In that instant, Feiyan suddenly felt that Qin Fen had long since entered his attack range, and was still leisurely closing the distance. Despite projecting no discernible aura, he felt far more dangerous than any young man brimming with fighting intent.

A master? Feiyan found the notion utterly absurd. When facing upstart newcomers, he always adopted an air of lofty condescension, toying with them like a cat with a mouse, destroying their will to fight or enraging them into losing their composure before utterly crushing them.

Yet today, Feiyan genuinely felt a dizzying sense of role reversal, as if he were the young man who foolishly challenged without fully considering the stakes, facing down a supreme, imposing examiner.

Standing before the thirty-six-hour mark, Feiyan even sensed a flicker of his own insignificance.

Ah! Aah!

He roared toward the sky, the sound meant to banish the dread creeping into his heart. The psychological advantage he usually held over young challengers, hard-won from crushing so many, was being violently and rapidly rebuilt after this momentary shock.

In a flash, his eyes turned blood red, his face flushed crimson, and his two pale palms instantly became vivid, like fresh blood!

Three frenzied roars erupted, shaking the very air!

These three furious shouts activated the amplifiers within him, which were energized by the Lava Skill, causing them to rapidly surge. His eyes locked onto Qin Fen, and the air surrounding his hands began to visibly warp and ripple from the intense heat radiating outward.

Qin Fen initiated the attack first. His movement this time carried far more momentum than any before.

He stomped one foot. Feiyan’s entire body shuddered. His footing instantly became unstable, as if he had stepped on a banana peel and was about to slip.

Simultaneously, where Qin Fen’s foot struck the ground, countless small shards of volcanic rock erupted. Deep fissures spiderwebbed out in several directions across the massive, solid basalt beneath his feet. The stomp was like a heavy hammer striking the earth.

With Feiyan's footing precarious, Qin Fen naturally seized the opportunity. The immense propulsive force propelled him across the final distance separating them. His arm remained straight and relaxed, his fist loosely gripped. His entire arm sliced toward Feiyan’s head with the whistling roar of wind and thunder.

This strike by Qin Fen channeled the force generated by his footwork, through his waist, then into his shoulder blade, and finally into his arm in one seamless motion. He was using the most familiar technique from his simple Calisthenics Fist style: the Advancing Single Whip.

Practiced for years, and now fused with the killing tactics of the Butcher’s path, this strike was explosively fast, ferociously potent like a bear, and his movement speed outpaced a leopard.

"Not good!"

Feiyan’s concentration had just fractured. The space before his eyes suddenly went black, and then an arm, thick as a pillar and less than a foot from his cheek, swept in like a thousand chariots.

Qin Fen’s Advancing Single Whip was delivered with absolute intent. His Dragon-Elephant Wisdom Technique flowed directly into the strike. Even a donkey struck by this blow would undoubtedly perish instantly.

In this moment of extreme peril, Feiyan’s forty years of life experience finally manifested. His body contracted, leaning sideways, his arm rising past his shoulder, presenting his whole form at a sixty-degree slope to deflect the incoming force…

The arm, hard as tempered steel, slammed heavily into Feiyan’s forearm as he tried to shield his head. The surging power made him feel, for a split second, that it wasn't an arm hitting him, but an illegally speeding maglev motorcycle crashing into his body. Still unsteady on his recently compromised footing, this impact sent his sixty-degree angled body soaring, lifting both feet off the ground, leaving him suspended almost horizontally in mid-air.

Qin Fen’s left foot expanded rapidly within Feiyan’s field of vision. Even without a martial artist’s intuition, he knew this next strike was aimed squarely at his chest.

Before Feiyan could retract the arm that had been thrown aside, Qin Fen’s left foot hammered into his torso.

The name of the move—Shaolin Arhat Fist’s Stepping Mountain Kick—flashed through Feiyan’s mind; a technique he had long forgotten. Utilizing the leverage from the stomp, Qin Fen leaped high, looking down with a commanding gaze at the severely injured body tumbling toward the volcano.

The system announced the sound of fractured sternum, followed by another message: Three ribs pierced the heart, life extinguished…

Before his body even plunged into the magma, Feiyan’s form rapidly virtualized within Qin Fen’s sight, vanishing swiftly…

I refuse to accept this! Feiyan roared silently in bitter frustration. The luck of the thirty-six-hour trial was astonishing. The Stepping Mountain Kick might normally only break a few ribs, but this time, by sheer chance, the fractured ribs had punctured his heart. He hadn't even managed to utilize the advantage of his Lava Skill before being unluckily killed. An unprecedented humiliation washed over him.

"It should have been three ribs piercing his heart."

Qin Fen watched Feiyan’s sorrowful, indignant disappearance, quietly calculating the angle of that final kick.

