Yulian was once again facing a horde of beasts in a dense jungle.

A pack of Fierce Bladewolves surrounded him from the front. The horde had nearly fifty beasts glaring at him. Yulian coolly stared back. This was a battle of wills.

Of course, this strange spectacle had occurred many times in the past 5 days when he had explored this [Stage]. In reality, he had only spent 12 hours, though. Even so, for the sake of mentally tempering himself, he did not meditate or sleep in these 5 days, only engaging in continuous slaughter.

“Display Map.” Without shifting his attention, Yulian called upon the [Trait] he had bought earlier.

A 3D map of the virtual stage appeared in front on Yulian. The majority of the map was shaded, representing that he had traversed through it.

[Map Completion: 96%]

[After reaching 100%, BOSS battle will be triggered]

After seeing this, Yulian smiled. Clearly, this was the final horde. After this, he could finally leave this place and sleep.

At this moment, the pack of Bladewolves finally lost patience and attacked. Their bodies were clad with steel-gray metal fur, the hair as sharp like needles. Yulian had faced so many beasts like this and their attack patterns were firmly embedded in his mind.

He could slash at it with his newly created blade technique, but it would be meaninglessly wasting time.

With a flick of a finger, the chain of the prayer beads on his fingers lengthened. The gaps between his fingers were wrapped by the chain bearing the beads. Suddenly, Yulian’s fingers began flickering as they formed seals.

Utilizing two fingers and the 108 beads, this was the most complicated and the most powerful sealing technique Yulian had ever utilized. Seeing Yulian’s fingers move, fear formed in the hearts of the Bladewolves as their speed increased.

Suddenly, when a wolf nearly slashed at Yulian, he turned into a shadowy mirage and disappeared. This was the footwork technique that Yulian had perfected with the help of the profound principles of Fire hidden in the Five Way Heaven Seals.

The wolves desperately tore through the woody forest to hunt down Yulian, but failed to even find his shadow. Meanwhile, on the top of a tree, Yulian spied on the wolf horde. His fingers were still dancing, forming a profound intent. Unknowingly, the temperature of the surroundings was gradually rising…

Meanwhile, the wolves had stopped running around after failing to find Yulian. As the temperature rose, the AI maneuvering the wolves could not initiate a suitable action. At this point of time…

The boy spying from the top of the tree completed his spell. His ten fingers had created a complicated web from the prayer beads. This web reminded one of a diagram of an atom, or perhaps a solar system and in the center, a pure white flame was formed into a small ball.

“Five Way Heaven Fire Seal, Final Seal – Starfire Bursting.” Yulian softly whispered the name of the technique as his finished the final seal. This was the 20th seal of the Five Way Heaven Seals, and symbolized his complete mastery of the technique. The small white fire fell on the horde of the beasts like a meteor. The beasts curiously looked at the falling meteor, mistaking it for a falling rock.

When the ball of white fire struck the earth, the world temporarily turned white. For a heartstopping moment, the world was silent before the ear splitting explosion occurred. Yulian made the mistake of looking at the aftermath of the explosion from the top of the tree and was blinded by the radiance. Just then, the shockwave from the explosion chopped the tree at the trunk, causing Yulian to fall on the ground.

Yulian expertly controlled his descent with his eyes closed. His four remaining senses were raised to their limits as they processed information at lightning fast speed, allowing him to land safely on the ground. When he opened his eyes, they witnessed an astonishing sight.

100m of the surrounding area had been destroyed by the explosion. The earth was flattened and rocks had turned to dust. Of course, the target of the attack, the wolves had been turned to dust as well.

[You have slaughtered 48 Bladewolves in a single attack]

[Star Points Awarded: 12,00,000]

Yulian was mildly surprised when he saw the large amount of star points he gained for slaughtering the horde of Bladewolves. This was the first time he actually used the [Starfire Bursting] Seal, and he was completely shocked by the power of the technique.

However, this technique was not all that suited to him. Yulian preferred close-combat battles, and this ultimate technique was quite a hassle to use in close-combat battles. Continuously dodging the blows of the enemy while flipping through hand-seals… this ‘death or victory’ style of combat was not to his liking.

Instead, the basic single-seal techniques were more useful to him.

The blue screen displayed another message.

[100% Map Completed!]

[Begin BOSS Battle? Y/N]

[Map Trait Bonus: The condition for triggering HIDDEN BOSS will be stated]

[HIDDEN BOSS Trigger Condition: Defeat BOSS in 15 minutes]

Seeing the message that flashed in front of him, Yulian hesitated. Should he postpone this battle and fight again after training or should he fight now? Fighting this battle might help him gain an insight… but he had been fighting continuously for 5 days right now. There was a light headache shaking his concentration for now, which might develop into a migraine. After that, he would just collapse due to mental exhaustion.

“…The only reason I have been continuously battling is to temper my spirit force and my mental fortitude. Battling with the risk of mental collapse… this kind of battle is the best way of tempering my mental fortitude to its limits!” Making his decision, Yulian decisively chose to begin the battle!

[BOSS Battle No.1 – Crimson Wolf King]

The world around Yulian seemed to shrink, until he was left in a small circular space. With a blue flash of light, a 3 metre tall figure began to materialize in front of Yulian. White smoke slowly solidified to create a large body.

With a reddish-white furred body and powerful muscular limbs, this Crimson Wolf King was a bipedal werewolf beast. Its razor sharp claws and sharp fangs glinted with bloodlust. The beast exuded a savage aura of murderous intent.

Yulian immediately used his footwork to back away from the beast. In a single bound, he maneuvered himself to the edge of the circular space that he was trapped in. When he took another step back, he found himself unable to circumvent the invisible wall.

“This confinement is troublesome. It will block most of my footwork and agility techniques and force me to battle one on one…” Yulian had already calculated the area he was allowed to move in. Though some of his techniques would be useless and his 7 foot blade would turn into a liability if the Wolf King broke his guard, it wouldn’t be too difficult to win.

“Now, how do I finish this in 15 minutes…”

Just then, a blue screen flashed in front of Yulian and the Wolf King gave a blood-chilling howl.

[BOSS Battle Begins!]

The giant bipedal werewolf pounced at Yulian. Kicking at the invisible wall holding him, Yulian built up momentum and turned it to force, bounding at the werewolf as well.

The werewolf’s claws were glowing with crimson light. The 7 foot sword sheathed on Yulian’s back was drawn in an instant, pulsing with violet light. The two powerful blows clashed head on, causing a shockwave to shoot out from the collision!

After the first blow was exchanged, Yulian took four steps sideways, before slashing out another horizontal blade strike! The indigo colored bladelight was met by a slower, reddish claw! His assault was faster than the werewolf’s defensive technique, so it easily broke through the crimson energy protecting the claw and nearly chopped it in half before retracting!

Yulian took four steps to quickly move to the werewolf’s back. The blade returned with Yulian, the second strike slashing out with a blue bladelight! The werewolf swiftly turned around and took on Yulian’s blow by pushing its two arms out! However, the power of the bladelight had multiplied and it neatly chopped through the beast’s arms before retracting!

Yulian stepped back by 4 steps once again and slashed out a blade strike at the werewolf’s feet! The third strike caused a green bladelight filled with pure heat to flash, intended to chop off the feet! The werewolf put all the force in its feet to back away and just succeeded by a hair’s distance! However, Yulian forced the blunt middle of his blade to strike at the bear’s feet causing it lose balance and fall flat on the ground.

After that, the battle turned one-sided.

Yellow, orange and red colored bladelights chopped at the werewolf’s unguarded neck, however the thick steel fur stubbornly resisted. Yulian looked the struggling werewolf with frustration… how has my new blade technique, Six Rainbow Slashes not killed it yet?!

In his previous ‘BOSS’ battle, Yulian had tried to lengthen the battle as far as possible, trying to understand and steal techniques from the beast. However, this time he took the initiative and reduced the BOSS to mincemeat in seconds.

