VRMMORPG: Reborn with SSS-Rank Plundering and Fusion Talent

He felt 20 Mana vanish from his pool. His body instantly dissolved into dark shadow, completely removing his physical hitbox from the game for a split second. Instead of teleporting backward into the wall, he aimed his blink directly upward.

He reappeared five meters in the air. He hung suspended in the digital gravity for a terrifying heartbeat, looking down as the lethal shockwave passed harmlessly beneath his feet, crashing against the arena walls and dissipating.

Levi let out a breath, but his relief lasted less than a second.

As he fell back toward the stone floor, he saw the Avatar already moving. The boss hadn’t waited to see if the AoE killed him. It was already mid-swing, bringing the flat of its massive scythe around in a vicious horizontal sweep aimed right at where Levi was falling.

Levi couldn’t dodge in mid-air. He had zero momentum.

"Brace!" Levi yelled, gripping his Silver-tier Arachnid’s Fang Scythe with both hands and holding the thick metal haft horizontally in front of his chest like a barricade.

The boss’s weapon smashed into Levi’s scythe.

The impact was absolutely catastrophic. Because Levi managed to interpose his weapon, the game registered the hit as a parried, glancing blow, applying a flat 50% damage reduction to the boss’s base attack.

The math processed in a microsecond. The boss’s 600 ATK was halved to 300. Levi’s base Defense was 66. 300 minus 66 equaled exactly 234 damage taken.

A massive red [-234] exploded above Levi’s head. His health bar plummeted from a perfect 520 down to 286.

The kinetic force of the parried blow threw Levi across the room like a ragdoll. He slammed violently into the obsidian wall. The NerveDive pain engine flared to life, sending a shocking, blunt-force trauma wave through his entire virtual nervous system. It felt like he had just been hit by a speeding truck. He collapsed onto the floor, gasping for digital air.

The timer read [1:15].

Levi scrambled to his knees. His instinct was to immediately toggle on his [Siphon Aura] to start healing the missing 234 health. He quickly opened his skill menu, but his eyes darted to his Mana bar. He had 180 Mana left. If he turned the aura on, it would drain 2 Mana every second.

He needed to keep at least 20 Mana in absolute reserve for another Phantom Step if the boss used a second AoE. If he ran out of mana, he was a sitting duck.

"No," Levi grunted, closing the menu without toggling the heal. "I have to survive on what I have."

He forced himself to stand up. The boss was already marching toward him, raising its weapon for another relentless combo. Levi pushed his 43 Speed to the limit again, ducking and weaving through the massive cleaves, his health locked dangerously at 286.

The timer slowly ticked down. [1:00] [0:50]

At exactly [0:45], the Avatar suddenly froze mid-step. The glowing blue light inside its helmet completely vanished, replaced by a violently burning, blood-red glare. The boss’s eyes locked directly onto Levi.

A system warning flashed. [Warning: Avatar of the Hollow King is casting Soul Rend.]

Levi recognized the name of the skill. This was the homing ultimate. It was an unavoidable execution mechanic programmed to punish players who didn’t bring a dedicated tank class to the trial. It ignored evasion stats. It ignored movement speed.

The massive boss literally blurred out of existence.

Levi didn’t even have time to blink before the Avatar reappeared directly in front of him, entirely bypassing the physical space between them. The giant scythe was already thrust forward, the dark blade burying itself straight toward the center of Levi’s chest.

Levi didn’t try to dodge. He dropped his left hand to his quick-belt and violently crushed the [Elixir of the Wraith] in his palm.

The glass shattered. A void-black aura instantly exploded outward, wrapping around Levi’s armor just a millisecond before the boss’s blade made contact.

The math triggered. The boss’s raw 600 ATK slammed into Levi’s 66 DEF, calculating an initial 534 damage. But the Silver-tier elixir applied its massive 90% Damage Reduction buff.

534 multiplied by 0.10 resulted in exactly 53.4 Final Damage. The system rounded it to 53.

A tiny red [-53] floated into the air.

Levi grunted as his health dropped from 286 down to 233. The blade hit him, but it felt like a dull punch instead of a lethal impalement. Because the elixir also granted absolute crowd-control immunity, Levi wasn’t knocked backward or stunned by the execution skill.

The Avatar, however, was locked into its mandatory recovery animation for the missed execution. It stood perfectly still for five precious seconds, struggling to pull its scythe back.

Levi used the window to back away, sucking in deep breaths of air. He looked up at the holographic timer.

[0:30]

"Just thirty seconds," Levi whispered, his hands shaking slightly on the haft of his scythe.

The boss broke out of its recovery frame and immediately sped up. Its attack animations became frantic and completely chaotic. It was no longer using clean sweeps; it was thrashing wildly, trying to crush the annoying player before the timer expired.

Levi’s stamina was completely bottomed out. He couldn’t execute perfect dodges anymore. He stumbled sideways, barely avoiding a downward crash, but the massive haft of the boss’s weapon clipped his shoulder as it swung past.

It was another glancing blow.

Math checked the impact. 600 ATK halved to 300. Minus 66 DEF equaled 234 damage.

Levi had exactly 233 HP left. If that 234 damage registered, his health would hit -1. He would die with less than five seconds on the clock, failing the trial and losing the SSS-Rank class forever.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. The red [-234] damage number began to materialize above Levi’s head.

Right as the weapon made contact, Levi used a rapid neural thought-command to open his stat menu. He focused on the 5 unassigned stat points he had intentionally held in reserve since he hit Level 15.

’Allocate to Vitality. Confirm,’ Levi thought.

His Vitality instantly jumped from 21 to 26. In Starfall, 5 VIT granted exactly 100 Max HP, and it instantly healed the current health pool by the same amount.

Before the boss’s damage could fully process, Levi’s health violently spiked from 233 up to 333. A microsecond later, the boss’s glancing blow registered.

333 minus 232 damage (the system calculating a slight variance from his newly increased defense).

[-232]

Levi was thrown backward, skidding across the stone floor on his boots. His health bar plummeted but stopped exactly at 101/620.

He survived the hit.

The Avatar raised its scythe for a final, lethal downward execution strike. The blade came crashing down toward Levi’s neck. Levi didn’t have the stamina to move. He just stared up at the dark iron edge falling toward his face.

The holographic timer floating in the air ticked its final second.

[0:01]

[0:00]

The giant iron scythe stopped exactly one inch from Levi’s neck. The massive blade didn’t move a single millimeter further. The Avatar of the Hollow King froze completely in place, freezing like a video game character whose internet connection just dropped.