Before Lin Luo left, he said goodbye to Su Ze and invited him to visit the Lin Family when he had time.

He hadn’t actually decided to leave this round, but when the die rolled a "1," he stopped hesitating. He beat back a crowd of competitors, took down two who stood in his way, and charged out of the Dice Space.

With that, the number of people in the Dice Space dwindled further, leaving only thirteen.

Among the remaining people, besides Mr. Ya, the only ones Su Ze knew by name were Wan Qizhi and Xiang Chuan.

At this point, the gap between the Sovereign Country and the six countries was clear. Su Ze and Mr. Ya were the only two remaining Trialists from the six countries; everyone else was from the Sovereign Country.

The six countries had a total of twenty Trialists, but only two were left. The other eighteen were either dead or had gotten lucky and escaped.

Of course, Su Ze had a lot to do with this. After all, by the end of the second round, he had single-handedly eliminated all the Trialists from Ancient An Country, Luofan Country, and Mu Country.

There was a long interval between the third and fourth rounds of the trial. It seemed the Divine Dice had intentionally left time for the Trialists to recover their stamina and heal their injuries.

Su Ze and Mr. Ya were both in decent shape. With nothing to do, they leaned against a corner, sizing up the others.

Among those left, there were prodigies from the great families of Lin Hua Country, but the largest group consisted of the official geniuses from Lin Hua Country—a full five of them!

Of these five, Wan Qizhi sat alone, while the others gathered together with Xiang Chuan as their leader.

Besides Xiang Chuan’s group and the pair of Su Ze and Mr. Ya, no one else was clustered together. At this stage, even teammates from the same faction could no longer trust each other as they did at the start.

After all, out of these thirteen people, a maximum of six could survive! The death rate was over fifty percent.

Time passed...

The situation in the Dice Space grew increasingly tense. Although the other Trialists sat still, the occasional glances shot Su Ze’s way made him feel a subtle hostility.

He was the strongest among them!

This was the consensus among everyone.

And because of that, he would likely be targeted by some of them.

’Perhaps some of them are already secretly discussing how to team up against me.’

Upon reaching the Butterfly Stage, one’s Spiritual Power was strong enough to leave the body and conduct short-range Spiritual Transmissions. Therefore, these people might be using Spiritual Transmission to secretly plot against him.

Su Ze wasn’t afraid. He had just taken on fifteen people at once, not to mention he now had Mr. Ya’s support.

Just as Su Ze was wondering when someone would make a move on him, four beams of light lit up overhead, announcing the start of the fourth round of the trial.

Mr. Ya’s tense muscles relaxed. He had already been preparing for a fight.

A moment later, Su Ze and the others felt a pulling force. Their bodies flew upward uncontrollably, into the dazzling light above.

This was a sensation they hadn’t experienced before. In the previous rounds of the trial, they had been directly "teleported" into the Trial Space, without such a distinct feeling of their bodies being moved.

Su Ze opened his eyes to find himself standing in a forest. He was surrounded by lush green plants, and to his right flowed a clear stream. The scenery was beautiful and the air was fresh.

’Where is this...’ Su Ze scanned his surroundings, then suddenly froze.

He saw an exotic beast—one with a purple shell that looked like a ladybug but was as large as a mature ox.

But that wasn’t the main point. What made Su Ze’s blood run cold was the green light of evolution radiating from the ladybug!

A fourth-tier exotic beast!

’This fourth round of the trial expects me to defeat a fourth-tier exotic beast?’

’What a joke!’

Unless it was a fourth-tier exotic beast whose strength was suppressed, like the ones in the Royal Hunting Ground, Su Ze knew he had absolutely no chance of winning.

However, before any more thoughts could form in Su Ze’s mind, the ladybug opened its menacing maw and spat a glob of purple, unknown substance at him.

Su Ze dodged to the side with a Rhino Charge, but the unknown substance clearly had a tracking ability. It swerved and chased after him. Su Ze used all his strength to run, trying to pull away from the purple substance hot on his heels.

But he wasn’t Mr. Ya. He wasn’t fast enough to shake off the purple substance, nor did he have a skill like Earth Escape to get away.

He wasn’t skilled at escaping or defending. His defense relied on his tough, damage-resistant body and powerful Self-Healing Ability.

What he excelled at was attacking!

’Can’t run? Then I’ll turn back and fight. What if this fourth-tier exotic beast is just for show?’

With that thought, Su Ze stopped his futile escape. He turned and fired a bolt of lightning at the unknown purple substance.

But his attack was like a clay ox entering the sea—it vanished without a ripple, easily swallowed up.

The next instant, the unknown substance slammed into Su Ze’s chest. He felt his skin stretch taut to the breaking point, as if his entire body was about to be torn apart and kneaded into that glob of matter.

Making a split-second decision, Su Ze chopped away the flesh on his chest with a hand-blade, freeing himself from the unknown substance. However, the injury to his body was already severe.

Su Ze immediately detonated the Regeneration Core in his brain. A vast amount of life energy instantly repaired all his injuries.

