"Welcome to the Paradise!"
The voice in his ears made Shen Hao snap out of it; now he was certain he had truly entered the Paradise.
The so-called "Paradise" was by no means a good place.
Thirty years ago, a game named Thriller Paradise appeared, and all people in the real world over eighteen years old had a chance to be selected by the Paradise, with a probability of one in one hundred thousand.
After being selected by the Paradise, players would be transported into thriller game instances, facing terrifying monsters, and could only return to the real world after completing game tasks.
Becoming a game player had benefits, but also risks; the attributes, special abilities, and items players obtained in the game could all be brought back to the real world.
Players could steal extraordinary power through this game and become a refined, transcendent ability user.
Yet if the task failed, they would also face the fate of death.
This game was one that people both loved and hated.
Being new to the place, Shen Hao felt somewhat flustered in his heart; he took a deep breath, striving to calm his unsettled inner self.
He was entering the Paradise for the first time, and what he was currently experiencing was a beginner instance.
The Paradise had existed for thirty years and was long a household name; all beginner instances had already been cleared by players, and detailed guides could be found online.
Nowadays, people prepared themselves at any time to enter the Paradise before turning eighteen, memorizing the guides for every beginner instance until they knew them inside out, so the mortality rate of beginner instances had become very low these days.
As long as one remained calm enough and kept a clear head, one could completely clear the instance.
First, he needed to determine what this instance was.
The appearance of beginner instances followed a rule, with every region having its corresponding Paradise instances; before entering the Paradise, he had been in Zhongzhou City, which had a total of 5 beginner instances.
Shen Hao cast his gaze around the surroundings; he was in a closed room, filthy, damp, and dim, seeming to be some sort of basement.
His brain operated at high speed; among the five beginner instances, only one mentioned a basement, and that was the [Qingshan Hospital] instance—without a doubt, this instance must be Qingshan Hospital.
Somewhat strangely, why are there no teammates? And why am I in the basement?
This was a multiplayer instance with a total of 5 people, so he should have 4 more teammates, and the starting location was also wrong; this basement should be the stronghold of the instance BOSS, and he shouldn't appear here.
Shen Hao recalled the contents of the instance.
He was once a hero who performed righteous deeds. In a fire, he dashed into the blazing inferno regardless of his own safety, snatching one child after another from the clutches of the Grim Reaper at the risk of his life. He defeated the Grim Reaper, but he also lost his life.
Seventy percent of the skin across his entire body was scorched by flames, turning him into a monstrous creature neither human nor ghost. He had received flowers and praise, but also encountered cold looks and aversion; his wife left him, his children feared a father like a monster, and his entire life was ruined in an instant.
The extreme imbalance in his heart caused his inner self to become distorted and deformed.
He degenerated from a hero into a murderer.
He was locked up in the Qingshan Psychiatric Hospital.
Yet how could a tiny hospital contain a bloodthirsty Demon; he swung his butcher's knife once again, relishing the feast of slaughter.
Now, he had turned into a monster without a heart, wandering this hospital day and night. Anyone who broke into his territory would fall beneath his axe.
This was an asymmetrical combat-style instance, requiring players to combat a murderer known as the Horse-Faced Butcher.
This murderer wore a horse-faced mask, dragging a huge axe forged from pure steel, with a very long chain still attached to the axe; his appearance was extremely terrifying.
Once upon a time, this beginner instance was everyone's nightmare, because this murderer was not human, but a monster without a heart.
He locked his heart inside a box, thereby acquiring an undying body; players could not directly slay this monster, and could only truly kill him by burning his heart with flames.
Yet after this instance welcomed its first clear, an extraordinary item within the instance was taken away, and the Horse-Faced Butcher's attributes and abilities were comprehensively weakened; now he had more restrictions, such as fearing flames, moving more slowly, and so on.
Coupled with the fact that relatively many people had cleared the instance, players had long since figured out the Horse-Faced Butcher's movement patterns, so the current Horse-Faced Butcher was no longer a nightmare, but a joke.
The current Qingshan Hospital was affectionately called a beginner welfare instance by players.
Indeed, the former nightmare instance had turned into beginner welfare, which was simply a huge irony.
