The massive armored beast thundered down the broad stone avenue, its heavy hooves smashing through pavement tiles and flattening street signposts.
Dust, shattered glass, and broken pieces of wooden stalls flew into the air behind it. People screamed hysterically as they scrambled over barricades and dived into storefront doorways to avoid the oncoming creature.
In the middle of the crowded intersection, a small five-year-old girl tripped over a fallen bicycle. She hit the hard pavement, dropping her stuffed bear, and burst into terrified tears.
"Mia!" her mother shrieked from thirty feet away, trapped behind a pile of collapsed market tables.
The mother tried desperately to push through the debris, but her legs gave out from sheer panic. She could only watch in absolute horror as the massive bull charged directly toward her daughter.
The creature’s massive gray head dropped low, its razor-sharp crimson horns aimed straight at the small child.
Around the plaza, fleeing pedestrians turned their heads toward the scene. Time seemed to slow down to a grueling crawl.
The heavy stomps of the beast echoed like thunderclaps off the stone facades.
Dozens of people closed their eyes or turned away, shaking their heads in helplessness, unwilling to watch the grim, bloody outcome that seemed completely unavoidable.
No ordinary human could run fast enough to pull the child away. No Host in the immediate crowd was close enough to intervene.
The massive beast was barely ten feet away from the crying child, its dark green saliva dripping onto the stone tiles.
SHOOO!
A sharp, high-pitched whistle sliced through the frantic air.
A single dark iron bolt flew across thirty meters with terrifying velocity, tracing a perfectly straight line through the dusty air.
Before anyone could process the sound, the arrow struck the giant bull directly in its left eye socket, sinking deep into its brain with a sickening crunch.
The massive beast instantly lost all momentum. Its legs buckled under its heavy weight, and its front knees smashed hard into the stone pavement just three feet away from the young girl.
BANG!
The bull slid along the ground, coming to a complete halt mere inches from the terrified child’s feet. Blood poured out from its eye socket, staining the pavement, but the giant monster did not move an inch.
It was dead before its body even hit the ground.
Silence fell over the crowd for a fraction of a second before the mother rushed forward, sobbing uncontrollably as she pulled her daughter into her arms and ran toward safety.
Oscar stood on top of a low stone wall near the edge of a two-story building, his hands holding the Ironbite Crossbow in a relaxed grip.
He lowered the weapon slightly, his cold eyes scanning the dying beast.
A bright blue system notification flashed right in front of his vision.
[Ordinary Iron-Horned Bull Killed!]
[Experience Points Gained: +50 EXP]
Oscar stared at the notification in genuine surprise.
’Damn,’ he thought, his lips curling into a subtle smile. ’Sure enough, ordinary monsters inside a wild, unmanaged dungeon give way more experience points than those in government-regulated dungeons.’
In the Goblin’s Lounge, killing low-level monsters granted bare minimum experience, forcing raiders to grind endlessly for hours just to gain a single level.
Here, a single monster gave fifty whole points.
ROAAAAAR!
Another pair of terrifying roars echoed from the center of the crimson portal. Two more Iron-Horned Bulls burst out of the blood-red light pillar, their eyes burning with mindless rage as they began charging down the main avenue.
Right behind them, three more dark silhouettes emerged from the portal.
It was the first wave of the dungeon outbreak. Judging by the ranks and physical parameters of these monsters, this wild portal was an Iron-Ranked difficulty dungeon.
Oscar did not wait for the monsters to close the distance. He immediately took a step back, jumping down from the stone wall and retreating several meters to maintain a safe distance from the central outbreak zone.
His primary combat trait was Aimbot, and his maximum auto-lock detection range was thirty meters based on his twelve Intelligence stat.
Staying at the thirty-meter threshold was his optimal firing position.
Sliding another iron bolt into the groove of his crossbow, Oscar raised his weapon and initiated his hunt.
SHOOO!
SHOOO!
SHOOO!
A continuous rhythm of sharp, whistling sounds echoed across the boulevard. Black iron bolts flew through the air like guided missiles, cutting through the chaos with absolute precision.
The fleeing pedestrians and shopkeepers watched in complete fascination from behind barricades and windows as a rain of deadly arrows descended upon the invading monsters.