’Run!’

Despite knowing his chances of escape were minuscule, Su Ze’s first instinct was to flee. His body turned to liquid, creating ten Liquid Clones that scattered in different directions.

The giant ladybug flapped its wings, spitting out multiple globs of the unknown substance that chased after several of Su Ze’s clones.

It even personally pursued one of Su Ze’s Liquid Clones.

One by one, Su Ze’s clones were destroyed by the pursuing substance, making him curse furiously in his mind.

’I’ve been tricked! This isn’t a goddamn trial, it’s a suicide mission!’

’What Butterfly Stage cultivator could possibly pass a trial like this?’

In the end, Su Ze’s last Liquid Clone was swatted to death by one of the giant ladybug’s claws.

...

SPLASH!

Su Ze snapped awake, like a drowning man breaking the surface.

’Didn’t I just die?’

He felt his body. His limbs were intact, his stamina was full, and his evolutionary power hadn’t been consumed. Most importantly, the Regeneration Core in his brain was still there; it hadn’t been detonated.

’So all of that was just an illusion!’

Su Ze understood.

He finally had the presence of mind to look around. He was back where he had started: the forest, the stream...

He quickly looked back, but he didn’t see the giant ladybug.

Su Ze silently breathed a sigh of relief. ’As long as they don’t make me do it all over again, I’m good.’

But then, a ghostly, humanoid illusion appeared where the giant ladybug had been.

’What’s this? A ghost?’

BUZZ...

Su Ze suddenly staggered, his ears ringing incessantly. He was under a spiritual attack from the ghostly figure.

A Saint-level spiritual attack!

He hurriedly used his "Unyielding Will" skill and charged forward, throwing a punch at the figure, only to hit empty air. He hadn’t touched a thing.

The ghostly figure had no physical body, which didn’t surprise Su Ze. He then zapped it with electricity, but even at maximum current, he couldn’t affect the figure at all.

Instead, the ghostly figure continued its relentless spiritual attacks on Su Ze, each wave stronger than the last.

Even though Su Ze’s Spiritual Power had undergone a transformation, and even with his divine Spiritual Defense skill, "Unyielding Will," he was struggling to hold on after a few waves.

Su Ze tried all his skills on the ghostly figure, only to find that none of them could hit it.

"Playing dirty, are we? You’re something else, I’ll give you that."

Su Ze gave up struggling.

He guessed that only spiritual attacks could probably harm this ghostly figure.

And since he had no spiritual attack skills, he was destined to fail this challenge.

Having already experienced being killed by the ladybug, Su Ze wasn’t panicking this time. This was most likely another illusion.

’Since I can’t fight it, I’ll just have to endure it.’

Two or three minutes later, Su Ze had an immersive experience of dying from a spiritual attack. It wasn’t very pleasant.

But it wasn’t over. Next, Su Ze experienced a variety of different deaths: being burned by fire, dying from a cursed illness, being crushed by a heavy object...

The scenes weren’t limited to the small forest, either; he even unlocked several other small maps.

In every stage, Su Ze could guess the general key to overcoming the challenge. For instance, one required powerful long-range attacks, while another needed a purification or healing ability.

But Su Ze didn’t have any of the corresponding skills, so he could only be killed again and again.

’So the fourth round’s test is just to have the Trialists experience a hundred ways to die?’

Su Ze silently cursed the eighteen generations of ancestors of the person who designed this round of the trial. Although his body was still in peak condition, completely unharmed, he had already suffered immense psychological blows and trauma.

If the reward for this round wasn’t generous enough, he feared it wouldn’t be enough to heal his psychological trauma.

This time, after "dying" and waking up again, Su Ze found himself in an extremely cramped space. On all six sides—top, bottom, left, right, front, and back—were flat walls.

At that moment, the front and back walls were steadily drawing closer, about to close in.

At this rate, Su Ze would be crushed into a meat patty.

He couldn’t tell what the walls were made of, but Su Ze guessed they were definitely very hard.

’So the key to breaking out this time is to break through the walls?’

Su Ze’s spirits lifted. He’d finally encountered something he was good at!

Brute force works wonders.

Activating "Ant Power," Su Ze slammed a fist into the wall, and sure enough, he created a fist-sized dent.

He followed up with a "Needle Strike," blasting a hole in the wall.

"Furious Waves" sent cracks spreading across all the surrounding walls.

Su Ze rolled up his sleeves and started smashing the wall. In less than a minute, he broke through and successfully escaped.

He hadn’t died this time!

Su Ze vaguely understood something. This round of the trial seemed to be a series of tests.

Testing the types of skills he possessed...

Testing the strength of his various skills...

Testing what kind of specialist evolver he was...

And after Su Ze broke through that wall, the scene around him blurred and faded away. He found himself standing in an empty field.

’Is this another new illusion?’

Su Ze’s gaze paused. He saw that the other Trialists had also appeared here. Some had vacant eyes, their expressions constantly shifting between fear and ferocity, as if they were trapped in a nightmare.

Others, like him, were looking around in a daze.