This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist

The thorns piercing the shrunken Nivalis easily tore through her dragon scales, burrowing into her body to harvest her blood. The crimson liquid flowed up the vines, disappearing to some unknown destination.

Worse still, one thorn meticulously scraped off her scales, layer by layer. At that moment, her draconic majesty was gone. The proud ice dragon now resembled nothing more than a helpless fish on a butcher's slab.

Rita's eyes burned with fury, her vision almost red with rage. She prepared to end her own life to escape, but Frenzied Shark's voice cut through the storm of her thoughts.

"You can try killing yourself," he said coldly. "But I promise, even if you leave, I'll keep your pet here."

Rita froze as a notification appeared:

[Forced Stay]: You cannot leave the World Battleground. Upon death, your corpse will remain in place. [Time Hater]: For five minutes, you are unable to use any time-related skills.

The first status had a one-minute countdown.

She pivoted her plan and tried summoning Nivalis back to her pet space, but Frenzied Shark wasn't finished.

This time, he addressed Nivalis directly.

"If you return to your space," he said with a wicked smirk, "I'll make sure your master suffers every imaginable torment before she dies. Let's see… How about I make her crawl around the oasis like a dog? Or perhaps I'll personally pick a breeding partner for her—what do you think?"

He paused, feigning contemplation. "Ah, but I wonder if Blue Star civilizations care about that? Maybe shaving her head would do? Or ripping off her wings?"

As he spoke, he traced rules onto a wooden board brought by the thorns, his finger moving across the surface as if drawing in sand or snow.

Nivalis immediately stopped struggling and refused Rita's summons. As her equal in their contract, she had the right to deny it. She clenched her teeth, refusing to make a sound even as her scales were stripped away, exposing raw flesh.

With [Wrathful Moon] still on cooldown and her thieving dragon abilities disabled, Nivalis had no means of escape.

Rita's fury boiled over into desperation as she repeatedly attacked the thorn wall separating her from Nivalis, using her ultimate abilities relentlessly. Yet, the thorns regenerated rapidly, forming an impenetrable barrier, whether she attacked from above or below.

She wasn't even sure what she could do if she reached Nivalis, but she couldn't stand idle. She couldn't just watch and wait. Perhaps she could knock Nivalis unconscious and shove her into the pet space—or maybe there was another way.

"Nivalis, come back! It's okay, I have a plan! Really, I do!" she rasped, her voice raw with desperation. "Frenzied Shark, let her go! I'll translate your rules—every rule for every game, as long as you want!"

Frenzied Shark ignored her.

Rita tried summoning Nivalis again and again, each time met with rejection.

Turning herself into a dandelion, she attempted to slip through the thorns, but the spikes grew thicker and denser, closing in like a crushing wave. She was forced back, her body riddled with punctures.

The pain was excruciating—far worse than anything she'd ever experienced. It wasn't just physical; [Hate Thorns] carried an effect called [Agony], which amplified the pain of each wound a hundredfold.

She couldn't imagine how much pain Nivalis must be enduring.

Using [I'm in a Hurry], she teleported, only for the thorns to anticipate her landing. They moved Nivalis away and erected spikes in her path, leaving the desert soaked with her blood.

Frenzied Shark didn't spare her a glance.

Rita continued her futile attempts, begging and threatening Nivalis in her heart. "Nivalis, please! Trust me, I have a way! If you still want to stay with me, come back!"

Nivalis, red-eyed and trembling, remained silent. She refused to return, believing that even if Rita had a plan, it wasn't worth the risk.

From the gaps in the thorns, Nivalis watched Rita's endless charges. Guns, whips, swords, fists—Rita cycled through weapon after weapon, skill after skill, in her desperation.

The spikes carved wound after wound into her body, blood pooling around her. Yet Rita didn't scream or beg for herself—her pleas were solely for Nivalis.

Nivalis saw the tears streaming down Rita's face, silent and relentless. It was the second time she had ever seen Rita cry, but the first time she had seen her so utterly broken, so devoid of reason.

A gale swept through the desert, scattering dandelion seeds as Rita transformed again, forcing her way through the thorns. Nivalis recognized the skill—Rita's favorite. She used it for everything, even mundane tasks like grabbing a soda from downstairs.

But now, the dandelions were blood-red.

Nivalis didn't want to cry. She was a dragon, a representative of Holy Cup North Year and Snow Pile. Even in agony, she had held back her wails.

But seeing Rita like this, her tears fell freely, mixing with her blood in the sand.

The rarer the bond, the harder it was to bear its weight. When she finally became the sole flower in the desert, she wasn't happy. Her joy was buried under Rita's grief, anger, and regret.

As the winds howled and the sand stung her exposed flesh, Nivalis forced herself to comfort Rita. "It's okay. We dragons shed our scales every hundred years anyway. Sometimes we even rub them off on reefs ourselves. I'm just a little early."

She wanted to tell Rita to stop wasting her strength. "The skill only lasts a minute. Just wait quietly. Stop hurting yourself for nothing."

The [Forced Stay] timer read only one minute, but it felt like an eternity.

For the first time in her life, Rita felt regret—not annoyance or frustration, but pure, soul-crushing regret. Not even when Zoey became Maple Mu and successfully faked her death had Rita felt this way.

Now, every decision seemed like a mistake.

She hated her arrogance, her failure to account for Nivalis's value as a resource in the World Battleground. She despised herself for not immediately faking her death when Frenzied Shark turned his attention to her. Instead, she had foolishly tried to negotiate.

What right did she have? What leverage could she possibly hold against someone like Frenzied Shark?

Only now did she fully understand the brutal reality of the World Battleground.

Frenzied Shark, with his cold indifference and bloody methods, had taught her a lesson she would never forget.