At first, many of the hiding citizens were terrified that the unseen archer might miss his shots. In chaotic urban outbreaks, accidental friendly fire from frantic Hosts was a common occurrence, often causing severe injuries to innocent bystanders.
People held their breath every time an arrow whistled through the air.
However, their fear quickly turned into awe. Whoever this hidden archer was, he was an absolute professional.
Every single arrow found its mark without a millimeter of error. Right eye socket, throat joint, heart core.
Every sharp whistling sound was immediately followed by the heavy, dull thud of a massive Iron-Horned Bull collapsing dead onto the cold pavement.
Not a single arrow missed, and not a single bolt strayed near a civilian.
While the surrounding crowd marveled at the mysterious pro archer, Oscar was actually grinning ear to ear behind his high collar.
[Ordinary Iron-Horned Bull Killed! +50 EXP]
[Ordinary Iron-Horned Bull Killed! +50 EXP]
. . . .
[Ordinary Iron-Horned Bull Killed! +50 EXP]
[Level Up! You have reached Level 6.]
[Level Up! You have reached Level 7.]
System notifications poured across his vision like a rushing waterfall. The sheer density of monsters entering his thirty-meter Aimbot zone made farming experience ridiculously easy.
He did not even need to aim at their movement patterns. He simply pulled the trigger, reloaded, and pulled the trigger again.
As the initial shock of the sudden dungeon eruption began to fade, other Hosts trapped in the area finally managed to adjust to the situation.
Local police officers with basic combat systems, off-duty guards, and private security Hosts formed defensive lines near the storefronts, pulling out shields and longswords to hold back the remaining monsters.
With the combined effort of the local Hosts holding the frontline and Oscar systematically sniping every beast that stepped into his range, everything seemed to be coming under total control.
The monster density began to drop, and the crowd started breathing a collective sigh of relief.
[Level Up! You have reached Level 10.]
[Condition Met: Level 10 Reached!]
[Class Selection Function Unlocked.]
Oscar stepped onto the raised balcony of a flower shop, reloading his crossbow as he read the system prompt.
He had finally hit Level 10.
According to the database he read earlier, reaching Level 10 allowed a Host to pick one of the six standard base classes: Mage, Assassin, Fighter, Defender, Support, or Marksman.
However, before he could select the Marksman branch, his system interface glitched slightly, flickering with dark golden light as a second series of notifications expanded across his eyes.
[Analyzing Host’s Performance and Trait Compatibility...]
[0 Missed Shots. 100% Critical Strike Ratio. Absolute Precision Performance Detected.]
[Hidden Requirement Completed: Unique Class Available!]
[Class Name: One Shot King]
[Unlock Requirement: Kill 10 Feral-tier monsters in one shot without taking damage.]
Oscar paused, his brow furrowing as he read the requirement.
’One Shot King?’ Oscar thought, his eyes scanning the details. ’A Unique Class?’
[Unique classes are a one in a billion occurrence. Not only will there be no one else with your class, but every unique class starts with a class skill at one star. For ordinary classes, class skills only awaken at two stars.]
’That’s good!’ Oscar’s jaw dropped. But the conditions to unlock the class...
He knew from his research earlier that Feral-tier monsters did not spawn in Iron-Ranked dungeons.
Ferals were significantly stronger, faster, and more aggressive variants that only appeared inside dungeons of Bronze-Ranked difficulty and above.
Before he could process the thought any further, a blood-curdling scream echoed from the main avenue near the crimson portal.
"Fuck! Run! There are Ferals!" a male Host screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice filled with pure panic.
SPLAAT!
The male Host was instantly cut off as a massive, dark claw tore through his chest plate, ripping his torso apart in a single brutal motion.
The crimson pillar of light in the center of the plaza violently expanded, turning from murky red to a dark, swirling orange color.
The ground shook with double the force as a massive creature stepped out from the portal.
It was a towering eight-foot-tall humanoid beast with bulging, blood-red muscles, digitigrade bull legs, massive claws, and a terrifying bull head with four twisted horns.
Dark purple veins pulsed across its skin, emitting a heavy, suffocating aura of pure violence.
It roared, smashing its massive fists into the ground, causing the pavement to shatter into flying stone shrapnel.