Chapter 539: Shield Parry!
But seeing Chen Mo smiling without saying a word, everyone already understood—this was absolutely not some mindless hack-and-slash game. It was clearly a high-difficulty, player-torturing game!
Everyone was baffled. Why would Chen Mo, instead of making a crowd-pleasing hack-and-slash game, create something like this just to annoy everyone?
Sure, Chen Mo had previously made works like "Getting Over It" that were basically black marks on his record, but that was just an April Fools' joke to mess with people. "Dark Souls," on the other hand, was built using the Pangu System. With such a huge investment, if he really drove all the players away, wouldn't this game lose money until it died?
Even Qiu Hengyang wasn't entirely sure what Chen Mo's purpose was here.
There were plenty of ways to showcase the Pangu physics engine—why did he have to use the players' fragile bodies to demonstrate it...
No one knew what to do. Should they keep playing this game or not?
After all, it was made with the Pangu System. The content was so rich, the features so distinct—it seemed a shame not to play it. But at the same time, it was impossible to actually play! It was pure masochism!
The boss took down a player in three hits—how the hell were you supposed to fight that?
Just then, Zou Zhu suddenly burst out of the elevator, rushing into the lobby while shouting, "I did it! I did it!"
He had the triumphant air of Fan Jin passing the imperial exam...
Everyone else looked bewildered. "Did what? Pass the CET-4 or CET-6?"
Zou Zhu's face darkened. "What CET-4 or CET-6? I beat Gundyr!"
Everyone was shocked and incredulous. "Huh? Really? How did you do it?"
"You managed to beat such a brutal boss? Did you exploit a bug?"
"Is there some easy strategy? What class did you pick?"
As soon as they heard someone had beaten Gundyr, everyone crowded around curiously. After all, when they had all challenged Gundyr earlier, they had been utterly crushed, tossed around like a punching bag, getting wrecked left and right...
This boss seemed completely unbeatable—how the hell were you supposed to get past it?
Zou Zhu said excitedly, "At first, I also thought this boss was way too hard, with no possibility of winning. But then I thought again—the store owner wouldn't design a boss that was completely impossible to beat, right? How could he make such a basic mistake?"
"So I went back and carefully reviewed all the control instructions again, and I found out you can use shield parry to fight this boss. If you parry his attacks with your shield, you take no damage at all, and his movements get a big opening, letting you go all out on offense."
"Plus, the store owner clearly left plenty of gaps in the boss's attack patterns. If you can just get a good grasp of his attack rhythm, you can slowly wear him down!"
After hearing Zou Zhu's explanation, everyone suddenly understood.
"So that's how it is. Looks like we were fighting him wrong?"
"There's a fancy move like parry? I'll go try it!"
"What comes after beating this boss?"
Zou Zhu scratched his head. "Uh, I haven't looked too far ahead yet. I was so happy after beating the boss that I couldn't wait to run down here."
"Hey, let's go, let's go. Let's try fighting him again. Looks like we were doing it wrong earlier. Let's give it another shot."
Everyone headed back to the VR experience area.
Originally, after they had left the VR pods, other players had taken them over. But soon, a new batch of players quit from the torture, so these guys found pods and jumped back in...
The new wave of players once again raised "reasonable doubts" about the game's difficulty, but more and more players were also passing the trial of the Ashen Judge Gundyr...
Thanks to the enthusiastic explanations from those who had cleared the boss, other players gradually understood that the game's difficulty settings weren't actually flawed—in other words, it was deliberately set this hard...
Different players had different strategies. Some used shield parry, some used rolling, and some got through by some mysterious door-clipping trick, somehow beating it without knowing how.
Those who had endured the torture and cleared the boss felt a strange sense of pride. After all, being able to overcome such a difficult boss proved that they were truly one-in-a-million martial arts prodigies!
And those who hadn't cleared it yet charged at Gundyr over and over, determined to prove they weren't any worse than others.
Of course, there were also plenty who were helplessly driven away...
But overall, the players at the experience store were all hardcore fans of Chen Mo. After accepting this premise, they felt like this game was actually quite unique—completely different from those flashy, shallow games out there.
At the very least, in this game, they could experience a long-lost sense of heart-pounding tension...
With mixed feelings, Qiu Hengyang once again embarked on his journey to challenge Gundyr.
After hearing Zou Zhu's tips, Qiu Hengyang decided to try fighting Gundyr with shield parry this time!
"So the key to beating the boss was in the hints on the ground all along. I just didn't bother to pay attention."
Old Qiu felt a bit of self-blame. As a designer, missing such obvious hints in the game was practically a rookie mistake!
He passed through the white mist gate again.
Qiu Hengyang raised his shield and charged at the towering Gundyr. The moment he saw Gundyr swing his long blade, a flash of insight struck: "Now! Shield counter!"
Qiu Hengyang swung his shield fiercely, only to watch Gundyr's greatsword and his shield miss each other perfectly...
Then he flew backward like a punching bag...
"What the hell? I didn't parry it?"
Indeed, just as the blade was about to hit him, Qiu Hengyang realized his shield-raising motion was slightly too slow. Gundyr's greatsword came swinging right over the top of his shield.
Qiu Hengyang quickly rolled to his feet, raised his shield again to face Gundyr, and tried a second parry.
This time, Gundyr's swing was very obvious. Qiu Hengyang focused intensely. *Thud!* The parry succeeded!
"Success!"
Qiu Hengyang quickly stepped forward, his long sword piercing straight through the armor on Gundyr's chest!
"Awesome! So satisfying!"
Qiu Hengyang was practically about to shout with joy. After being wrecked by Gundyr several times, landing a hit like this felt absolutely incredible.
And it was at this moment that Qiu Hengyang truly felt the brilliance of the physics engine. His shield and Gundyr's greatsword had collided realistically. The timing of the parry affected the outcome—even a successful parry resulted in slightly different stagger durations for the boss.
Moreover, when the long sword stabbed into Gundyr's body, Qiu Hengyang could feel the difference in impact.
During the riposte, the sword automatically targeted the weakest point on the enemy in the direction the player was attacking, usually going for gaps in the armor. So this thrust was clean and precise, dealing massive damage.
Qiu Hengyang felt like laughing out loud. "I knew it. This boss isn't as tough as I thought. Chen Mo left a surefire way to win all along. If I parry every one of his swings, then this boss is just a pushover!"
Armed with this new technique, Qiu Hengyang felt his combat prowess skyrocket.
Genius remembers this site's address in one second: