"Calm down."

"Maybe I'm not starting it right. I need to calm my mind, steady my breathing, and put forth my best effort."

Yan Qi adjusted his breathing and continued the game.

This time, after some struggle, he finally managed to kill the first monster he encountered – a very ordinary, extremely weak ghost soldier.

In *Rebirth from the Brink*, although the Road to the Underworld is the third major scene, players would have already suffered quite a bit before reaching that point. The possibility of dying at the hands of an ordinary monster like a ghost soldier was extremely low.

Needless to say, the attributes of the ghost soldiers in *Eternal Reincarnation* had definitely been adjusted.

Compared to the original version, the current ghost soldiers were faster, attacked more frequently, and dealt more damage.

The extremely fast sword speed combined with the extremely high damage made Yan Qi want to complain that this ghost soldier was like an unparalleled swordsman, directly slicing the God of War in one strike.

If the protagonist was the God of War, then the ghost soldier should be the God of War's father.

Fortunately, they were just small monsters. Although the damage was high, their moves were simple, and he beat them after getting used to them.

Afterward, Yan Qi followed the game's prompts and had the God of War stab the demon sword into the ground of the Road to the Underworld.

The resurrection mechanism in *Eternal Reincarnation* was different from that in *Rebirth from the Brink*.

In *Rebirth from the Brink*, the protagonist was an ordinary person who relied on the guidance of the Buddha statue to move forward step by step. The Buddha statue was equivalent to a save point, allowing players to recover their status and refresh the surrounding monsters, while the earth shrine could collect nearby remnant souls.

But in *Eternal Reincarnation*, there were no Buddha statues or earth shrines. Instead, at certain intervals, there was a special "anchor point" where the God of War would stab the demon sword, leaving a mark.

After stabbing the sword in, red and black demonic energy would seep out of the crack.

The God of War could revive at these locations through the demon sword, and could also kill enemies nearby, causing their souls to dissipate. After inserting the demon sword into these locations, he could collect souls to enhance his abilities.

If the player died before activating the first save point, the demon sword would automatically gather the God of War's three souls and seven spirits, and automatically revive him after the Gates of Hell, at the entrance of the Road to the Underworld.

Strictly speaking, it couldn't be considered resurrection, but rather a restoration to a state of being half-alive and half-dead, floating between the realms of Yin and Yang.

Yan Qi continued forward and soon encountered a second ghost soldier, which he dealt with in the same way as before.

"Huh? It dropped something?"

Yan Qi perked up and picked up the item that had fallen to the ground, discovering it was a soft weapon: a pair of manacles.

This type of weapon also existed in *Rebirth from the Brink*, but no one used it because it was too weak.

"Too bad. It would have been better if it had dropped a knife or a long weapon."

"The drop rate should be probabilistic."

The ghost soldiers on the Road to the Underworld wielded a variety of weapons, with swords and sabers being the most common, followed by manacles, spears, axes, and hooks.

Ghost soldiers could only drop the type of weapon they were holding. Yan Qi's luck wasn't good. The first ghost soldier was holding a saber but didn't drop any equipment, and the second dropped equipment but it was the least used manacles.

However, after thinking about it, Yan Qi still opened the inventory and checked the attributes of the manacles.

"Hmm?"

"Something seems off."

Yan Qi took a look. The attributes of the manacles seemed to be the same as in *Rebirth from the Brink*, without any enhancements in the DLC, making it mostly a niche weapon. But even as a niche weapon, it was better than the God of War's demon sword!

Because although the manacles had low coefficients for adding to various attributes, at least it still had additions. The demon sword's attribute bonuses were all "-", meaning it didn't have any bonuses at all.

"Looks like I can dual-wield?"

Yan Qi immediately equipped the manacles on his left hand.

According to the setting in *Rebirth from the Brink*, the right hand was the main hand and the left hand was the off-hand. When using a weapon in the left hand, it was naturally a little slower than the right hand and the damage was only 70%, but the left hand could use some special weapon skills.

