Before he could check his rewards, the panel was buried beneath a flood of comments.
[Aaaaaah!]
[Mom asked why I was watching the stream on my knees...]
[Help! Why is the streamer so cool?!]
[Oh my god! I was pumped the whole time!]
[Killing enemies above your level is nothing. Plenty of players can do that, but killing enemies a whole tier above you is insane!]
[Have any of your race's players who cleared the game killed an enemy above their tier?]
[No.]
[Neither have ours.]
[Our race's players barely managed to clear the game. Forget fighting above their tier-even ordinary monsters at their own level were hard to deal with late in the game.]
[No matter what kind of monster it is, every tier means at least a tenfold difference in attack, defense, health, and so on!]
[He did exploit a few tricks, but not every player could pull those tricks off.]
[I remember someone in the comments saying he'd eat shit upside down if the streamer survived this time. Where is he?]
[I just checked. He deleted his account. Probably just wanted free food and drink.]
[This new player is something else. When the ghost first drove the monsters toward him, he figured out a way to break the trap just by hiding inside and observing. Then he poisoned the wine, fished for information, stalled for time, and finally killed it decisively, without the slightest hesitation.]
[Holy crap, a top player is here!]
[It's a Silverfolk veteran who cleared the game!]
[Sir, could you analyze the streamer's moves some more? Give us some pointers!]
[Yes, yes, exactly! Give us some pointers!]
[The streamer's moves looked smooth and effortless. On the surface, they didn't seem particularly difficult, but he simply didn't show us the truly difficult parts. One minute onstage takes ten years of practice behind the scenes. Just the way he broke out of that trap inside the house showed how sharp his powers of observation were.]
[Next was poisoning the food. We all know secretly adding poison is no big deal, but the real question is, which player brought poison? Where did it come from? This isn't ancient times. Where would you find ready-made poison? You couldn't even get it through trading. If I'm not mistaken, the streamer mixed two nonpoisonous substances to produce a chemical reaction, creating the poisonous effect.]
[The final counterkill looked like the card deserved most of the credit, but if you watched closely, you'd notice his plan was built around that card.]
[As everyone knows, there are countless types of cards and items, and the cards you get are completely random. You can't make the cards fit your plan. You have to build your plan around the cards, working within their limits to maximize their effectiveness. This newcomer did that very well, too.]
[Holy crap! I was just watching the big moments. There was actually that much going on beneath the surface!]
[A top player really is a top player. Right to the heart of it.]
[Lesson failed...]
[Just poisoning the ghost and making it lose its composure is something I probably couldn't learn in a lifetime.]
[Finally, a newcomer who can kill a ghost! I hereby declare myself his diehard fan!]
[Ghosts are the most annoying monsters of all! Even dying won't make them leave you in peace!]
[Exactly. Some scumbags get lucky enough to be selected, then turn into ghosts when they die, hurting themselves and everyone else!]
Xiao Hao was a little surprised as he looked at the game panel.
Even players who had cleared the game had come to watch his stream this time?
Xiao Hao really wanted to ask what other games lay ahead, but he suppressed his curiosity.
If the viewers discovered he could see the comments, no one could say whether the game's creators would fix this bug.
If they actually fixed it, he would regret it to death.
So, to keep seeing the comments, Xiao Hao had to conceal the fact that he could read them.
Sorry, fans from other worlds.
If I'm lucky enough to survive and clear the game, I'll repay you properly.
As he read through the comments, Xiao Hao noticed a crucial piece of information.
Ghosts were actually formed from dead players!
Xiao Hao had assumed they were simply a highly intelligent type of monster. He had never imagined they had once been players, too!
That meant the ghosts were closely connected to his viewers from other worlds. Some might even have belonged to their races.
Then the ghosts...
Were they a gathering of players from different races?!
Damn it!
That meant there would be endless varieties of ghosts, signature moves, and trump cards! They knew players inside out, while players knew nothing about them!
Xiao Hao closed his eyes wearily, silently digesting this bombshell.
Only after sitting stunned for a good while did Xiao Hao come back to his senses.
The comments were still discussing how slick Xiao Hao's moves had been that night, but his attention had shifted to the rewards for killing the monster.
[Spirit Pearls +6,000]
As expected of a major boss-even the Spirit Pearls it dropped were counted in thousands!
He glanced at his remaining Spirit Pearls: 6,400.
He had more than he could use. Once the game updated, he could go on a massive upgrading spree!
The major boss had given him a second reward, too!
[Ghost Scythe Ring]
An equipment drop!
Killing monsters could yield equipment, too. Although only a tiny proportion of players on the forum had gotten equipment drops, Xiao Hao was still jealous!
He had killed four minor bosses, and even the Mantis Shrimp, a hidden boss, had dropped nothing but Spirit Pearls. Not one piece of equipment.
He was bitter, but he kept it to himself.
His previous equipment had come from scavenging and trading.
He had the ghost to thank for that. Both the Shadow Mask and the Retry Gloves had been its friendly gifts, and even the Bouncing Martin Boots he had acquired through trading were thanks to the Soul-Replenishing Grass the ghost had cultivated.
And his fourth piece of equipment had dropped from the ghost, too.
So all four pieces of equipment were thanks to the ghost!
The Shadow Mask! The Retry Gloves! The Bouncing Martin Boots! The Ghost Scythe Ring!
Equipment dropped by a major boss had to be extraordinary! Xiao Hao eagerly opened the Ghost Scythe Ring's detailed information.
Ghost Scythe Ring: Can form the Deep-Sea Ghost's Reaper's Scythe fingers. The size of the ten scythe fingers can be controlled within certain limits to attack enemies.
Xiao Hao took out the ring and slipped it onto the middle finger of his left hand.
With a thought, all ten fingers abruptly lengthened, transforming into ten sharp scythes, exactly like the Deep-Sea Ghost's!
At another thought from Xiao Hao, the ten scythe fingers enlarged like the Golden-Hooped Staff, reaching a maximum size of enormous, person-sized Reaper's Scythes!
Xiao Hao swung the Reaper's Scythes without feeling tired at all!
The stamina consumed was roughly equivalent to throwing a punch.
He had [Undying Body] constantly unlocking his body's potential, Shadow Transformation as a fallback, scythe fingers for basic attacks, and the Jade Armor for defense.
He lacked practically nothing now!
Xiao Hao excitedly looked at the game notification.
He remembered a notification popping up earlier while he was dealing with the ghost.
[Game notification:] 1. The closed beta server will shut down for a seven-day break. The open beta will begin in seven days. Closed beta players' game progress will remain unchanged. 2. The number of players in each type of survival game will expand to 10,000. 3. Terror is awakening in the real world. Enjoy the authentic experience of the game entering reality!
When the notification had appeared, Xiao Hao had been busy dealing with the ghost, so he had only glanced at it before moving on.
Now, as he carefully considered every word of the notification, Xiao Hao grew worried.
The real world was about to face an apocalypse.
Unless something unexpected happened, players would instead become the hope of saving the world.
He didn't know whether the expansion in player numbers was a blessing or a curse. After all, the player death rate was very high.
That comment had offered a very clear hint-scumbags. It was highly possible that players could turn into ghosts under the influence of extreme resentment, becoming enemies.
Xiao Hao scanned the game notification again. Just as he was about to close the panel, his gaze suddenly fixed on the second point.
What did "each type of game" mean?
There was more than one type of survival game?!
But weren't changes to the gameplay supposed to come only after game updates?
Why was there more than one type of game?!
[The streamer should have figured it out, right?]
[The hint is so obvious. With his powers of observation, he must have noticed.]
[Deep-Sea Survival isn't the only survival game. It's just the one the streamer was selected for.]
[Speaking of the scariest survival game, I think it's the Nightmare Survival Game. Its player death rate has always been the highest.]
[Fog Survival and Eternal Night Survival are terrifying, too...]
[No, no, no. I think Space Survival is the hardest. There isn't even any gravity...]
Reading the comments, Xiao Hao felt completely dumbfounded.
There were actually that many types of survival games?
In any case, the game would go on break after today. Once he returned to the real world, all the games would be revealed one by one.
If you encounter ads asking things like "Are you a real person?", ignore them and close them. Do not scan any QR codes or send text messages!
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