A Mechanic Like This?! Better to Have None at All!
"Whoosh----whoosh----"
Five minutes later.
Jiang Qiu was panting heavily, her chest heaving violently.
Although they had only exchanged a single blow, she was mercilessly sent flying by the opponent's unreasonable fiery fist.
But ultimately, Jiang Qiu is no ordinary player.
The enemy is a bit outrageous.
But once Jiang Qiu realized that the numbers were overwhelmingly superior, she immediately abandoned all her contempt and became extremely focused.
Then, relying on extremely rich practical experience...
She narrowly avoided several of her opponent's deadly fiery punches, finally seizing an opening in his wide-open attack.
Then came a relentless barrage of blows, completely crushing the henchman.
But we won----
Jiang Qiu looked rather disheveled at that moment.
Her once clean clothes were now covered in dust, and her arms bore scorch marks from the flames; even the slightest movement caused a dull ache. "What the hell is this stat—?"
Jiang Qiu rubbed her chest, which felt stuffy, then looked down at the henchman lying on the ground, and then at her own health bar, which was only half full, her face full of disbelief.
The only good news is...
This henchman's strength and speed are both outrageous—more than twice as strong as the protagonist.
However, it's quite fragile with a short health bar, a typical example of high attack but low defense.
As long as Jiang Qiu isn't hit head-on by that fiery fist, he can seize an opening and take her down with a combo.
But this did not bring Jiang Qiu any comfort.
"The first enemy uses Flame Fist right off the bat! And I have absolutely nothing! My stats are even worse than theirs! Is this fair?!"
After Jiang Qiu, who was officially playing the protagonist, finished defeating the first enemy, she couldn't help but ask a question.
Because she simply couldn't believe what she had just seen!
This is just the beginning! The first enemy I encountered when I stepped out! The lowest-ranking nobody guarding the gate! How can this be so outrageous!
They won't even give me a chance to get used to my body?!
She didn't even have time to try any kind of Neutralize!
"Could this be a show of force?"
Jiang Qiu muttered something to herself, as if deceiving herself, then looked away and continued walking forward.
We hadn't gone very far.
Then an enemy who still looked like a minor fodder character appeared.
"Hello!"
The miscellaneous fish shouted loudly, then clenched his fists and assumed a fighting stance.
Immediately afterwards, in Jiang Qiu's suddenly contracting pupils, the skin on the man's arms suddenly changed, spreading out a dense layer of wood-like texture! The blood vessels also swelled up like vines!
Something's definitely not right.
Jiang Qiu:
Five minutes later.
"Whoosh----whoosh----"
Jiang Qiu, panting heavily, supported herself on her knees as she looked at the small fry lying on the ground, whose arms had finally reverted to their original shape, and laughed in exasperation.
That's outrageous!
The second enemy is just like Superman!
She's confident in her martial arts skills!
But that's under the condition of equality—or at least roughly equality!
Instead of the way it is now!
They may look like ordinary fish, but they fight like superheroes!
But I'm just a nobody!
in addition.
They've already defeated the second enemy.
There was still no notification of increased experience points.
At the same time, there was no feeling of any attribute increase.
Is he really going to have to fight the villain from the very beginning with his current attributes?
Jiang Qiu felt a vague unease.
Lu Xiu!
They wouldn't actually dare to do that, would they?!
"Impossible!"
Jiang Qiu immediately shook her head—refusing to follow that thought any further.
Because it's just too terrifying.
However, the current playing style does have problems.
Jiang Qiu pondered for a moment, recalling the fluid and graceful way Lu Xiu defeated the enemy, as shown in the system projection earlier.
Lu Xiu handled those superpowered enemies with ease, skillfully dodging or deflecting any attack.
Therefore, simply dodging is clearly not the right way to play!
The Neutralize mentioned in the tutorial should be the only core mechanism that ignores numerical differences.
Neutralize ----
This feels so familiar...
Jiang Qiu's unease intensified, but she finally took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing her ominous premonition, and continued walking forward, deeper into the dimly lit the Squats.
Let's try again.
However, the beautiful and sweet image of Lu Xiu that she had in mind was beginning to waver.
Jiang Qiu quickly arrived inside the Squats and went up a staircase covered in graffiti.
Soon, on the second-floor landing, the third enemy appeared.
That was a much larger, lesser-known fish.
The moment I saw Jiang Qiu.
No nonsense.
The small fry roared and charged like a Boar descending from the mountain, its fist, as big as a casserole dish and accompanied by wind blades, smashing down on his head!
Jiang Qiu stared at the descending fist.
This time, I didn't choose to dodge.
