[Ascension Dungeon: Beastmen's Uprising (Part I)]
[Tier: Zero]
[Difficulty: Normal]
[Objective: Eliminate the Bloodhoof Tribe Chieftain, Ruun.]
[Lore: On the continent of Saine, a devastating war for dominion between the Human Empire and the Elven Empire has finally ended. Both nations, battered and broken, retreat to lick their wounds, preparing in silence for the inevitable next clash. As their eyes remain locked on each other, neither notices the frozen wastelands of the North. In that harsh, forgotten land, a coalition of beastmen tribes rises, forging an empire in the cold, their war drums echoing the dawn of a new age.]
HighQiang whistled low as the system prompt faded from their vision. "Damn, now this feels epic. Like we just got dropped into the prologue of some high-fantasy saga."
"Yeah," Yu Bowen said, eyes shining. "An Ascension Dungeon lives up to the hype. This one already feels ten leagues above the trial runs."
Yuqing's brow furrowed slightly as she read the dungeon's title again. "Beastmen's Uprising… Part I. That means there's at least a Part II, maybe even a III. If what we do here carries over, we might end up making future parts way harder."
At that, everyone's gaze shifted to Tony.
The others might never get another ticket into these higher-tier dungeons, but Tony? If anyone was going to run the whole chain of Ascension Dungeons, it was him.
Tony met their eyes, his expression unreadable, then shrugged casually. "Doesn't matter. Whatever comes later, I'll deal with it. When the time comes, we'll crush it."
The tension broke slightly, and Yuqing exhaled. Still, her analytical mind didn't stop. "Based on the name Bloodhoof Tribe, my guess? Minotaurs. In most Western fantasy games and novels, tribes with names like that usually mean minotaurs, and minotaurs are rarely pushovers. They're often the front-line muscle of beastman armies."
There was no extra intel on the forum to help them this time. They were probably the first team on the entire planet stepping into this dungeon.
Before they could discuss further, the one-minute preparation timer hit zero. The world blinked, and they found themselves standing in a bleak, icy tundra. Endless stretches of frozen wasteland replaced the horizon, not a speck of green in sight.
"Holy hell, it's freezing!" HighQiang shivered violently, pulling his collar tighter. The icy wind howled, cutting through his jacket like it wasn't even there, sinking straight into his bones.
The others weren't faring much better. Their stat boosts from crystals weren't high enough to ignore this kind of environmental debuff. None of them had expected the weather itself to be their first enemy.
"Guess we'll need to factor climate effects into future dungeon runs," Yuqing muttered through chattering teeth.
Meanwhile, Tony stood perfectly still in his thin autumn shirt, unfazed. The biting wind never even touched him, his blood energy radiating like a furnace, vaporizing the cold before it reached his skin.
He opened his stat panel for a glance.
[Name: Tony]
[Tier: Zero]
[Talent: Innate Divinity (EX)]
[Strength: 165]
[Agility: 162]
[Constitution: 166]
[Spirit: 163]
[Skills: Sword Mastery Lv1, Phantom Step Lv1]
Even Phantom Step had leveled up. His stats were absurd for zero-tier—a walking nightmare compared to any other Awakened alive.
"Let's move," he said evenly. "Zero-tier dungeons don't have massive maps. The Bloodhoof Tribe's camp can't be far."
He didn't leave the others behind to solo the boss. This dungeon had special failure conditions, and while Tony could brute force his way alone, he preferred to keep them alive if possible. They'd proven cooperative enough not to get on his nerves, and time wasn't an issue.
Ten minutes in, however, HighQiang broke. "Boss… I can't… I can't take it anymore. I think I'm gonna log out before I freeze solid." His lips were blue, his whole body shaking.
"Same," Yu Bowen gritted out. "I was ready to die in here fighting monsters, but freezing to death before we even see one? Nah, man, I can't do it."
Yan Wu nodded frantically, his teeth clattering.
Tony's gaze slid to Yuqing. "And you?"
"I…" Her voice trembled as badly as her body. "I'll… stay. I can handle it." Her jaw clenched, teeth chattering hard enough to hurt, but she didn't take the easy way out. She couldn't afford to.
Tony nodded once, approving of her grit, before turning back to the others. "I won't stop you if you want to leave. But hear me out: if you hold on a little longer, I'm confident I can get you all through this dungeon alive. Environments like this don't last forever—this is just the first hurdle. Survive this, and we'll hit monsters soon. When that happens, there's a good chance they'll have fire or gear we can use to warm up."
HighQiang hesitated, lips turning purple, but in the end, his body betrayed him. A minute later, he and the other two vanished in white light, forcibly exiting the dungeon.
Tony didn't waste time pitying them. They were lucky to have made it this far with his help. He wasn't a babysitter, and they weren't his friends. He'd already done more for them than anyone else would have.
Turning to Yuqing, he said flatly, "Let's go."
Another five minutes trudging through the tundra, and Yuqing was nearing her limit, when at last, the flicker of firelight broke the monotony of white snow. A small campfire burned ahead, three hulking silhouettes huddled around it for warmth.
The moment they noticed the intruders, the shapes rose to their full height, towering over two meters, hulking forms covered in thick pelts.
"Minotaurs," Yuqing whispered, voice trembling from both cold and tension. "From what I know, they're not usually hyper-aggressive, but this is a dungeon—they probably spawned with built-in hatred for us. Or maybe our faction is set as their mortal enemy."
The theory was confirmed instantly as the three minotaurs roared, hefting massive crude bone clubs, and charged like enraged bulls, shaking the frozen earth beneath their hooves.
Tony didn't so much as blink. A cold, lethal glint sparked in his eyes as his hand materialized a massive white greatsword, nearly as tall as Yuqing herself. The blade was thick, heavy, a brutal weapon of war that looked like it belonged on a battlefield, not in a beginner dungeon. The Fine-tier Two-Handed Greatsword he'd earned from Goblin Forest glinted menacingly under the pale light.
Most people would need both arms just to lift the fifty-kilogram weapon. Tony swung it one-handed like it was weightless.
"Stay back," he said calmly, vanishing in a flicker as Phantom Step activated.
In the next instant, his form reappeared right in front of the leading minotaur. Steel flashed like lightning. The greatsword carved through flesh and bone as if they were paper. A single fluid motion ripped from shoulder to gut to thigh, cleaving the beast in two before it even had time to roar.