Chapter 29: Clearing the Primordial Grade Trial

Seven left.

The Gigantic Sandworm reared its head, roaring as it launched its entire kilometer-long body straight down at Arthur like a falling meteor.

Arthur did not run. He leaped straight into the open maw of the worm, voluntarily letting the monster swallow him whole.

"Same old trick," Arthur voice echoed internally inside the dark esophagus of the beast.

Inside the worm, surrounded by acid and crushing muscle contractions, Arthur’s doubled attributes made the environment completely trivial. Automatic Body Control continuously maintained his health against the digestive acid while directing full kinetic power into his limbs.

Arthur kicked off the muscular walls of the throat, bouncing like a high-velocity pinball up and down the internal length of the sandworm.

Every time his boots touched the inner flesh, he slammed his daggers down with absolute Strength.

-800,000 HP.

-1,200,000 HP.

-2,500,000 HP.

-4,000,000 HP.

-9,000,000 HP.

The internal damage tore the sandworm apart from the inside out. Three seconds after swallowing Arthur, the massive beast burst open like an overinflated balloon, its giant body severing into multiple pieces and crashing down into the sand.

[Fourth Mythical Boss eliminated.]

Arthur landed cleanly on the severed head of the worm, his breathing starting to grow heavy.

The duration of Limit Overdrive was nearing its final stage. He had roughly one minute left before the severe paralysis penalty kicked in. If he did not clear the remaining six bosses before the timer ran out, he would be a sitting duck, completely helpless against their attacks.

"Six more," Arthur gritted his teeth, his eyes burning red with pure adrenaline. "Let us finish this now!"

He launched himself from the sandworm’s remains, target locking onto the Earth Dragon and the Humongous Crocodile, who were fighting side by side.

The Earth Dragon unleashed its fifty-thousand-degree fire breath in a concentrated stream, while the Humongous Crocodile snapped its jaw with enough crushing power to break mountains.

Arthur pushed his Agility to the absolute limit of the double-attribute buff. He moved faster than light perception, leaving three afterimages behind.

The fire breath incinerated the afterimages, but the real Arthur was already beneath the Humongous Crocodile’s soft belly.

Arthur drove both daggers into the underbelly of the giant crocodile and ran along its length, tearing open a massive, thirty-meter-long wound that spilled its organs onto the swampy ground.

-15,800,000 HP. Critical Hit.

The Humongous Crocodile thrashed once and went completely still.

[Fifth Mythical Boss eliminated.]

Without stopping for even a microsecond, Arthur used the crocodile’s dying body as a launchpad, vaulting directly onto the head of the Earth Dragon.

The dragon tried to ignite its heat domain to burn him off, but Arthur did not give it the chance. He plunged his right dagger straight through the dragon’s skull, channeling all kinetic force downward.

-18,000,000 HP. Overkill Strike.

The Earth Dragon collapsed, its giant head smashing into the dirt, extinguishing its supreme heat domain forever.

[Sixth Mythical Boss eliminated.]

Four left.

The Thunder Roc, the Sea Serpent, the Crystal Golem, and the Demon Emperor.

The four remaining bosses realized the mortal threat. Instead of attacking individually, they synchronized their ultimate abilities into a single, terrifying joint attack.

The Thunder Roc cast a ocean of heavenly tribulation lightning from above.

The Sea Serpent released its total domain absolute zero ice from below.

The Crystal Golem focused its full chest energy beam from the front.

And the Demon Emperor raised his spear, summoning hundreds of dark magic dragon phantoms that formed a sealed domain of corrosion around Arthur.

The four ultimate moves locked Arthur into a sphere of absolute destruction, leaving no physical space to dodge, no path to escape, and no gap in coverage.

Ten seconds left on Limit Overdrive.

Arthur looked at the converging ultimate attacks coming from four directions.

He didn’t panic. His mind was unnaturally calm.

Arthur said silently. "Let’s show me what absolute synchronization really means."

His body responded instantly.

Atomic Body Control took control of every single atom in Arthur’s structure. Instead of focusing attributes into raw defence or raw speed, it began redistributing attributes thousands of times every single microsecond, matching the exact frequency of the incoming attacks.

When the lightning hit, his body shifted to ground the voltage instantly without taking damage.

When the ice hit, his thermal attributes spiked to neutralize the freezing effect.

When the crystal beam struck, his Defence peaked at the precise point of contact to reflect the kinetic energy outward.

And when the dark dragon phantoms tried to corrode his soul, his Vitality surged to offset the corrosion rate completely.

Arthur walked straight through the middle of the combined four-way ultimate attack.

He was completely untouched.

Five seconds left on Limit Overdrive.

Arthur appeared in front of the Crystal Golem first.

He did not even use his daggers. He delivered a simple, single palm strike to the center of the crystal core.

BOOM.

The red chest core of the Crystal Golem shattered into microscopic dust particles. The massive eighteen-million-HP crystal giant crumbled into a pile of ordinary, lifeless rocks.

[Seventh Mythical Boss eliminated.]

Three seconds left.

Arthur turned toward the sky. He flashed upward, reappearing directly above the flying Thunder Roc.

He grabbed both of the Roc’s wings with his hands and forcefully pulled them backward, snapping the giant bird’s spine in half with sheer physical power and plunged his both daggers after that.

-17,000,000 HP.

The Thunder Roc fell from the sky like a stone, crashing into the ground below and turning into black feathers that scattered into the wind.

[Eighth Mythical Boss eliminated.]

Two seconds left.

Arthur dropped from the sky, landing squarely on the head of the Sea Serpent as it tried to retreat into the ice layer.

