the problems in the world had jumped on his shoulder.

  “Errr… System. This might be the best time to put all my points in dexterity.”

  He pleaded. But it replied in the same manner. No response. Perhaps he was missing a key piece. It wasn’t just words. It was something that’d have been either taught or given to him if he was within the tutorial area.

  He jumped to the left—dodging an open maw. The turtle gobbled up a mouthful of mud, right where he stood. His eyes constricted as smoke rose out of the hollow ground. Fretful, Zayn ran for his life.

  If that had caught him, he’d have been hard-boiled.

  “Shove my points up your—” His curses had to halt; the energy better put into avoiding another chomp.

  Who the hell called turtles slow and steady? They clearly hadn’t seen this stonehead right here.

  He bolted for a while, occasionally taking turns. For a second or two, he even believed he had escaped. Noises of wood breaking behind him broke his delusion.

  The stone turtle was airborne, retracting its limbs into its shell. It hurled towards him like a turbine. Breaking all the rules of physics. Snapping trees like dry bamboo.

  He barely dove to the ground. Air pushed him down with a shrill stream. The turtle crashed a dozen meters ahead, leaving a web of cracks on the ground.

  Shockwaves fluxed toward him, catching him mid-leap.

  His internal organs swung like ropes hanging in the wind. Battering each other.

  

  “Cough!” He spat out a mouthful of blood, doing his best to run away. Sensing no attack for a while, he felt curiosity get the better of him. He turned around—half expecting the turtle to be right behind.

  His paused at what he saw.

  In the distance, the stone turtle was stuck on its back, its towering legs waving helplessly. Every few seconds, it would thrash its legs in complaint.

  How’d it get stuck like that?

  Watching it thrash like a real turtle would’ve been funny if he wasn’t half dead and trembling. He hobbled in the other direction. Even if it was stuck, it wasn’t his turn to kill it.

  A trail of ruin was left in the aftermath of the rampage. Scattered trees fell on the ground and ruined the lovely swamp. Soon, he found what he was looking for.

  It resembled a white peach the size of his fist. But he didn’t have time to appreciate its appearance or check their details. He filled his pockets with as many he could take before limping away to hide once more.

  Once he reached a safe distance, he climbed on a tree branch—the only place that could be considered safe.

  Grave Fruit (Low Astral) — Once, the luminous monkey tore off the immortal trees of heaven in rage, raining celestial fruits upon the mortal lands. Their seeds still live on, warped by the passage of time.

  Effect : Recovers lost health and spirit.

  He bit on the fruit. It tasted tangy like orange, dispersing quickly as soon as he swallowed it. It wasn’t the same burning energy he’d get after defeating a golem. It was cooler, softer; it caressed his injuries.

  

  .

  He pursed his lips, staring at the snarky system message. This stupid system was only unresponsive when it came to helping him. He had a sneaking suspicion that this was all SysAdmin007’s handiwork.

  “How do I increase my stats?”

  Even though he didn’t expect a response, it still gutted to get seenzoned like that. Wondering how someone so vengeful could become a system administrator, he vented his frustration on the fruits.

  In the distance, the stone turtle clambered forward, its beady eyes glinting with fury. Each step sent a vibration rippling through land, and Zayn could feel them even high up on the tree. Thankfully, it soon wedged itself in the gap between two collosal trees; its arms and legs flailing helplessly in the air in futile protest.

  He scoffed.

  

  

  Just a few hours ago, he had scoffed at the system warning. would he run? He even had a plan in his hand. Farm golems and get strong. Then kill stronger monsters to get even stronger. Then beat the bosses and get stronger still.

  His plans had scattered to dust once he found that killing also made thestronger—not just him. Every time he killed one, the next one would be slightly stronger. As their cracks kept fading, so did his hopes.

  He looked down, licking his lips. In this hellscape, there was nowhere to escape. Being a dungeon ditcher was still preferable to turning into meat paste. Dead men had no titles.

  Most of the internal injuries he had sustained had healed. In spite of that, his eyelids kept crashing down, despite him desperately trying to force them open.

  Earlier battles had taken everything—mentally and physically. Even with the burning energy constantly healing him, the strains remained. His bleary eyes threatened to shut down, and his muscles groaned—as if lead were injected into his veins.

  There was no way he could fight these things at night. He needed to find a way out, or at least find a place to rest for the night. Before taking another step, he crumbled face first towards the ground; blacking out.