Twelve two-star mini-bosses stood before him, their emerald-green stems writhing as pitch-black flower buds quivered violently, exuding an insatiable hunger to bite and devour. Though the only apparent difference was their color, these Dark Carnivorous Flowers were far more terrifying than the previous Raging Carnivorous Flowers.

  Without hesitation, Ye Tianxie strode forward. Their identical forms and shared abilities meant they had the same attack range and patterns. While their attack power had increased significantly and now carried a lethal poison effect, none of that mattered if they couldn’t land a hit. In essence, they were no different from the Raging Carnivorous Flowers he had just annihilated.

  Using the exact same strategy, without a single mishap, all twelve Dark Carnivorous Flowers collapsed. They had launched six attacks in total—yet not one had so much as grazed Ye Tianxie. Had even one attack landed, his trial would have ended then and there. The Raging Carnivorous Flowers couldn’t hit him, nor could the Dark Carnivorous Flowers—and this was no mere stroke of luck. His razor-sharp precision allowed him to effortlessly evade each fatal strike while ensuring that every counterattack perfectly encompassed all twelve enemies.

  What should have made this trial exponentially harder for most challengers had instead turned into a perfect setup for Ye Tianxie to clear the stage in record time.

  A heap of Dark Carnivorous Flower corpses lay at his feet as he sifted through the remains for loot. This time, they had yielded two bronze-tier and two steel-tier pieces of equipment, along with a pile of potions and silver coins.

  Elite monsters had a significantly lower spawn rate compared to normal enemies, and two-star bosses were even rarer. However, their drop rates were much higher. In this abyssal-level trial, where elite mini-bosses appeared in droves, rare equipment was practically spilling into his inventory—assuming, of course, one had the strength to claim it.

  Ding… You have obtained ‘Dark Carnivorous Flower Pollen’ from the Dark Carnivorous Flower.

  Ding… You have obtained ‘Dark Carnivorous Flower Pollen’ from the Dark Carnivorous Flower.

  Ding…

  The teams that had cleared the first two trials before him had taken no less than an hour for each stage, and all had been full twelve-player squads.

  Yet Ye Tianxie had done it alone, in under two minutes.

  No one would believe it if they heard. They would laugh it off as an impossible joke.

  But the third trial of the Abyssal Test was where the real nightmare began.

  As the stone door creaked open, a group of towering bulls came into view. There were twelve of them, just like before, but the moment Ye Tianxie appeared, they all snapped their heads toward him. Then, as if spotting an archenemy, they charged forward with murderous intent.

  Above their heads, next to their names, hung three golden stars.

  Raging Blood Bulls – Level 10, Three-Star Elite

  Health: 2500

  Originally ordinary cattle, these creatures underwent horrific mutations after consuming excessive amounts of melamine and clenbuterol-laced feed. Their temperaments turned savage, their bodies swelled to monstrous proportions, and their muscle density skyrocketed. They gained immense, unnatural strength and now violently attack any foreign intruder.

  Skill – Brutal Charge: The Raging Blood Bull gathers all its strength and rams its target with immense force, dealing massive damage and a high chance of knocking the target down, stunning them for 2 to 3 seconds. After each charge, the bull experiences a brief 1-second movement delay.

  Dark Carnivorous Flower Pollen: A black-hued pollen from the Dark Carnivorous Flower, infused with deadly toxins.

  Special Effect – Kidney Stone Flare-Up: When executing Brutal Charge, there is a 5% chance that an undiagnosed kidney stone condition will flare up, slowing movement and attack speed while causing a health drain of 5 HP per second for 3 minutes.

  Twelve three-star elites. Encounters like this were unheard of. If anyone saw such a lineup, they would turn and flee without hesitation, only returning with an army to take them down. With a strict twelve-player team limit, this formation became an insurmountable obstacle.

  What made things even worse was that these bulls couldn’t be lured one at a time. The moment Ye Tianxie stepped into the trial zone, every single Raging Blood Bull locked onto him and charged. This meant that the entire third-stage arena was within their aggro range. Until their target was dead, they would not stop attacking. There was no time to rest, no chance for trickery.

