TRIAL COUNTDOWN ELAPSED.
Subject: Arthur Wu (Soul Age: 76 / Physical: 44)
Trial 33: The 99/1 Convergence.
Objective: Kill the Wingless Dragon.
Arthur blinked away the vertigo of teleportation. The air didn't smell like the sterile void of the Nexus; it smelled of horse manure and expensive rosewater.
"Arthur!" A voice, shrill and dripping with royal entitlement, cut through his focus. "My father has decreed it. Whoever kills the kingdom's pest wins my hand. You said you loved me, joker. Prove it."
Arthur turned. Sofia. She was beautiful, dressed in silks that cost more than a village, but her eyes held the casual cruelty of the elite. He didn't argue. He didn't explain that he was a 76-year-old tycoon trapped in a cosmic game.
"I will kill the Banshu," Arthur said. His voice was gravelly, devoid of the 'joker's' desperation she expected.
As he walked through the grand halls, he adjusted his mental grip on the situation. Rule Number One of the Scales, he thought, Don't fight the narrative. If the world wants me to be a fool on a quest, I'll play the fool until it's time to cut the dragon's throat.
Outside, the knight James waited, his lip curled in disgust. "A joker on a horse? You'll fall off before we reach Thunder Mountain. Your greed will be your undoing."
Arthur mounted the horse with a grace that surprised the knight. "I'll be in your care then, James," Arthur replied coolly. He wasn't looking at the knight. He was looking at the horizon, where the mountain sat like a jagged tooth against the sky.
99% Good Karma, Arthur mused as they rode. This should be a dream. So why do I feel like the Scales are about to tip?
Arthur's eyes narrowed. "I knew it. A 99% ratio doesn't produce an S-Class monster. Something is trying to execute me."
He looked at his hands. All he had was the rusted iron dagger the "joker" character was supposed to carry—a prop for a marriage quest, not a weapon of war.
The dragon opened a golden eye. The ground beneath Arthur's feet shivered.
[FINAL ATTEMPT. FAILURES REMAINING: 0.]
The beast didn't roar. It lunged.
The speed was impossible for its size. Arthur rolled, the obsidian claws missing his chest by a fraction of an inch. The shockwave of the impact sent him flying against a stone wall, his ribs cracking with a sickening thud.
"Seventy-six years of life," Arthur wheezed, blood pooling in his mouth. "And I'm going to die for a 'princess' who thinks I'm a joke."
He gripped the rusted dagger, his knuckles white. He refused to give up. That stubbornness—the same grit that had built a corporate empire from nothing—pulsed in his soul.
[KARMIC APEX SYSTEM: AWAKENED.]
The world slowed to a crawl. The monochromatic grey of the Afterveil's core logic bled over the beautiful mountain scenery.
Analyzing the 1% 'Dark Karma' Flaw... Found.
Year 33: The Thief's Regret.
Flaw Location: Left Hind Leg (Stress Fracture).
Arthur saw it—a tiny, pulsating red vein beneath the dragon's impenetrable scales.
"The thief I tripped," Arthur whispered, a dry, bloody laugh escaping his lips. "That one moment of clumsiness... it's the only way out."
The dragon reared up for a final, crushing stomp. The observers in the Nexus were likely already marking Arthur Wu as 'Erased.'
Arthur didn't run. He lunged forward, sliding beneath the dragon's massive belly. He ignored the heat and the crushing pressure, focusing everything on that red glow. He drove the rusted iron dagger into the fracture.
He didn't just stab it; he poured every ounce of his thirty-two trials of frustration into the strike.
CRACK.
The 1% darkness acted like a spark in a powder keg. The 99% of "Good Karma" in the arena—the jasmine-scented air, the warm sun, the white blossoms—suddenly turned into a violent vacuum, rushing into the wound to "balance" the flaw.
The dragon didn't bleed. It shattered.
A pillar of blinding white light erupted from the beast, lifting Arthur into the air.
TRIAL 33: SSS-RANK CLEAR.
TIME: 00:12.
GLOBAL RANKING UPDATED: #1 (Trial 33).
REWARD: DE-AGING INITIATED.
Arthur felt the years falling away. The ache in his ribs vanished. His skin tightened, his vision sharpened, and his heart beat with the thunderous power of a man in his prime.
As the mountain realm began to dissolve, Arthur stood tall in the fading light. He was no longer forty-four. He was forty-three, and he was the strongest soul in the room.
"Marriage?" Arthur looked at the spot where the dragon had been. "I've got a much larger empire to take over now."
The light swallowed him whole, dragging him toward the Nexus.