Yet Shen Hao was very happy; after all, who wouldn't want to enter a beginner welfare instance?
Only one matter made him feel uneasy—he shouldn't appear in the Horse-Faced Butcher's room.
He decided to walk out and check out the situation.
Opening the basement door, he first saw an iron railing, but at this moment the railing had long been destroyed, allowing one to walk directly out.
Outside was a very long corridor, the walls on both sides of the corridor already mottled with the wall skin beginning to peel.
The Horse-Faced Butcher's room was at the end of the corridor, with the door directly facing the corridor; as long as he kept walking straight ahead, he would see the stairs going up.
Having just walked forward a few steps, Shen Hao saw a corpse on the floor of the corridor; he caught his breath and cautiously approached.
Beside the corpse lay a huge axe; the axe was very heavy, yet the blade was unusually sharp, without an axe handle, but with a very long iron chain attached to the axe.
This axe looked extremely heavy, radiating a chilling glare, possessing a strong deterrent force.
The corpse wore a tattered black overcoat and a horse-faced mask, making it impossible to see the facial features clearly.
The image of this corpse made him think of the Horse-Faced Butcher, the BOSS in this instance.
What was going on here? The BODS was dead?
It couldn't be that he had just entered the instance, and the instance's BOSS was already dead.
Shen Hao endured the discomfort in his heart, removed the mask from the corpse, and a ferocious face appeared before his eyes.
The corpse's face was covered in scars left by the flames, ugly and hideous.
He unbuttoned the corpse's coat. Its chest was hollow; its heart had long since been gouged out.
Everything matched the image of the Horse-Faced Butcher.
"This really is the BOSS of the Qingshan Hospital instance, but how could the BOSS be dead?
If the BOSS is dead, then the game should be over."
Just as he was wondering, a system panel appeared before his eyes.
Name: Shen Hao.
Class: Demon (You are the most evil, most cruel, most terrifying great, great, great Demon King!)
Level: 0
Experience: 0/100
Basic Attributes,
Constitution: 10+37 (Constitution is a comprehensive measure of a person's physical fitness. It affects strength, agility, physical resilience, and so on. A healthy adult man has a constitution of 10.)
Spirit: 10 (This represents a person's mental strength. It affects intelligence, reaction speed, mental defense, and so on. A healthy adult has a spirit of 10.)
Innate Talents:
1. Disaster from the Heavens (When you enter an instance, you will replace the instance world's original BOSS, inheriting all their attributes, abilities, and items. After the mission ends, you will permanently gain their attributes, one of their abilities, or an item.)
2. Legend of the Demon (Even a Demon will leave survivors, but never out of mercy.
Those you kill will not die in the real world. Instead, they will be punished by losing 90% of their experience. They will spread word of your evil deeds in the real world, letting fear endure throughout the world forever.)
3. Demon Nature (People will fear you because you are the most evil, most cruel, most terrifying Demon!
When you make other creatures feel fear and despair, you will gain fear points. Fear points can replace experience points and be used to raise your level.)
Ability: Throwing Axe Mastery (Temporary)
Instance Mission: You have replaced the original instance BOSS. You must hunt in his place.
Looking at the system panel before him, Shen Hao finally understood. He was now the BOSS in the game. In other words, the BOSS was no longer an NPC, but had become a player.
A Demon!
Shen Hao had never heard of a class like this in Thriller Paradise. Now that he had obtained this unique class, he felt a little excited just thinking about it.
To other people, Thriller Paradise was terrifying. But to a Demon, wasn't it a paradise?
His gaze swept across his surroundings, and an irrepressible smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.
He walked over to the corpse, took the mask from its head, and put it on. Then he picked up the axe from the ground.
The axe weighed at least forty or fifty pounds, but it felt light to him. He wrapped the chain around his arm and lifted it easily with one hand, then spun it around a few times. It felt just right.
After inheriting the original BOSS's basic attributes, he had become much stronger. His constitution was now equivalent to that of four or five adults.
Suddenly gaining such strength made him feel incredibly excited. He had to use his newfound power to do something.
"Preparation time is over. The hunt begins!"
Hearing the system notification, the smile on Shen Hao's face grew broader. The killing had begun!