  A while back, five well-equipped members of the Red Leaf Guild had been utterly crushed by just one three-star elite. A full twelve-person team going up against twelve of them? The odds of victory were laughably slim. And yet, here stood Ye Tianxie—alone.

  But he was someone who had never lost, and someone who could never afford to lose.

  As the first three bulls reached striking distance, he had already calculated their movement speeds with pinpoint accuracy: between 78 and 82. Slower than an average player’s initial speed of 100.

  “Hmph…” Ye Tianxie narrowed his eyes, his sharp gaze locking onto the monstrous bulls barreling toward him.

  A typical player could barely solo a one-star elite of the same level. A two-star elite? Nearly impossible. And a three-star elite? Out of the question. To take down a single three-star elite without casualties, a full, well-balanced party was required—tanks to soak damage, healers to sustain them, and damage dealers to whittle down the enemy. If a lone player faced a three-star elite head-on… even a powerful mage, known for their high damage, would be obliterated within three hits.

  From the fallen Dark Carnivorous Flowers, Ye Tianxie had harvested twelve units of their toxic pollen. He examined the item description carefully, a thoughtful glint in his eyes, before storing them away.

  Then, without hesitation, he pushed open the stone door and stepped into the next trial.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  From the moment he crossed the first gate to the second trial’s completion, he had taken less than two minutes.

  If word got out, people would scoff at the absurdity.

  Every level 10 player sought to challenge the Abyssal Trial for its unparalleled rewards, often assembling full teams for the attempt. Yet over half of these groups were wiped out in the first stage. Those who passed were undoubtedly elite teams, and those who reached the second stage? The best of the best. Their attributes, equipment, and coordination far exceeded that of ordinary players.

  Even so, among the millions of level 10 players in the Huaxia region, only three teams had ever cleared the second trial. Not a single one had made it past the third. Those who had barely survived the second stage had been utterly annihilated in the third, and after experiencing its terror firsthand, none had dared to attempt it again.

  There were five trials in total, yet the third had already driven them to complete despair.

  What could they possibly do to clear the Abyssal Test?

  Among the three teams that had made it this far, one belonged to the Divine Domain Alliance, one to Sky Shroud, and the last… remained a mystery.

  With his current health, Ye Tianxie could barely withstand simultaneous attacks from two raging bulls. Three could potentially kill him instantly, and four would be certain death. And twelve… even with the extra 200 HP granted by the Life Ring, it was still an impossible scenario.

  For an average player, this challenge was beyond reach—not just for a solo player but even for a full twelve-man party. But Ye Tianxie was no ordinary player.

  In the blink of an eye, he had already mapped out the positions and charge paths of all twelve bulls. Without moving a muscle, he raised Moment of Destiny, calculating the bulls’ approach time down to the fraction of a second, while simultaneously predicting the layout of the battlefield in the next second… and the second after that.

  A subtle sidestep, followed by a sharply angled turn mid-attack, and Moment of Destiny traced a graceful arc through the air. In that fleeting moment of stillness, one charging bull violently slammed into another, knocked off course by Ye Tianxie’s maneuver.

  With pinpoint precision, he immediately repositioned himself, shifting his focus to the four incoming bulls from behind. Meanwhile, the three bulls he had just evaded were momentarily stunned, trapped in the one-second delay caused by Savage Charge.

  The Phantom Magician—a name foreign players had given to China’s legendary Unyielding Evil Emperor. There were few recorded videos of his battles against powerful monsters, but each one left the world in awe. His movements were so incomprehensibly precise, so breathtakingly fluid, that players could only describe them as "magic." Attacks always seemed mere millimeters away from hitting him—yet they never did. He dodged seamlessly, avoiding consecutive strikes with impossibly small margins. What else could explain such feats besides magic?

  Virtual reality games might level the playing field by standardizing stats and abilities, but they could never standardize a player's mind. They couldn't dictate a person’s reflexes, decision-making, or reaction speed. Ye Tianxie was known as the player with lightning-fast reflexes, inhuman reaction speed, and a mind sharper than a blade. He moved like a fish in water, always a step ahead, always predicting, always evading.

