Chapter 594: A Variety of Suffering
Scenes of players being tormented pieced together into a grand movie of suffering in all its forms...
Dragon Valley.
A player stumbled into it, running around in a panic, chased and brutally beaten by a group of dragons, his head nearly smashed to pulp.
Suddenly, he spotted a massive dragon lying dead ahead, and between its claws were two items glowing with white light.
The player happily ran over and picked up the items, but just then, the dragon’s corpse suddenly moved!
The enormous dragon head whipped around, and the player’s health bar was instantly emptied!
“Holy crap, what the hell?! Wasn’t this supposed to be a dead dragon? Monsters can play dead now?!”
Watchtower.
A player was cheerfully heading downward when, suddenly, a heavily armored brute appeared below.
“Whoa, isn’t that Havel?!”
The player was stunned. Having played *Dark Souls*, he clearly recognized Havel, who was carrying that iconic great dragon tooth on his shoulder.
Havel charged straight at the player, raised the great dragon tooth with both hands, and slammed it into the ground!
Player, dead.
In the moment of death, the player saw the scene from a god’s-eye view: Havel’s great dragon tooth came down from above, crushing the lightly armored player’s entire body, twisting it in a completely unscientific way...
Under the Pangu Engine’s rendering, the impact looked incredibly realistic, making the player’s teeth ache, as if he could hear the sound of every bone shattering...
“Damn it, why is Havel in the watchtower?? Aren’t you supposed to be a late-game monster?!” the player said, utterly bewildered.
Ceiling of the Royal City.
A player was walking cautiously.
Having barely survived the Royal City’s twin archers, he was now terrified of heights.
Enduring the endless domination of the Royal City’s archers in *Dark Souls* was bad enough, but in the prequel, he still couldn’t escape being shot to death...
The ceiling of the hall was extremely narrow, with only a thin pillar, like a single-plank bridge. The drop from the ceiling to the ground was immense, and falling meant certain death.
But just as he was carefully moving forward, a painter girl suddenly rushed over and started slashing at him wildly! Then both of them fell, dying together...
The player was utterly crushed, because in first-person view, being knocked off felt like experiencing a real high-altitude fall, even making his legs feel weak...
Similar levels existed in *Dark Souls*, but clearly, the prequel’s ceiling was far more despair-inducing because it was just too narrow...
Great Tree Hollow.
A player was walking cautiously with his shield raised when, suddenly, a bulky mushroom man appeared ahead.
“Huh, this mushroom monster looks so cute, doesn’t seem dangerous at all...”
But before he could finish, the mushroom raised its right fist and slammed it into him!
Under the Pangu Engine’s display, the player’s entire body flew up like a kite, crashing heavily into the nearby wall!
Then he hit the ground, and his health bar instantly emptied...
One-punch kill!
The player was shocked: “Teacher Saitama? Is that you, Teacher Saitama? I’m wearing heavy armor here!!”
At this point, they should definitely add a close-up with the words “Justice Executed”!
This was just a mushroom, looking harmless and even cute, and it one-shot him with a single punch?!
Could this punch kill a dragon outright?!
Beyond that, there were several other utterly insane scenes that made even players long accustomed to *Dark Souls* question their sanity...
For example, Blighttown, a village buried deep underground with a massive vertical span and extremely low visibility. Players had to get a special lighting item like the Sunlight Maggot to pass through.
Moreover, it was filled with unfair terrain hazards and disgusting monsters, like villagers blowing poison darts, fat guys with giant clubs that dropped dung piles, and rabid dogs that could kill you in seconds when three attacked together...
And every creature in Blighttown, from cats to dogs, was basically highly poisonous. Getting poisoned meant your health would plummet like a roller coaster. Without the Spider Shield and enough antidotes, coming here was basically waiting to die.
The worst part was that after players got through Blighttown, they had only rung the second bell—the game content was just beginning...
Then there was Sen’s Fortress with its deadly traps, giant axe pendulums, single-plank bridges, and murder elevators... Countless players nearly broke down here.
The Catacombs had the giant skeleton basketball court and rolling wheels... Players experienced the joy of being played like basketball by giant skeletons and repeatedly crushed by wheels...
The invisible path in the Crystal Cave, a long single-plank bridge that required constant use of arrows or prism stones to navigate—one wrong step meant falling to your death...
The Bed of Chaos boss fight—the hardest part wasn’t dodging the boss’s attacks, but avoiding all the random terrain hazards... The ground was full of cracks, and one misstep meant instant death.
Even the Undead Burg, a beginner area, hid endless malice.
For example, the secret meeting of 48 hollow sword masters in the hall—three could kill you, and a whole bunch appeared at once, with a bishop buffing them. Scared yet?
A seemingly ordinary path—walk down it, and suddenly three hollow villagers kick down a door, and to make it worse, two dogs charge out from the front, surrounding you from all angles...
And the most insane of all, the Dragon Bridge. Every time players crossed, the dragon would breathe fire across the entire bridge, instantly killing them. The only correct solution was to sprint immediately upon stepping onto the bridge, then, just as the fire reached your rear, turn right and jump into a bridge alcove to survive.
And the most maddening part was that in the *Dark Souls* prequel, before obtaining the Lordvessel, bonfires couldn’t be warped!
Items like Homeward Bones could only return you to the last bonfire you rested at, not directly to the Firelink Shrine.
Many players were driven to the brink of collapse by this mechanic. Just imagine how agonizing it was to run from Quelaag’s Domain or Blighttown back to Firelink Shrine, and if you died once along the way, you had to start all over again...
Of course, for skilled players, this wasn’t a big issue, but for ordinary folks, it was pure torture. So, over the same three days, players’ progress varied widely. Many experts were already taking on named bosses like Gravelord Nito and the Bed of Chaos, while most players were still being tortured to death trying to ring the two bells...
Even players who had long accepted their masochistic tendencies began to doubt themselves...
[This site’s address: Remember it for one second.]