Instead, recalling Lu Xiu's actions and the Neutralize mechanism introduced in the prologue, he suddenly reached out his hand the instant the opponent's fist approached, attempting to deflect the violent kinetic energy.
However.
Snap!
Bang!!!
In order to maximize the chances of triggering her skills, Lu Xiu was pushing herself to the limit, so the window for Neutralize damage was ridiculously short!
Jiang Qiu didn't actually grab the window; she only blocked it for a moment.
In the end, the fist landed on her arm.
The next second.
The terrifying kinetic energy poured forth onto her arms without reservation.
Jiang Qiu was thrown off the ground again, flying backwards and tumbling down the stairs to the bottom.
When she stopped, looking disheveled, the health bar in the upper left corner of her vision had dwindled to a mere sliver, as if a gust of wind would wipe it out completely.
Jiang Qiu got up, looked at the burly thug who was grinning as he walked down the stairs again, and recalled the feeling from just now.
Now I finally know where that lingering sense of familiarity came from!
Extremely stringent judgment window!
Failure could result in a death penalty!
Isn't this just a copy of the Perfect Deflect technique from Sekiro?!
Last time at least he had a knife! This time he caught a superpower with his bare hands!
"An enemy with ridiculously strong attributes! My own attributes are exceptionally weak compared to the enemy's! Attack methods that defy common sense!"
"----Isn't this exactly my experience when I was learning to Deflect???"
"Lu Xiu!!!"
"You're doing this bare-handed?! Are you crazy?!"
"And how are you so skilled at it! How did you do it?!"
Jiang Qiu screamed inwardly.
But she had no time to vent her emotions; the burly thug on the stairs had already pounced on her.
Jiang Qiu immediately rolled to the side to dodge the attack, no longer daring to try to Neutralize it, and instead began to use conventional dodging techniques to fight back.
But she's still impressive.
----By dodging, he managed to Counterkill with a sliver of health remaining.
But the real torment has only just begun.
Jiang Qiu had no idea how the dungeon's resurrection mechanism worked; it hadn't been explained before, and she didn't know how many times it could be used.
So, with only a sliver of blood left, she gritted her teeth and continued climbing the stairs.
And then the journey continued.
These so-called the Squats scum!
Each one is more outrageous than the last!
Physically alienated! Fiery! Electro-energized! Wind-driven!
It's only a short distance of three floors!
Jiang Qiu felt as if she were climbing a ladder to heaven!
Every step I took felt like walking on thin ice!
With her health completely depleted, the margin for error had become zero, and she dared not easily attempt that ridiculously strict Neutralize again.
Bang!
When the last enemy in the third-floor corridor, whose hands were covered in bone claws, was taken down by Jiang Qiu with a quick side dodge, Jiang Qiu seized the opportunity.
Jiang Qiu was panting heavily and finally couldn't hold back any longer.
"They really have all sorts of lousy enemies."
"I'm like a nobody!"
"No way, at Sekiro has the Shinobi Prosthetic! This dungeon really only has Neutralize?! There aren't any other mechanics at all?! Not a single one?!"
She's getting increasingly irritable.
This may be partly due to the tediousness of the dungeon runs.
On the other hand, it's because before entering the instance, she said that hand-to-hand combat was her home turf.
But in reality, she couldn't do what Lu Xiu did at all, and found that her ease and composure during the game's progression were completely different from Lu Xiu's —she was constantly teetering on the edge of life and death.
She was starting to break down.
But in the end, he was still unconvinced.
Jiang Qiu took a deep breath, forcing herself to straighten up.
She refused to believe she couldn't do it!
Furthermore, she felt that this dungeon must have other mechanics as well!
Otherwise, they simply couldn't fight!
And things turned out exactly as she expected.
----Yes, there is.
Jiang Qiu walked down the corridor to the end, where there was no road ahead, only an open window. A few meters above the window, in mid-air, was the balcony of another dilapidated building.
She then leaped towards another building.
Bang.
As Jiang Qiu rolled nimbly, the moment she looked up, an extremely pungent chemical smell filled her nostrils.
The dimly lit room was filled with various glasswares and purification equipment, suggesting it was some rather ominous place.
But that's not the point.
The key point is...
Startled by the sudden commotion, the four thugs turned around in unison to look at Jiang Qiu, who had barged in.
Then, the hands of one of the bald, muscular men instantly climbed up the hard wood grain.
Meanwhile, the fists of the other three thugs suddenly burst into a violent crimson flame!
Four super-powered enemies!
So they've started the siege?
Jiang Qiu:
She glanced at the last sliver of blood at the edge of her vision, then looked up at the sky and sighed.
What's the point of even fighting?!