  Some even speculated he was something beyond human—an Esper. A reaction speed like his, combined with such incredible mental processing power, was not something an ordinary human could possess. At the very least, his brain's cognitive development had to be far beyond that of a normal person. Many tried to uncover the real identity of Tian Mo Xie, but no one succeeded. He never revealed his true face, rarely appeared in public, and possessed near-paranoid counter-tracking skills. In a virtual world where even the authorities couldn't pry into player privacy, identifying him was an impossible task.

  The stampede of bulls kicked up clouds of dust, their overlapping roars shaking the air. Ye Tianxie moved like a ghostly shadow, weaving effortlessly through the frenzied herd—sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, sometimes recklessly charging straight into their path.

  His movements seemed completely erratic, as if guided by pure instinct. But if a player were watching, they would be left in utter disbelief, as if witnessing an extraterrestrial entity beyond human comprehension. Every single step he took landed in a fleeting gap between the bulls, and as soon as he moved, that gap was instantly filled by another stampeding beast.

  In a single second, he shifted positions four times, dodging in a way that looked like pure sleight of hand. When his feet finally touched the ground again, he was standing beside the backs of three bulls—his perfect opportunity to strike. Moment of Destiny lashed out, and three crimson numbers floated into the air.

  Thirty seconds had passed. He had attacked three times. And the number of times he had been hit? Zero.

  This was a dazzling performance—one that no audience would be fortunate enough to witness.

  Moo—

  A deep, guttural roar erupted. One of the charging bulls suddenly wobbled mid-sprint, its body shaking uncontrollably as a -5 damage number appeared above its head. Unluckily, in the heat of battle, it had triggered its long-standing kidney stone condition. But even through the pain, it remained ferocious, continuing its relentless charge despite its slowed movements and dwindling health.

  Behind Ye Tianxie, a half-meter-high boulder loomed in his path. His eyes flashed—without hesitation, he leaped backward onto the stone. The moment his feet touched down, he pushed off with all his strength, soaring forward once more…

  Boom!

  Three bulls crashed into the rock at full speed, sending it flying. Meanwhile, Ye Tianxie flipped gracefully through the air, vaulting over their massive bodies. He landed behind them in one smooth motion and struck twice with a deadly backslash before swiftly retreating once again.

  A player's base jump height was 1 meter—nowhere near enough to clear a charging bull. But by leveraging the height of the rock, he had extended his jump range just enough to flip over them. With this advantage, he exploited their moment of vulnerability, landing precise strikes on their exposed backs before dashing away once more.

  His attack frequency was low—intentionally so—but each strike chipped away at their health bit by bit. His expression remained calm, his thick brows slightly furrowed, his entire mind locked in a state of absolute focus. Because he knew that one moment of distraction, one slight misstep, would end this battle in an instant.

  Under such relentless pressure, even the best reflexes would eventually falter. A single mistake could leave him cornered with no way out. But Ye Tianxie had set himself a ruthless goal—not just to defeat these twelve Three-Star Elites…

  But to take them all down without taking a single hit.

  This was his madness. The same madness that drove him to set goal after impossible goal for himself—and achieve them. The Savage Bulls were powerful, but they lacked the agility to keep up with him. That alone gave him the right to pursue this challenge, to demand this level of perfection from himself.

  The white fabric of his beginner’s outfit flickered as he moved, his figure shifting like a ghostly mirage.

  Slash! -153, -155…

  Slash! -150, -152…

  Dark streaks of light cut through the gaps in the chaos, landing shallow but relentless blows. The Savage Bulls grew even more frenzied, their roaring cries rising in intensity.

  Thirty minutes passed. The same relentless sequence repeated over and over. And finally, amidst a despairing howl, the first bull collapsed mid-charge…

  Not just it—every single bull in the herd had been reduced to less than half health.

  Maintaining high focus wasn’t the challenge. The challenge was sustaining that focus, minute after minute, second after second, never letting up. Mental fatigue was far more terrifying than physical exhaustion. In these past thirty minutes, Ye Tianxie hadn’t paused for even a single second. Every instant was spent reacting, dodging, recalculating.

  Beneath his composed exterior, his mind was performing countless calculations, every second filled with predictions, assessments, and decisions far beyond the comprehension of any ordinary human.