"Savage. Savage."
Tony's eyes gleamed with a dangerous excitement as he wiped the blood mist from his face. The weight of the two-handed greatsword in his hands felt like an extension of his own body—pure, raw power channeled into a weapon built to tear through anything in his path. This sword wasn't just suitable for him—it was perfect. With it, every ounce of his monstrous strength found purpose.
The two surviving minotaurs roared, their blood-red eyes burning with primal fury. Their fallen comrade didn't faze them in the slightest. If anything, it made their attacks even more vicious. Bone clubs swung with bone-shattering force, aimed squarely at Tony's head.
But this time, Tony didn't meet their blows with a killing strike. Instead, he stepped back fluidly, boots crunching through the frozen earth, retreating several meters before driving the massive greatsword into the ground. The blade stuck there like a steel monolith as he raised his empty hands, ready to meet their attacks bare-fisted.
The first club came down like a hammer, the second sweeping horizontally with enough force to flatten a horse. Tony simply raised an arm, blocked, and twisted his body with effortless precision. Each strike landed, but they were nothing more than bruises, shallow cuts—his terrifyingly resilient body shrugged them off. With his Innate Divinity, his physical defenses were almost inhuman. Unless they managed a critical hit to a vital spot, these two beasts couldn't even dream of killing him.
Moments later, Tony's grin sharpened. His hand gripped the greatsword's hilt again. "Enough playing."
With a roar of steel and strength, he ripped the blade free, spun, and unleashed a devastating horizontal sweep. The sheer force cleaved through both minotaurs at the waist, their massive bodies hitting the ground in gruesome halves, blood steaming in the freezing air.
"These minotaurs…" Tony said as he shook gore from his blade, his tone calm and analytical. Their Spirit stat is low. Strength around seventy, Agility a bit over sixty. Constitution tops out in the eighties."
Beside him, Yuqing scribbled down every word.
"Those numbers are insane," she whispered in awe. "Other than Spirit, those stats are on par with the Blood War Fortress bandit boss we fought before."
Tony nodded. "Yeah. This dungeon's on a completely different level than the trial instances. Ascension dungeons don't mess around."
They both knew it: these were just small fry. If trash mobs were already this strong, what kind of monster would the boss be?
"Tony…" Yuqing hesitated, her usual confidence rattled. "Do you think we can pull this off?"
He simply smirked. "Time is on our side."
For the next half hour, they roamed the icy plains. Three waves of minotaurs fell before them, the last including a towering elite warrior nearly two-point-seven meters tall. Tony dismantled them all with frightening efficiency, collecting data on the elite as he went.
"Strength over a hundred, Agility in the nineties, Constitution above one-twenty," he summarized, wiping his blade. "These things survive here because of their sheer toughness. If I didn't have a high-quality weapon, even with my strength, it would take forever to cut through them."
Yuqing swallowed nervously. "If an elite is that tanky… then the boss's Constitution must be at least one-fifty or more. Can a zero-tier Awakened even kill something like that?"
Tony glanced at her and sighed. "This dungeon was designed for a team of five. With five people, sure. Alone? We'll see."
Before entering the dungeon, Yuqing had read the forum chatter. With SSS-ranked talents dominating trial dungeons globally, people had started believing five SSS Awakened could brute-force anything. Tony's words reminded her how naïve that thinking was. Talent alone wasn't enough here—a properly balanced team was the only way to clear the high-tier content safely.
"Three waves down. The Bloodhoof Tribe should've noticed by now," Tony muttered, scanning the tundra. "From here on out, we move carefully. No unnecessary head-on fights."
An hour passed. Yuqing's stamina waned until Tony simply hoisted her under one arm like a kitten. She wanted to protest, but one look at his deadpan expression shut her up.
Any monsters they could avoid, they did. The rest, Tony slaughtered with clinical precision. All the while, the dungeon's unique mechanic boosted his stats steadily as time ticked on. Nearly two hours later, he glanced at his updated sheet:
[Strength: 215 | Agility: 212 | Constitution: 216 | Spirit: 213]
[Skills: Sword Mastery Lv3, Phantom Step Lv3]
Tony grinned faintly. "That's enough."
From a small hill, the Bloodhoof encampment stretched out below them, crude huts and bonfires dotting the frozen ground. The stench of beastmen carried on the icy wind.
"You're going to attack now?" Yuqing asked, her heart hammering. She understood his earlier tactics—thinning the herd made sense. But facing the whole tribe at once? That was madness.
"Shame I couldn't lure their boss out," Tony said, rolling his shoulders. Then he glanced at her, calm and cold as winter steel. "Hide. I'll handle this."
Greatsword on his shoulder, Tony strode openly toward the tribe, making no effort to conceal his presence.
The moment the beastmen saw him, a chorus of enraged roars echoed across the camp. Dozens of minotaurs stormed out in a tide of muscle and fury, the ground trembling beneath their hooves.
"Good," Tony murmured, eyes blazing.
He charged, meeting the first wave head-on. Steel flashed in a devastating arc. Three minotaurs fell in halves, blood spraying the snow. Another lunged; Tony thrust straight through its chest, skewering it along with three more behind it like some macabre meat skewer before flinging the corpses aside.
Seven fell in seconds. Another elite roared, swinging a massive club. Tony spun and cleaved it clean in two, his movements a dance of death.
Watching from her hiding spot, Yuqing could barely breathe. The last time she'd seen Tony like this was in the Shogunate Rebellion dungeon, where he'd torn through rebels as if they were made of paper. This was the same scene, history repeating itself.
Then it came: a deafening roar, deeper and more furious than the rest. The beastmen parted as a towering figure emerged—a monster of a minotaur, nearly three and a half meters tall, a mountain of muscle clad in furs, gripping a massive battle-axe in one hand. White mist snorted from its nostrils as it glared at Tony with burning hatred.
"That's gotta be the boss," Tony muttered, shifting his grip on his greatsword.
No words were exchanged. There was no need. They were predators sizing each other up, and only one would leave alive.
The boss—Ruun, chieftain of the Bloodhoof Tribe—swung first, his colossal axe tearing the air with a howl.
CLANG! Steel met steel in a bone-rattling collision, Tony's blade intercepting the strike effortlessly. Sparks flew as the force rippled through the ground, but Tony held firm, then shoved the boss back with brute strength.
Their clash sent lesser minotaurs flying. Tony studied his opponent even as they fought.
"Strength one-thirty, Agility a hundred-ten, Spirit barely sixty… Constitution at least one-sixth. Weapon's fine-tier like mine." His eyes narrowed, calculating. "Tough bastard."
Even with his monstrous stats, his blade met resistance, slicing into Ruun's shoulder. Unlike the others, this wasn't cutting tofu—this was carving into solid oak. Twenty centimeters deep, but not enough to bisect him. The boss had a defensive skill or talent layered on top of his raw stats.
None of it mattered.
"Die."
Tony's voice was a low growl as he pressed the attack, ignoring lesser blows bouncing off his armor-like flesh. Every strike of his greatsword carved deeper into Ruun. The chieftain roared in rage, but desperation seeped into every swing.
Minutes later, with one final, brutal slash, Tony's blade took Ruun's head clean off. The massive body crashed to the ground with an earthshaking thud.
The battlefield fell silent except for the sound of blood sizzling on snow. Then, like sweet music, the system notification chimed in his ear.