It's definitely not possible to win.
If there is no way to Neutralize this.
Jiang Qiu wasn't even hit; a single flame burned away all her skin.
This is accompanied by the health points dropping to zero.
Jiang Qiu's vision went black, and she collapsed heavily onto the cement floor like a broken sack.
"This is a human being!"
Feeling utterly frustrated and trapped in darkness, Jiang Qiu was ready to unleash a torrent of abuse.
However, the expected notification sound of being resurrected and starting over, or being kicked out of the instance, did not appear.
In the darkness.
Instead, a string of copper coins appeared, each coin emitting a clear, resonant sound! Then, one of the coins suddenly emitted a faint glow.
[Number of deaths: 1.]
[Age: +1.]
Current age: 21 years old.
Accompanied by a prompt.
Suddenly, my vision brightened!
Jiang Qiu suddenly opened her eyes and found herself standing up.
She was slightly taken aback, then reacted and immediately dodged the oncoming fiery fist.
And he quickly noticed that he was fully healed again.
Moreover, she also clearly sensed that her attributes had changed.
Strength attribute has increased!
Jiang Qiu dodged the attacks, her eyes wide open.
She couldn't be mistaken!
She is very perceptive to changes in attributes!
"So that's how it is!"
Jiang Qiu looked at her health bar, which had been restored to its original state, and felt her increased strength attribute.
All the anger, frustration, and self-doubt I felt just moments ago vanished in an instant.
She couldn't help but laugh out loud with excitement.
----This is the resurrection mechanism!!!
Death is not the end, but a path to becoming stronger!!!
No wonder the protagonist was able to stand up in the prologue; now I understand.
It seems the plot also mentioned that?
But at that moment, all she could think about was who she was playing.
I see!
Lu Xiu! She actually got to act like a human being for once!
They actually treated death as a reward!
Genius!
At that moment, she was so excited that she didn't even think about the restrictions.
A new path opens up before you do.
"I knew it! How could Lu Xiu create a truly deadly trap that would send someone to jail? How could there not be some other mechanism?"
As Jiang Qiu thought this, she suddenly exerted force with her waist and delivered a powerful knee strike directly into the chin of the wood-attribute strongman!
The crisp sound of bones cracking echoed in the drug-making workshop.
The burly man's massive body was thrown off the ground by the blow, and he crashed backward, shattering a row of glassware!
"----No wonder it's called the Mortal Martial Arts. It's all about using this do-or-die approach, dying time and time again to gain power that surpasses that of ordinary people!"
Jiang Qiu mentally constructed a perfect logical loop, and her previously depressed mood instantly brightened.
She turned around abruptly, with a sense of pride that she could be resurrected and become stronger, and that she would wipe out all these superpowered bastards today, and took the initiative to meet the remaining three Flame Fist thugs.
However, facing a seamless siege from three superpowered enemies, the margin for error is simply too low.
Seeing that she was at full health, she decided to try and Neutralize.
This transformation.
He then went to the underworld.
soon.
Although he managed to take down one of the enemies, he was overwhelmed by a barrage of fiery punches.
Jiang Qiu's vision went black again, and she collapsed to the ground.
The health bar has been reduced to zero again.
[Number of deaths: 2.]
[Age: +2.]
Current age: 23 years old.
The crisp sound of copper coins echoed in my ears, and a faint glimmer flashed once more.
Jiang Qiu sprang up again and suddenly opened her eyes.
She could clearly feel that her strength attribute had become a little stronger.
but----
She realized something was wrong.
How did my age increase to 2?
Is the punishment of death not constant?
Does that mean it will continue to be stacked on top of each other?
A shortened lifespan followed by resurrection?!
What is the maximum age?
Jiang Qiu was still thinking about the mechanism, but she didn't have time to analyze it carefully before the sound of something cutting through the air came.
The enemy charged again.
Jiang Qiu could only forcefully gather her mind and engage in a fierce battle with her opponent.
After several exchanges...
She finally depleted the health bars of both thugs.
Jiang Qiu glanced at the corpse on the ground, then resumed studying his attributes and copper coins.
Aside from sensing that her strength attribute had increased, her agility attribute seemed to have decreased slightly.
The amplitude is very small.
But it did decrease.
This won't happen----
The joy on Jiang Qiu's face vanished.
An uneasy premonition resurfaced.
"----It's alright, the reduction in agility is minimal, and I'll definitely get more skilled as I play, dying less and less. Besides, this dungeon can't really turn players into old people as they get older, can it?"
Jiang Qiu shook her head gently, comforted herself with a word, and then continued forward.
The underground drug manufacturing workshop had only one road leading to the outside.
