Even if this Red-Eyed Buffalo Chief was only a level 6 elite, it was still a real Boss. At the very least, it wouldn’t be any weaker than a normal Red-Eyed Buffalo—there was no way it wouldn’t have the buffalo’s signature skill, Trample.

When its HP dropped to half, the Buffalo Chief suddenly stopped attacking and raised its front hooves, just like a normal buffalo.

All six players present, including Mysterious, had already fought Red-Eyed Buffaloes for quite a while. The moment they saw that movement, everyone reacted at once. Melodic Moon and Misty Cloud immediately stopped attacking and ran back, while Mysterious stayed where he was and kept up his DPS.

As a Boss, the Buffalo Chief’s Trample animation was much faster than a normal buffalo’s. Before the two melee players could get far, the Chief had already finished charging up.

“Thud—”

When its raised hooves slammed down, a shockwave burst out, larger and faster than the ones normal buffaloes created. And it wasn’t just power and speed—the Buffalo Chief’s shockwave also reached farther. The three ranged players, however, were far enough that they weren’t caught in it.

Mysterious naturally jumped up to dodge the shockwave. Melodic Moon and Misty Cloud hadn’t gotten out of the blast radius, but because they had pulled back a bit, they had enough time to react. They both also managed to jump in time and avoid the attack.

But once its hooves landed, the Buffalo Chief didn’t go into that brief stiff animation like a normal buffalo. It immediately raised its front hooves again and stomped down at high speed, launching a second strike.

“Careful, there’s more.” Mysterious caught it the instant the hooves came up again and shouted a warning.

Talking takes time, and the Chief’s second stomp was even faster than the first. Before Mysterious could finish his sentence, the second shockwave had already exploded out.

Melodic Moon heard Mysterious speak and then saw the Chief’s movement. She barely managed to react in time and dodged that sudden second wave. Misty Cloud wasn’t that fast. He couldn’t jump in time and took the shockwave head‑on, losing over 200 HP and turning into a streak of white light as he got kicked back to town.

And the shockwave still didn’t stop—after deleting Misty Cloud, it kept racing outward at high speed, the radius even wider than the first one. Undying Song and Silent Sword, who thought the skill was over, didn’t react at all and were wiped out on the spot… Only Dreaming Alice, whose MP hadn’t recovered and hadn’t rushed in to attack, escaped.

Their six‑man party lost half its members to the Boss’s very first skill.

“Guess trying to punch above our level against a Boss is still too much…” Seeing more than half her teammates drop in an instant, Dreaming Alice couldn’t help feeling discouraged.

Aside from Mysterious, their highest DPS were the three ranged players—two of them got one‑shotted by a single skill. Her own mana hadn’t recovered, and the Boss still had half its HP left. It was normal to feel a bit defeated.

On top of that, there was another problem: Melodic Moon’s weapon was almost out of durability.

Originally, Melodic Moon’s group had just been grinding levels here, planning to head back to town once they were about done. Then they suddenly spotted this Red-Eyed Buffalo Chief. A field Boss was already rare enough; just walking away and leaving it there felt unbearable. That was why Melodic Moon had thought of calling Mysterious over to try taking it down together.

“Don’t give up like that. There’s no death penalty anyway, so what’s there to be scared of?” Hearing Dreaming Alice’s tone, Melodic Moon frowned a little. “If we back out over something like this, then everything we said before just becomes a joke.”

As she spoke, Melodic Moon once again charged the Buffalo Chief—because it had just finished using its skill, its movements were clearly slower than before.

“Besides, Nameless One isn’t giving up yet, is he?”

Whether it was focus or luck, Melodic Moon’s first strike landed cleanly on one of the Chief’s open wounds, shaving off more than 30 HP. Purely in terms of raw attack, she was much stronger than Mysterious, who only had 6 Strength including his gear.

After that clean hit, Melodic Moon followed up with another swing, but this time she missed the wound and only dealt 1 point of forced damage.

“Sorry for wasting so much of your time… Saying we’d come fight this Boss at our level was just me being arrogant,” Melodic Moon said to Mysterious, her voice tinged with guilt.

Even if she wasn’t planning to give up, deep down Melodic Moon didn’t really believe they could actually take the Buffalo Chief down.

“It’s fine.” Mysterious’ Novice Sword slammed into the Buffalo Chief’s face as if to show he didn’t mind.

“It’s going to get dark soon. How about we grab a drink together later?” Melodic Moon thought for a moment, then sent out an invitation.

Going to a tavern or something still cost money, but since they were still in BeginnerVillage, most of the content here was about letting players experience the game. It was relatively cheap. Her invitation was partly to apologize for using up so much of Mysterious’ time, and partly because she wanted to get to know this player who had already reached level 7.

“No, I’ve got quests to do later.” Mysterious refused without even thinking—he hadn’t forgotten that his goal coming out here was to complete Village Chief Saya’s quest. This Boss was just something he picked up along the way.

“Huh? Quests, now?” Melodic Moon froze for a moment at his answer… It was already 7 a.m. in‑game, less than an hour until nightfall. Running outside to do quests at a time like this didn’t seem very wise.

But after thinking a bit, she understood. When they’d met Mysterious earlier, he’d been coming from the direction of the village, clearly on his way out. Doing quests made sense.

And with game time synced for everyone, yet Mysterious was a full 2 levels higher than them. He must have been grinding at night too. If you wanted to get ahead in levels, you couldn’t do it without putting in more hours—Melodic Moon simply chalked Mysterious’ level advantage up to night‑time grinding.