This was primarily due to his 5 day journey through this [Area] where he continuously slaughtered without rest. Without even meditating to calm his mind or regenerate genetic energy, Yulian simply consumed the in-game potions to quickly recover and used all the time he could get to endlessly slaughter through the beasts. Other than training his blade technique in seclusion, he never stopped slaughtering monsters.

This style of fighting caused his awareness and comprehension to rapidly rise, allowing him to quickly create, contemplate on and perfect his second blade technique, Six Rainbow Slashes and even fashion a footwork style to complement it!

Six Rainbow Slashes was actually a series of six continuous blade strikes, six colored bladelights of indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red would unceasingly slash down on the foe, constantly rising in strength and speed due to momentum. It was created to follow up on the Purplesun Radiance technique‘s foundation and multiply the momentum.

Yulian’s blade was a 7 foot long, a thin and single-edged blade. It was sharp, fast and had long reach, and its lightness made it easy to use quick maneuvers. Due to being a sword, fast-draw techniques could also be used.

However, its fatal flaw was close combat. Once the opponent got close to him, it would become a liability. Yulian had trained in a technique that reversed the grip and used hilt strikes to fight in close combat, but it would never be a viable way of fighting. It was simply a way to distract his opponent as he worked on putting distance between his opponent and himself.

Taking this into mind, the Six Rainbow Slashes technique created an ‘ideal distance’ against the opponent facing him. This distance was just close enough for Yulian’s blade technique to slash out with full strength and build momentum while being just far enough to retreat without losing the built up momentum!

However, this blade technique wasn’t completed yet. After the Violetsun Radiance and Six Rainbow Slashes were used, the built up momentum needed to be expelled in an almighty strike! This would be the third technique of his Nine Stage Thunder Blade! Yulian had some insights in creating this blade technique, however he hadn’t solidified his understanding. If he actually used this blade technique, he would suffer a mighty backlash, with large chance of death!

However, Yulian was past the point of caring. If he lived, it would be good. If he died, so be it! In any case, if he hesitated too much, 15 minutes would pass and his chance of qualifying for the hidden BOSS would disappear!

Without hesitating, Yulian began his prototype blade technique. Within his dantian the sea of energy was quite shallow, however it was slowly being filled up by the unceasing energy expelled by the two stones of pure Yuan energy. All his blade techniques drew their power from the energy sea… however, this time he drew from the two Fire and Metal stones!

The pure Yuan energy from the stones mixed and converged to form a denser, mightier energy. It was lightning, formed from fusing fire and metal in his dantian. This thicker energy was extremely unstable, and was destroying him from the inside as he circulated it through his meridians. Even so, he rapidly converged it into his arms, before pouring it into the blade.

The blade trembled with a golden-white bladelight as it was nearly melted by the pouring energy. If Yulian’s control over the blade technique was greater, this would have never happened. A large portion of this technique’s power was wasted like this. However, the power that remained completely surpassed the collective might of the previous techniques!

The golden-white blade slashed down with a blinding blade light. The energy within the blow chopped through the wounded neck of the werewolf like paper, before slashing 7 feet into the ground, and causing a 25 foot wide faultline to be carved into the earth.

But this wasn’t the end of it. The golden energy turned into pure destructive force, turning the chopped up corpse of the Crimson Wolf King to dust. The backlash of the blow struck Yulian as well, vaporizing his arms to dust.

Yulian immediately used the energy of the backlash to retreat backwards and controlled his breath to calm down his bloodflow and control his organs. His technique had stopped the automatic circulation and buildup of energy in his dantian. The sudden destruction of his two arms had put his internal organs through turmoil. Moreover, he could not use his spirit sense to check his internals as well.

All Yulian could do was wait for the blue screen notifying his defeat of the Crimson Wolf King to flash. After that, his goal would be completed…

After a few moments which seemed to be hours to Yulian’s agony-filled mind, a blue screen finally appeared.

[You have defeated the BOSS of [Area 2], Crimson Wolf King]

[Time taken: 2 min. 49 sec.]

[Exceptional achievement, calculating rewards…]