He did not hesitate. Arthur drove his daggers deep into the top of the serpent’s skull, dragging the blades all the way down its long neck as he slid down its body.

-16,000,000 HP.

The Sea Serpent let out a final, weak hiss before its massive body broke apart into countless ice shards that shattered against the ground.

[Ninth Mythical Boss eliminated.]

One second left.

Arthur landed on the bloody obsidian ground. His knees wobbled slightly as the final countdown of Limit Overdrive reached its end.

Right in front of him stood the last boss.

The Demon Emperor.

The emperor held his long black spear with both hands, his crimson eyes staring intensely at Arthur. There was no fear in the emperor’s posture, only the absolute battle intent of a master warrior who lived and died by the weapon in his hands.

The timer reached zero.

[Limit Overdrive effect expired.]

[Warning: Your body has entered a state of complete paralysis. Duration: 10 minutes.]

Arthur’s muscles instantly locked up. He couldn’t move his legs. He couldn’t lift his arms. He couldn’t even adjust his fingers. His health bar was sitting precariously at less than three percent from the residual strain of the battle, and his stamina bar was completely depleted.

He was entirely helpless.

The Demon Emperor saw the change immediately. He did not hesitate.

The emperor stepped forward, accelerating into a high-speed charge, his long black spear leveling straight at Arthur’s exposed heart. The tip of the spear glowed with a dark, concentrated magic that promised instant death upon contact.

Ten meters.

Five meters.

Three meters.

The Demon Emperor thrust the spear forward with all his strength, aiming to end the trial once and for all.

Arthur stood frozen, unable to shift his limbs, unable to draw a dagger, unable to take a single step backward.

However, the Demon Emperor had forgotten one critical detail.

Limit Overdrive was an active skill that caused paralysis.

Atomic Body Control was a passive effect that operated at the atomic level.

Even though Arthur’s physical muscles were paralyzed by the penalty, his internal attribute allocation system was still completely active and fully functional.

His body did not need him to move to defend.

The instant the black spear tip touched the skin of Arthur’s chest, Atomic Body Control automatically recognized the lethal threat.

It did not allocate attributes to Defence. Defence would not stop a full-force thrust from a twenty-million-HP master warrior when Arthur was at three percent health.

Instead, Atomic Body Control dumped one hundred percent of all available attributes into a single, microscopic variable.

Kinetic Rebound.

The moment the spear point pressed into Arthur’s skin, his entire body acted like an unyielding, infinitely dense atomic wall. The massive kinetic energy of the Demon Emperor’s strike could not penetrate Arthur’s flesh, nor could it push his body back.

Because the energy had nowhere to go, the entire momentum of the Demon Emperor’s supreme thrust rebounded completely back into the weapon itself.

CRACK.

The long black spear, forged from legendary demon steel, shattered into a thousand jagged pieces under the overwhelming force of its own reflected power.

The Demon Emperor’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief as the shockwave of the rebound traveled up his arms, shattering his shoulder joints and leaving him completely unbalanced, leaning forward into Arthur’s immediate range.

Arthur could not move his body.

But he could think.

"Come out."

​Instantly, the obsidian ground shattered beneath the Demon Emperor’s feet. Ten skeleton warriors burst out from the black stone like divine envoys of death, placing themselves directly between the Demon Emperor and their master.

​The skeleton warriors used all their might to swing their rusted broadswords simultaneously at the Demon Emperor.

​Clang. Clang. Clang.

​-12,000 HP.

-15,000 HP.

-11,000 HP.

​Against the supreme defense of the emperor, the physical damage dealt by the skeletons was miniscule.

​The Demon Emperor raged, spinning his spear overhead to release a burst of residual dark energy. The dark magic wave swept across the immediate area, instantly crushing three of the skeleton warriors into fine bone dust.

​However, Arthur’s Atomic Body Control was still operating inside his mind.

​With his physical attributes completely locked by system paralysis, his body automatically reallocated one hundred percent of his entire attribute pool directly into Mana. His intelligence and mana stats spiked to unprecedented levels, pushing his total mana reserve over five thousand points.

​"Revival," Arthur thought cold command.

​With five thousand mana, he possessed an endless pool to continuously cast his summon restoration.

​A dark golden flash erupted on the ground. The three crushed skeletons instantly reformed, their bony hands grabbing their blades as they charged back into the fray without a single second of delay.

​The battle turned into an absurd spectacle of absolute attrition.

​The skeleton warriors surrounded the dying Demon Emperor, relentlessly hacking away at his damaged armor. Whenever the emperor swung his shattered black spear and turned them into splinters, Arthur instantly cast Revival, bringing them back to full health and force.

​Even if the Demon Emperor killed all ten of them, those unrelenting bastards kept coming back from the dead, surging forward to chip away at his remaining health bar.

​Slash. Slash. Slash.

​-10,000 HP.

-14,000 HP.

-8,000 HP.

​The Demon Emperor thrashed and roared, his dark magic dragon phantoms flickering weakly as his energy drained completely. But no matter how many times he shattered the undead bone army, the infinite loop of Arthur’s mana-boosted revivals never ceased.

​The endless swarming kinetic pressure of ten immortal skeletons slowly, relentlessly ground down the final fraction of the emperor’s life force.

​Finally, a skeleton warrior plunged its rusted blade directly through a major gap in the emperor’s shattered chest plate.

​The Demon Emperor froze mid-swing, his spear dropping from his hand. His crimson eyes flickered one last time before his entire frame collapsed onto the obsidian floor, breaking apart into black ash that scattered into the endless void sky.

​[Ding! The 10th boss is eliminated.]

​[Ding! Congratulations! You have successfully cleared the Primordial Grade Trial!]