In other words, high-damage weapons should be placed in the right hand to deal damage, while functional weapons should be held in the left hand.

In *Eternal Reincarnation*, perhaps because the protagonist was the God of War, the speed of the left-hand weapon was the same as the right hand, but the damage was 90%.

But even so, the right hand was still stronger.

The reason why Yan Qi put the manacles in his left hand was because he still looked down on the manacles. He felt that the God of War's impressive demon sword must have higher damage than the manacles. Maybe the demon sword had some hidden attributes and the data shown on the panel wasn't all the data.

Afterward, he continued forward and fought a few more ghost soldiers and vengeful spirits who had been summoned by the ghost soldiers to deal with him.

After the battle ended, Yan Qi stopped again, once again doubting his life.

"This demon sword, are you kidding me?"

Yan Qi discovered that the manacles in his left hand, even with the damage of the off-hand weapon reduced, still dealt much more damage than the demon sword in his right hand...

Moreover, the drop rate of ghost soldiers' weapons on the Road to the Underworld seemed to be very high. He now had an extra ghost soldier's saber and a ghost soldier's sword in his backpack.

After comparing the attributes, Yan Qi silently removed the manacles and demon sword, and replaced them with the ghost soldier's saber and sword.

However, the removed demon sword was not put into the inventory like the manacles, but carried on his back, to be used when activating teleport points.

After dual-wielding the ghost soldiers' sabers and swords, Yan Qi set off again.

This time, he was surprised to find that the difficulty of the battle seemed to drop in a straight line!

Of course, being hit still meant death, and these two weapons did nothing to improve the God of War's defense, but the attack power was significantly improved, greatly increasing the efficiency of killing monsters.

"This is the normal game rhythm... Although it's still as fragile as paper, at least I don't have to tickle the monsters like before."

"Although compared to *Rebirth from the Brink*, the monsters' health is still too high, at least it's playable."

"But this is a bit strange."

"Although it makes sense from a setting perspective, the experience it brings to players is really bad."

Yan Qi didn't care too much. After all, he was an old player of *Rebirth from the Brink* and had a high tolerance. He continued to experience the game.

...

Two hours later, Yan Qi temporarily quit the game and turned his neck, which was a little sore from fatigue.

According to the game length of *Rebirth from the Brink*, the entire game's pure story process could be completed in twelve or thirteen hours. Of course, this was only possible for people who were familiar with the game and didn't get stuck at all.

In reality, most players were frantically lost and suffering, so the game time would be extended to dozens of hours, with no upper limit.

Not to mention that after completing the game, you could continue to a second playthrough.

Yan Qi estimated that according to the official statement, *Eternal Reincarnation* had been updated by about one-third, which meant that the pure story process should be more than four hours.

Considering that his monster-killing efficiency was not high, and he had taken a few detours due to changes in the route, the current game progress should account for about one-third of the released progress.

Yan Qi looked at the time and it was almost time to get off work. There was no need to burn the midnight oil and finish it all at once. This kind of game should be savored slowly.

He would continue to work hard on the weekend.

Although he didn't experience much content, Yan Qi had a few feelings.

First of all, the changes in this DLC were not that big, and it looked a bit like a reskin.

Currently, the biggest change was the change in the protagonist's identity. A new opening had been made, and the performance of system functions such as save points and upgrades had been changed. The appearance of monsters, the combat style, and the appearance and routes of the scenes had all been modified.

But the world was still the same world, and the scenes were still the Gates of Hell, the Road to the Underworld, and the Bridge of Helplessness.

Although there were indeed changes, the complete lack of new scenes was still slightly disappointing.

Secondly, the combat system and basic settings of this game seemed to have certain problems.

The demon sword had so many scenes, but the damage was so low? Lower than the ghost soldiers' garbage manacles.

This could be explained from the setting perspective: no matter how powerful the protagonist was, he was just the God of War in the human world. When he arrived in the underworld, the intensity of his soul could only be crushed by the ghost soldiers. And no matter how awesome the demon sword was, it was just a weapon from the human world and could not compare to the ghost soldiers' spiritual weapons.

