What did that mean?
It knew he had loaded a save?
It was talking to him, not to a character in the game?
Everything he had done had been taken into account?
Wu Tian suddenly felt a chill run down his spine and instinctively glanced back at the empty office.
Clearly, Flowey in the game was not talking to the protagonist within the game.
It was talking to him, the player sitting in front of the computer.
It knew what he had done. It even knew he had reloaded a save and started over.
Although Wu Tian knew this was simply part of the game's design.
He was still stunned.
And what did Flowey's words mean?
It possessed this power too?
What was determination?
While exploring the castle, he had encountered some star-like symbols that glimmered.
After interacting with them, he would usually receive the same message: It filled you with determination.
In an instant, countless questions flooded his mind.
But beyond that was an overwhelming sense of amazement.
At first, he had thought this was just an ordinary RPG.
But with Flowey's appearance, it was as though the fourth wall had been shattered.
What else was waiting for him later on?
With that feeling in his heart, Wu Tian continued onward.
One distinctive character after another appeared in the game.
Sans, who shook his hand with a Whoopee Cushion in hand, and Papyrus, who loved blocking his path with puzzles—the skeleton brothers left quite an impression on him.
The seemingly lazy Sans loved making skeleton-related puns to tease his brother Papyrus.
His brother, meanwhile, was incredibly enthusiastic about using puzzle mechanisms to obstruct the protagonist.
What was interesting, though, was that whenever someone got stuck on one of his puzzles, the skeleton would take the initiative to reveal the answer.
There was also Undyne, a somewhat chuunibyou Merm who chased him down the entire way. When they finally reached the lava area, she collapsed from dehydration. There happened to be a water cooler nearby, and he could choose whether to save her or not.
Dr. Effie in the laboratory seemed somewhat dull and shy, the very image of a homebody.
Later, during a quiz battle against the robot she had created, the doctor would even use hand signals to hint at the correct answers for the player.
And based on the answer to the robot's final question, he could tell that she liked Undyne, the Merm hunting the protagonist.
There was also that performance before the showdown with the robot under the moonlight, which was simply jaw-dropping.
But what truly shocked Wu Tian was the conversation with Sans in that resplendent corridor before he faced the game's final Boss.
From the beginning, Wu Tian had simply assumed that Undertale used the standard settings of an ordinary RPG.
Although Flowey's earlier appearance had given him his first taste of shock and amazement.
He had still played the entire game according to standard RPG logic.
It was an RPG. Wasn't fighting monsters and leveling up perfectly normal?
Spider Lady, some monsters he encountered along the way that he found agreeable and did not kill, and others that were troublesome and not particularly pleasing to his eye—all of the latter had fallen beneath his blade.
But Sans's words made Wu Tian realize that he had completely misunderstood.
EXP was not experience points. It was short for Execution Points, which meant points earned for executions.
Likewise, LOVE was not a level. It was short for Level of Violence, which translated to a measure of violence.
Every time he killed a monster in the game, his Execution Points and violence level would rise.
At that moment, his LV had reached level 11.
In that instant, Wu Tian remembered what Toriel had said at the beginning about making friends with monsters. Clearly, the game had been giving all sorts of hints from the very start.
The final Boss battle against King Asgore was different from what he expected. Rather than seeming evil, the king was exceptionally kind, repeatedly asking whether he was ready before the battle.
If Wu Tian said he was not ready, King Asgore would kindly say that he was not ready either.
But once he passed through the final gate and confirmed that he was ready, everything changed.
Intense background music rang out.
A strange light illuminated the room.
The light of dawn passed through the barrier.
It seemed that your journey had finally reached its end.
You were now filled with "determination."
The narration slowly faded away. King Asgore opened his eyes and said, "Goodbye, human."
In an instant, he seemed like a God of War descending upon the world. His crimson cape billowed as he swung his trident and shattered the button labeled Mercy.
Shatter your mercy, and mine as well. There was no escape. This battle would only end in death!
The final stage was extremely difficult. Although Wu Tian had played some similar bullet-dodging games before, he still found himself in constant danger.
After finally defeating King Asgore, he could choose to kill or spare him.
At that moment, Wu Tian remembered Toriel's and Sans's words, and he chose to spare him.
King Asgore was surprised to face a protagonist who had spared him. He said he was willing to care for Wu Tian together with Toriel, and that everyone could form a new family in the underground world. Everything seemed so warm and beautiful.
But the next moment, a flash of blade light streaked past. As King Asgore stared in shock, Flowey appeared.
It killed King Asgore.
"You idiot. You still haven't learned your lesson. In this world, it's kill or be killed."
Amid Flowey's savage, evil laughter, the entire game suddenly crashed before Wu Tian's dumbfounded eyes.
What was going on? A bug? Why was the game gone?
But before Wu Tian could remain confused for long, the game automatically restarted.
And its opening animation had become strange as well.
When he entered the save screen, something even stranger happened: the save file was not his.
It read: Flowey, LV: 9999.
This was Flowey's save file.
He chose Continue, and his character appeared in the game against a pitch-black background.
When he approached the star-shaped save point, his own save information appeared on the game screen.
But in the next moment, the screen suddenly began to shake, and blood-red cracks spread from the middle of the save information.
At last, five words appeared: Save File Deleted.
As the save file shattered, Flowey reappeared on the screen.
Having devoured the Souls of six human children, Flowey now proclaimed itself a god.
Yet its form in the game was that of a bizarre, grotesque monster. This was the true final boss battle.
This battle was even more difficult than the one against King Asgore.
After death, a game over prompt appeared, accompanied by a line of text.
This was all just a nightmare, and you would never wake up.
Besides the text, there was Flowey's terrifying, manic laughter. The game screen was filled with "hahahaha," before the game crashed and closed itself once more.
And after reopening the game, Flowey would continue saying despairing things to him through the computer screen.
For example: "Did you think I'd be satisfied after killing you only once?"
"There is no perfect ending in this world."
And the only way to defeat Flowey was to keep persevering until he awakened the other human Souls devoured by Flowey. Only after Flowey lost the ability to retrieve save files could he successfully defeat this terrifying Boss.
After successfully defeating Flowey, he could choose to kill it or spare it. But whether he killed it or spared it, the ending was the same.
The only difference was that sparing Flowey would reveal to him how to unlock the pacifist route.
As the final text appeared, the game officially ended.
But Wu Tian, sitting before the computer, had yet to fully recover from the shock the game had brought him.
Amazing. That was the only feeling he had now.
Simply amazing.
The way it broke the fourth wall, deleted his save file, closed his game, and designed Flowey's dialogue.
For a moment, the game even made Wu Tian feel as though such an underground world truly existed, as though characters like Flowey were real.
And after the amazement came even greater curiosity.
From his conversation with Sans in the resplendent corridor, he had already learned everything.
So LOVE was the measure of violence, while EXP was Execution Points.
Then what were the other two endings in the game like?