She stepped forward and pushed open the connecting door.
Outside the door was a long, narrow corridor.
And just as the door was pushed open...
In the corridor, more than a dozen thugs, their bodies flashing with various extraordinary abilities, all turned to look.
Jiang Qiu: "!!!"
Forty minutes later.
An old man stood at the end of the corridor, panting heavily.
The old man had gray hair, his face was lined with wrinkles, and his eyes were droopy.
But you can still tell that this is the protagonist played by Jiang Qiu.
But at this moment, she...
Like a candle flickering in the wind.
After catching her breath, Jiang Qiu slowly turned her head, looked at the fallen enemy behind her, and then at her hands, which were covered with age spots.
I was so angry I was shaking all over!
She finally found out!!!
What's wrong with the resurrection mechanism in this dungeon?!
What utter nonsense about burning your bridges!
The penalty of death is not constant!
The first death adds 1 year, the second adds 2 years, the third adds 3 years—and so on, increasing exponentially!
Moreover, Lu Xiu actually made the player grow old as they aged.
The more people die, the faster they age!
Your appearance really does age gradually.
But that's not the point.
The key point is that attributes also change with age! It's true that dying increases your Strength attribute, but your Agility attribute will gradually decrease, and your health bar will shorten!
Although the reduction in agility is very small.
However, given that their attributes are already inferior to the enemy's, coupled with a significant reduction in their health bar!
It won't be Neutralize yet.
Just how desperate were they?
Jiang Qiu has a lot to say on this! She talked for forty minutes down one corridor!
In exchange for superhuman power?
Fart!
Lu Xiu finally got to be a human being?
Fart!
This mechanism, ironically, has brought even deeper despair.
Jiang Qiu is in despair right now.
She looked at the enemies scattered on the ground, then slowly shifted her gaze to the upper left corner, glancing at her own age.
[Current age: 60]
Look at this number.
Her already hunched body trembled even more violently.
I'm shivering and freezing!
In her mind, the image of that beautiful and charming girl who drew lightning and slashed at each other on Maple Leaf Avenue collapsed at that moment!
"Lu Xiu!!"
Jiang Qiu tried to hold back, but she couldn't hold back any longer. With an image that looked like she could collapse at any moment and start swearing, she broke down and started cursing.
"How could you even think of that?!"
"Resurrecting to old age!!! Trading lifespan for strength attributes!!! Letting a sixty-year-old player fight a super-powered young man!!!"
Making players fight with health bars so low they'd be knocked down with a single punch!
"What kind of lousy system is this! It would be better if it didn't exist at all!"
"What's worse! I just figured out the resurrection mechanism, and then there are over ten enemies in the corridor! Why didn't you just kill me outright? I thought you were alive for a while!!!"
Jiang Qiu's defenses truly crumbled at this moment.
How could anyone be so twisted! They even came up with this ridiculous mechanism!
Besides this, there's only one other Neutralize the dungeon issue!
That Neutralize isn't something humans can learn!
So how exactly did Lu Xiu manage to do it?!
Why are you so skilled at Neutralize?
Why didn't she age at all during the verification process?
Is it really that strong?
Isn't sword and halberd her forte?
Shock, anger, astonishment, confusion, resentment, and grievance—a complex mix of emotions swirled in Jiang Qiu's mind.
But no matter what, being inside the instance, Jiang Qiu had no choice but to grit her teeth and move forward.
---- Dragging my sixty-year-old body along.
And when she reached out her hands, covered in age spots, she forcefully pushed open the door at the end of the corridor.
Once again, they saw four enemies with bulging muscles, their bodies wreathed in the power of wind, fire, and lightning.
Everything went black.
Reality.
Outside the Longsword Guild headquarters, near the guild leader's office.
Jiang Qiu's secretary was sitting at the desk in the outer room, diligently taking notes.
Suddenly, a loud crash came from the tightly closed president's office, as if a chair had been overturned.
The secretary turned her head in surprise.
The guild leader cleared the game so quickly?!
The thought had just crossed her mind.
--
The office door was kicked open violently.
Jiang Qiu's eyes were bloodshot, his proud chest heaving violently, and he charged out with a gleaming longsword in his hand, exuding murderous intent.
"Lu Xiu! You enjoy people dying so much! I'll die in your house right now!"
Jiang Qiu let out a furious curse, grabbed her knife, and charged out.
The secretary was terrified and immediately lunged forward with practiced ease, clinging to her boss's leg like a koala. "No, Boss! Calm down! Didn't you say your greatest strength was your fists and feet? Didn't you say that attacking the Coordination Bureau was nonsense? This is exactly the same as when we fought Sekiro last time!"
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