Chương 377: Burning Alive

I walked in a circle for a few moments, confirming the precise location of the unseen, untouchable realm gate with the compass. Looks like I've arrived at my destination… This gate really is located in the middle of nowhere. Nothing around indicates that a fiery realm can be accessed in the area. In fact, I spotted nests of moths nearby, and I am fairly certain that those are the sort to rush blindly toward any flames once the moon rises.

As such, the most likely scenario for someone to find this place accidentally is rendered impossible. Anyone with a torch or lantern would be swarmed by hundreds of oversized moths before they can even get close to the right spot. So, really, only someone who knows where to look can possibly gain access to this realm…

I spat 'Machine Blood' onto the ground where the compass was pointing, and by slamming my maw shut, I used 'Jaw Of Ignition' to create a frankly excessive amount of sparks, lighting the oily substance on fire and nearly instantly revealing a trembling rift floating slightly above the ground. Immediately upon revealing itself, the sheer heat it emitted made everything blurry, distorting the very air surrounding the rift. I glanced at a system panel on the side.

Advanced Flame Resistance (General IV) My upgrade granting resistance against fire and heat hadn't progressed much in a long time. Ever since it had grown an immense deal in a single go thanks to a silly–Supposedly–Divine snake, I hadn't gotten many occasions to push it further, as the flames I could encounter were rather feeble for the most part. This trip will probably change this…

I stepped forward into the rift, and for a moment, it was as though I was weightless, upside-down, and floating rapidly through nothing–Only for a brief instant. Before I knew it, my feet landed on crackling rock, and my vision was assaulted by several colours, with the most prominent naturally being an aggressive red. My vision was wavy and blurry. The heat in this realm was indeed strong. The very air is messed up…

Bubbles of lava are growing and popping all around me, and geysers of scalding inferno are just breaking through the ground at random. I can even already spot some rather menacing creatures swimming in a magma lake not too far away. Still, all this feels irrelevant compared to the massive steel fortress standing ominously in the distance. It was clearly quite far away, but it was so gigantic that my mind felt like it had been much closer than it truly was.

Did the Molten King build this thing using that ability of his? If so, he was most definitely way stronger than my current knightly form. I tapped my lower jaw in thought. How am I supposed to approach completing this mission? The location of the crown I need to get my hands on is wholly unknown, and the residents of this realm will probably not be too friendly to me…

Not to mention that my 'Gynoid Form' will probably be less effective than normal, as the harsh conditions will definitely destroy many of the finer pieces of disguise I utilise. … I might be stuck in here for a while. Well, I'll have to decide what to do first, so- I spotted several dots getting larger in the sky. I didn't let these dots get any clearer before I ran over to a small pool of magma and jumped in. To be perfectly frank, I do not have a clue what the difference between magma and lava is.

All that I know is that the liquid hot stuff can serve as a nice hiding spot as I let myself sink deeper into it. Since it is only a small pit filled with the stuff, I can easily climb out of it. I waited for about ten minutes until I heard the stone around me shake several times. Whatever had been flying toward me landed, and there were more of them than I had initially noticed. I counted more than twenty separate landings, which were swiftly followed by much smaller landings.

To me, this meant that what had been coming hadn't just been winged beasts, but tamed creatures and their riders. Their voices sounded distant and muffled to me, but from what I could make out, they spoke some sort of hybrid dialect. One half I could understand just fine, and the other half sounded like complete nonsense. It sounded like they were mixing two completely different languages into one, with some of them using more of one or the other…

"Anything?"

"Nothing…"

"The gateway was definitely used to enter the realm. How could the culprit have gone away so quickly?"

"Do you think this Ergonip guy decided to stop asking nicely?"

"No way. Don't forget how the gateway works. We would have known if it were him… This is definitely something or someone we've never encountered before" You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. The ones who spoke the most and seemed the most important used much more, if not only, the language I could understand. Making it seem like speaking this particular tongue was a sign of higher status for some reason…

Anyway, much to my disappointment, they didn't elaborate on how the gateway worked. Which made sense, as they all knew how it worked at the end of the day, but I would have appreciated it if a know-it-all had schooled the one who said something silly. Where are the annoying 'intelligent' fuckers who merely have a good memory when you need them?

They didn't speak much more after this, but they nonetheless stuck around for more than a full hour, looking around, climbing back on their flying mounts to look around from above at times, only to land right back down again… Even when it seemed like they had left, I remained hidden for a while longer, just in case they decided to turn back.

Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't check my hiding spot, but they seemed confident that an intruder couldn't have done what I did, and I have to say, they are probably correct in this belief… Advanced Flame Resistance (General VI) This damned upgrade actually rose by two full levels while I was submerged. My wires melted away. My tumours are long gone.

Most of the upgrades that manifest as components like the 'Music Box' are no longer functioning at all, and my overall body was incandescent when I crawled out, and it didn't seem like my steel bones were going to be cooling down any time soon. The fire baths I used to take to try and push this upgrade further are nothing compared to this, and this is just some random pit full of lava. I was told that things get worse the closer one gets to the metal castle.

On the bright side, now that I look like this, I might actually pass off as a regular denizen of this place… I began moving toward the castle, but to get there, I had to traverse awful terrain that somehow managed to have every problem at the same time. Overly steep and smooth terrain, overly rugged and rocky terrain, freaking magma swamps, or my favourite: Any of the aforementioned annoyances, but the ground just gives way beneath your feet for no reason and makes you fall into a large lava pocket.

The most annoying thing about them isn't that they are dangerous. I can handle being dumped in this stuff just fine, but since they are so wide, I have to walk at the bottom of these treacherous pools until I find a wall that I can climb to get out. There are sometimes creatures, but I can't see jack shit when in magma, so I just feel random, unidentified pests trying to gnaw on me that I have to blindly grab and tear apart, and somehow, devouring their flesh burns me harder than taking a lava bath. Hence…

Advanced Flame Resistance (General X) That damned upgrade was on the verge of reaching the next rank even though I had barely even gotten closer to the castle. What comes after 'Advanced' again? High, Superior, and then it is Immunity… If these magma pits truly get worse and worse the closer one gets to the castle, then I wouldn't be surprised if you eventually reach 'Immunity' Really? I got the feeling that getting to this point would be nearly impossible. This is I, the special system, not the Universal System!

The time investment and such required to reach the highest rank doesn't bloat unnaturally out of nowhere! It sounds like you had prepared this line in advance. How adorable of you! Right as I said this, the ground opened up again, but instead of merely an excessively warm pool, I was met with the open maw of a creature. I was swallowed whole and swiftly dumped into another kind of pool, but the burning this one inflicted was acidic instead. Whoa.

On top of the natural pitfalls, I have to deal with laid-out traps as well? If I wasn't trying to approach the castle sneakily, I would have already transformed into my 'Molten Steel Form' and made this bastard pop like a balloon! I can't even benefit from this. I don't have some 'Acid Resistance' upgrade… I have some upgrade choices that I could make on the spot, but it's all stuff that Mari could make herself. It would be such a waste to use those picks on such upgrades.

I swear, when I used to think resistance upgrades weren't worth that much, I was offered a bunch of them, but now that I know that they are amongst the kind of upgrades that can only be acquired in this manner, they've vanished entirely. It has to be intentional…

In any case, I turned my right hand into a chainsaw and proceeded to tear open that thing's stomach from the inside before the acid actually started to mess up my gorgeous steel–Even though the current temperature of my body was so high that the acid was being evaporated. … But I would presume that eating unusually hot stuff is par for the course for any creature in this place, so I don't want to linger any longer than necessary.

With 'Forward Shine', I peered through the darkness and located what looked like the important organs, and began to tear and bite into them. The creature that had swallowed me clearly began panicking as I was thrown around a whole bunch, but 'Shock Dampeners' made its death throes useless. I was able to do as I pleased until it died. This allowed me to devour its entire body quickly.

Unfortunately, this ambush predator had been sitting in yet another pool of magma, so, much to my dismay, I was dumped right in and was immediately attacked by small, irrelevant creatures that nibbled on my body. I naturally ate them as well, and by the time I was able to pull myself out of what was probably the thirtieth of these hidden pools so far, I was met with a bit of good news. High Flame Resistance (General I) Splendid.

It is at least good to know that I am not getting sunken every five minutes without some form of gain… I looked toward the castle, and it had barely gotten any closer since I had started making way toward it. I had spent more time dealing with these damned pitfalls than I had spent actually moving toward my goal. At this rate, I'll have to spend several months getting to this castle… Luckily, I encountered another kind of terrain soon enough, which might have the promise of speeding things up.

Of course, just before I could reach it, I fell again, and this one was wider than any of the previous ones. I don't know why this realm bothers to conceal its entrance. No army could ever threaten them on account that the freaking ground here wants to commit murder. Nara is absolutely right. I'll be immune to fire by the end of this, and this immunity will have been acquired against my will!