That kick wasn't merely the standard Stepping Mountain Kick; it incorporated the Butcher’s lethal combat techniques. The final application of force and the precise angle selection had been incredibly tricky and hidden. Seemingly just a slight variation on the ordinary move, it was enough to ensure three ribs found their way into the chest cavity.

Qin Fen slowly regulated the power surging within him. Based on his probabilistic calculations, the second challenger should be slightly stronger than the first, but their strength would likely have a ceiling. As for the third challenger, there was no probability to speak of; they could be extremely strong or surprisingly weak.

"Do you wish to immediately proceed to the final trial?"

A purely synthetic voice echoed without emotion. Filled with curiosity about the third opponent, Qin Fen nodded decisively.

The scenery shifted again. This time, the setting was an endless grassland—a highly neutral stage within the combat network.

A neutral stage? Could this mean a weak opponent?

Qin Fen felt a flicker of suspicion. His luck seemed quite good today. Not far off, an indistinct figure began rapidly coalescing under the system's catalysis.

Every hair on Qin Fen’s body instantly stood on end. His focus entered an unprecedented state of tension, the true Qi formed by the Dragon-Elephant Wisdom Technique flowing rapidly like a blue dragon through his body.

A master!

Though there was a distance between them, Qin Fen’s recent rigorous training allowed him to sense, the very instant the opponent appeared, that this challenger was absolutely stronger than the new recruit Park Jung-hwan from Hanzhou!

"Dragon-Elephant Wisdom Technique? Shaolin Arhat Fist?"

A voice, laced with surprise but utterly devoid of contempt, cut through the air. The information it conveyed was one of profound caution.

Compared to the previous two, the third martial artist challenger was noticeably younger, roughly the same age as Qin Fen. His physique was powerful and solid—a clear sign of truly arduous training. His body naturally exuded an imposing sharpness, as if the person standing before him was not a man, but an impossibly keen blade.

Bull Demon King, height 1.83 meters, wingspan 1.90 meters. Martial Arts Used: ??????, Combat Skills: ??????, Record: 132 wins in 132 bouts!

Qin Fen froze, reassessing the opponent before him. Beyond the astonishing win rate, the hidden martial arts piqued his curiosity even more.

The Combat Network offered the function to mask one's martial arts and combat skills, but it required a significant cost—a substantial fee paid for a specific duration. If one wished to remain hidden beyond that time, the fee had to be paid again.

Many people were willing to spend money in the Combat Network for various virtual combat items, but few paid to conceal their fundamental skills. For one thing, the feature was expensive; for another, it wasn't entirely effective. If a fight couldn't be decided quickly, the opponent’s techniques would eventually be revealed anyway. If even after half a day of fighting the techniques remained unknown, knowing their names beforehand offered little advantage.

Someone willing to spend money to hide their skills was either fabulously wealthy or had a critical secret to keep. A rich heir was likely to have purchased top-tier martial arts, and combined with this sheer sharpness, he could easily be the strongest of the three challengers.

The Bull Demon King moved with heavy, steady steps, circling Qin Fen slowly. The third examiner for this opening round was someone using a strength-based internal art and Calisthenics Fist?

Qin Fen gently clenched his fists, already settling into a horse stance. The starting posture of the Shaolin Arhat Fist was slowly adopted. While the Calisthenics Fist was simple and common, its starting stance was excellent, allowing for an immediate transition into any variation of that set of forms. Traces of the Shaolin Arhat Fist could be seen in the stances of many other fist and palm techniques. In an instant, Qin Fen’s spirit locked onto the Bull Demon King!

Regardless of facing an opponent with a terrible win record or facing the Bull Demon King with a perfect 100% win rate, Qin Fen would never let his guard down.

"In battle, to underestimate your foe is to seek death," the Butcher’s maxim was firmly etched into Qin Fen’s mind.

Feeling the oppressive mental lock, the Bull Demon King’s brow twitched several times. His body instinctively retreated two steps backward, his eyes fixed on Qin Fen with palpable confusion.

Why the sensation of extreme danger? The Bull Demon King found it deeply strange. That feeling usually only arose when locked by the spirit of a true superior, yet he sensed no such lock. Why this bizarre sensation?

This 'Thirty-Six Hours' showed no intimidating aura of a master. If he had already reached the Master level at this age, shouldn't his sharp edge have softened, blended into gentleness? That bordered on the fantastical. Aura was directly linked to martial comprehension. Even young experts who understood that true masters could soften their presence and merge with the environment were incapable of achieving it themselves. Understanding and realizing are two entirely different concepts.

The Bull Demon King did not, could not, believe that the young man whose eyes were all he could see had reached such a supposed Master realm.

The announcement for the final battle suddenly rang in both their ears. The Bull Demon King’s eyes instantly flared with intensity. He propelled a burst of true Qi from his dantian straight to his throat. A muffled tiger’s roar erupted from his vocal cords and entire skeletal structure, his air-infused arms shot forward, bringing the wind with them, whoosh!