But... while it was reasonable, the combat experience was completely fragmented.

Black and White Impermanence were one thing, as it was a plot kill, and it didn't matter if you couldn't beat them, but the demon sword's damage was so low that it was difficult to fight even small monsters in the beginning. Thus, the demon sword quickly became a tool sword, just stuck in the ground to create teleport points, completely losing its original high status.

"I'm feeling a little disappointed. Although it still has the same flavor, I feel like it's lost that sense of amazement."

"Although this DLC isn't expensive at all, and you won't lose out, this doesn't seem like President Pei's standard?"

Yan Qi opened the forum and looked at the comments of other players.

"This demon sword is too weak! It's completely trash!"

"I think so too. It had such a high status at the beginning, saying this guy is the God of War, but the God of War is directly rubbed on the ground by small monsters? The status is completely gone, and I feel like the character design has collapsed!"

"I think there's a big problem with the numerical system of this game? The numbers in *Rebirth from the Brink* were already a bit too much, but as a suffering game, it was stuck at the limit that most people could accept, so it became a classic. But *Eternal Reincarnation* is a bit too much. The damage of small monsters is too high and the protagonist's damage is too low. This is not about honing your skills at all, it's completely to disgust players. There's no sense of accomplishment after suffering."

"The announcement said that the last patch will update the combat system. Maybe it will be improved by then?"

"Yeah, I think that's probably the case: suffer in the early stages and then release the modification of the combat system at the end."

"But that's a bit bad, right? The combat system is the essence of the entire game. Since everything revolves around the combat system, shouldn't the combat system be updated first? What's the point of making us suffer hard?"

"And this game doesn't seem to have any new scenes at all. The original monsters and scenes have been modified and used as DLC. Disappointment!"

"It's okay, this DLC is cheap anyway."

"It's not a question of whether it's cheap or not. This DLC was promoted with great fanfare. Everyone was expecting a game the size of *Rebirth from the Brink*, but in the current situation, it can't be considered satisfactory, right?"

"That's right, Tengda's core spirit is not cheap, but value for money, and striving for perfection! What we want is not cheapness, but solid game content!"

Obviously, many players had the same thoughts as Yan Qi.

As far as the currently updated content is concerned, this part of the game experience is obviously not satisfactory.

Yan Qi shook his head slightly, not understanding what Tengda was up to.

Maybe President Pei was too busy and just lent his name without participating in the design of the game's detailed experience, leading to a relatively large deviation between the final result and President Pei's plan?

Maybe the addition of the original author had some impact on the game project?

Maybe it was just that the main designer wanted to try something different, but didn't have President Pei's ability and messed it up?

All of these were possible.

But there would be four updates after all, and this was only the first one.

As some players emphasized, the combat system seemed to be in the last update. It seemed a little too early to say that *Eternal Reincarnation* was no good.

Yan Qi casually browsed the forum, preparing to go home after work.

But just then, he found a post.

"Holy crap! I don't know if it's just my imagination, but I saw the God of War move by himself just now!"

Yan Qi was stunned for a moment.

The character moved by himself?

Was he seeing things?

Or... was the joystick drifting?

Or was the poster just trying to attract attention?

Yan Qi had played for two hours and hadn't encountered any situations where the character moved on his own, so he instinctively didn't believe the post.

But curiosity still drove him to click on it.

The poster described his game process in detail. At the beginning, he was beaten and taken away by Black and White Impermanence, just like Yan Qi. The difference was that Yan Qi was only killed once by the ghost soldier with the saber, and then he successfully moved forward.

But this poster couldn't beat the ghost soldier with the saber no matter what, and was ravaged in various ways, dying so many times that he began to doubt his life.

After dying many times, he challenged the ghost soldier again, but found that in what was originally a certain-death situation, the God of War seemed to move, blocking the ghost soldier's long saber.

But the God of War still died, so the poster himself wasn't sure if he was seeing things.

The people downstairs obviously didn't believe it either, and questioned him one after another.

Before Yan Qi arrived, the post had already been debated for many floors. