Endless Ascension
Episode 8 – Day One of the Gauntlet
The sun over World-Zero never moves.
There's no dawn here, no night — just the constant, heavy light of a dying star. But I can feel the shift in the air. The seven days have begun.
The System confirms it.
[Survival Gauntlet: Day One]
[Objective: Survive all incoming assaults until Day Two]
[Arena Protections: Disabled]
The gates around me rumble, not in sequence but all at once. Every one of them.
This won't be waves.
This will be war.
⸻
The First Rush – Blooded Iron
They're the first through — humanoid soldiers in crimson power armor, their weapons hybrid tech: half rifle, half axe. Their footsteps shake the sand as they move in formation.
They don't roar. They don't taunt. They open fire instantly, a storm of plasma bolts lighting the air.
I split both stars into ten spectral copies and hurl them wide. The Death Spiral upgrade curves each copy into the weakest points in their armor. The first three soldiers drop before they even realize they're being flanked by my weapons.
The rest charge. I weave through their swings, stars igniting on impact, turning red armor into molten slag. The last soldier goes down with a blade in his chest and a detonation that sends smoke billowing upward.
[Level Up] → 86 → 91] (+5 levels)
*[Skill Unlocked] → Adaptive Pierce: Stars automatically adjust angle to penetrate armor plating.]
The Second Assault – Bonefire Clan
I barely catch my breath before the sand turns black. Out of it crawl the Bonefire Clan — skeletal raiders with flames flickering in their ribcages, each wielding curved bone sabers.
They move in erratic, twitching bursts, the flames inside them making their movements unpredictable.
One lunges — I hurl a star into his chest cavity. The rune detonates, scattering flaming bones across the arena. Two more leap from opposite sides; my second star splits into copies mid-air, burning through their skulls in synchronized explosions.
They keep coming, climbing over the corpses of their own. I use the new Adaptive Pierce, driving my stars through skull after skull, detonating faster than I ever have.
The last Bonefire warrior rushes me in a frenzy, blade swinging wildly. I sidestep, press a star to his spine, and ignite.
[Level Up] → 91 → 96] (+5 levels)
*[Weapon Upgrade] → Tier 11 Visual Mod – Rune Afterimage: Spectral copies leave a damaging trail of energy as they fly.]
Now my attacks don't just kill — they scar the air.
The Third Surge – Terrors from the Deep
A gate to my left bursts open and seawater floods the arena floor, dragging with it massive shapes. Leviathan Spawn — scaled monstrosities with triple-jawed maws and tentacles tipped with serrated bone.
The water slows me, but Aqua Pierce kicks in. I fling my stars — they split, copies cutting through the water like it's air. The first Leviathan Spawn loses an eye in the opening hit. I recall the stars silently, split them again, and detonate against its throat.
Another spawn wraps a tentacle around my leg and yanks me under. My vision goes dark — but my arm still moves. Both stars fire point-blank into its chest. The blast turns the water into a boiling cloud of gore.
I break the surface, gasping, just in time to catch the last spawn mid-lunge. Its head vanishes in a flash of white-gold light.
[Level Up] → 96 → 101] (+5 levels)
*[Skill Unlocked] → Tidebreaker: Damage doubled against aquatic enemies and in submerged combat.]
The Fourth Push – Skyfang Mercenaries
The air splits with the roar of jet engines. From above, armored flyers dive into the arena — the Skyfang Mercenaries, jetpack-equipped killers wielding electrified lances.
They strike from all angles, forcing me to keep moving. My stars split into a storm of spectral blades, the Rune Afterimage trailing light so bright it blinds them mid-dive.
One catches a copy through the visor; the detonation sends him spinning into the wall. Another tries to impale me from above, but I step aside and carve his jetpack open, sending him crashing into the sand in flames.
The rest die in a mid-air ballet of curved throws, detonations, and blinding trails of light that leave their charred bodies raining down around me.
[Level Up] → 101 → 106] (+5 levels)
*[Weapon Upgrade] → Tier 12 Visual Mod – Celestial Surge: Detonations briefly slow enemies within range by 50%.]
Now every blast isn't just deadly — it's tactical.
The Fifth and Last for the Day – The Shardborn
The final gate for Day One opens, and silence falls.
They walk out slowly — eight of them, each nearly my size, bodies covered in crystalline armor that refracts the light into rainbows. Their weapons are shards of the same crystal, shaped into massive cleavers.
The System warns me.
[High-Resilience Enemies Detected]
They're slow, but their defense is insane. My first throws barely scratch them.
So I adapt.
I circle wide, keeping my distance, splitting the stars over and over, letting the Rune Afterimage burn their armor down bit by bit. It's like carving stone — slow, deliberate. Every detonation chips away more crystal until their glowing flesh is exposed.
One by one, they fall. Each death is marked by an eruption of shattered shards that clatter across the sand like glass rain.
When the last Shardborn dies, the arena floor looks like a battlefield made of broken mirrors.
[Level Up] → 106 → 111] (+5 levels)
*[Skill Unlocked] → Prism Rend: Attacks against crystalline enemies bypass 75% of defense.]
⸻
The End of Day One
The System's voice is final.
[Survival Gauntlet: Day One Complete]
[Rest Period: 2 Hours]
The gates seal. The blood, the water, and the shards fade into nothing as the arena resets itself.
I stand in the center, God-Tier stars glowing faintly in my hands. My arms ache. My breathing is ragged. But my level counter doesn't lie.
Level 111.
Five fights. Twenty-five levels. And six days left.
The higher worlds thought this would break me.
They're wrong.
This is just the warm-up.