Thinking about whether her party should also push themselves and grind more at night, Melodic Moon got distracted, and her movements naturally slowed. Noticing this, Mysterious spoke up.

“Either you back off now and let me solo it.”

“Huh?” Melodic Moon blinked again at his words.

So… Nameless One really wasn’t planning to give up?

“I can handle it alone, it’s fine,” Mysterious repeated. “And when we’re done, just log off and get some sleep. Pulling all‑nighters is how you get yourself killed.”

Melodic Moon: “…”

He wasn’t wrong. From yesterday noon until now, it had been nearly 20 hours. Gaming burned a bit less energy than real‑life activity, but EndlessHorizon was a full‑dive VR game; it was still mentally exhausting. For a normal person, this was about the limit.

Without waiting for her response, Mysterious kited the Buffalo Chief a good distance away.

Before, he’d been circling the Buffalo Chief because he had to watch Melodic Moon and Misty Cloud’s DPS positions, and couldn’t drag the Boss around too much.

Once he pulled the Chief away from Melodic Moon, his DPS environment instantly opened up. At the Boss’s front, he’d had to worry about getting hit and making sure his sword didn’t clash head‑on with the buffalo’s charge. It had been awful for dealing damage… Now he didn’t have to worry about any of that.

He dropped his stance to slip under the Chief’s attack, then immediately moved around to its back, slashing across its knee as he passed.

The Buffalo Chief stumbled hard from the strike to its knee and nearly fell. Before it could steady itself, Mysterious’ blade had already bitten into one of the wounds on its back.

The furious Red-Eyed Buffalo Chief whipped around, ready to teach this pesky little bug a painful lesson. But as it turned, Mysterious darted into the arc of its rotation and let his Novice Sword carve another line across its body.

By the time the Chief finished turning to where he’d originally been, Mysterious had already appeared on its other flank.

Man and buffalo tangled together like no one else existed. But despite how it looked, the “tangle” was completely one‑sided—Mysterious was just styling on it. The Chief’s counterattacks were fierce, yet not a single one could touch him.

Since he was constantly aiming for the existing wounds, his damage kept ramping up. On top of that, his attack rhythm was extremely fast. Situations where Melodic Moon and Dreaming Alice saw absolutely no opening, Mysterious would still find a gap to slip in a strike—and that strike would land precisely on an old wound.

The Buffalo Chief’s HP plummeted, dropping even faster than when all six of them had been fighting together.

“Yuyang, are you sure you just bumped into him and didn’t go recruit some hidden master?” Dreaming Alice stared at the figure hopping around the Buffalo Chief and couldn’t help asking.

“Of course… Where would I even meet someone that strong?” Melodic Moon shook her head, her red hair swaying with the motion. “Feels like we’re just getting in his way instead…”

“Yeah, you really didn’t have to say that out loud…”

In front of this Superbeing called Mysterious, a level 6 Red-Eyed Buffalo Chief couldn’t even make a ripple. When its HP dropped to 10%, it unleashed a second Trample, but that still wasn’t enough to change anything. In the end, it could only fall under Mysterious’ blade, full of unwilling rage.

In EndlessHorizon, lots of “firsts” came with special rewards: first clears, first Boss kills, things like that. They gave bonus drop rates and extra rewards.

The instant the Red-Eyed Buffalo Chief fell, all six players in the party—including the three who had died—got a system prompt.

[Your party has successfully slain the Red-Eyed Buffalo Chief. You have obtained the title “Red-Eyed Buffalo Slayer (Damage dealt to Red-Eyed Buffalo increased by 10%)”.]

[You are a member of the first party in the game to kill an elite‑class monster. Your heroic deed will be recorded in history. Rewards have been issued; please check your system interface.]

Just like the achievement for first death, the reward for the first elite kill was also a passive ability.

[Elite Hunter (Beginner): As the first person to defeat an elite, your courage lets you draw out greater power when facing elite‑class monsters.

Effect: When fighting elite‑class monsters, damage dealt +2%, damage taken −2% (Upgradeable).

Elite‑class monsters defeated: 0/100]

…

On their way back to the village, Melodic Moon and Dreaming Alice ran into their three teammates, all rushing over in a hurry.

“Whoa, you guys actually managed to kill that thing, how’d you—huh? Where’s Nameless One?” Silent Sword spoke first, his chatter completely at odds with his character name.

“He left after the fight,” Melodic Moon blinked and answered.

“Yuyang, what’s wrong? You not feeling well?” Undying Song looked at her pale face, worry in his voice.

“I’m fine… just a bit sleepy.” Melodic Moon shook her head to show she was okay.

“So how did you guys take that thing down?” Misty Cloud asked the key question.

The other two also looked over curiously—based on how things looked when they died, the three who were left shouldn’t have been able to win.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow. I said I’m sleepy and want to go crash.”

Melodic Moon spoke as she covered her mouth and let out a yawn.

“Then how about Alice?” Misty Cloud turned to the other one who wasn’t dead yet.

“I told you, call me Dreaming… I’m going to sleep too. I’ll talk after I wake up.” Dreaming Alice rolled her eyes at Misty Cloud, then turned to Melodic Moon. “By the way, Melodic, that guy’s so strong. Why don’t you try inviting him to our party?”

“No need. He’s that strong, there’s no way he’d team up with us,” Melodic Moon said with a shrug.

Then, as if something occurred to her, Melodic Moon pulled open her friends list, tapped a name, and sent out a private message.

Melodic Moon: God-tier, you forgot to leave the party.

Nameless One: …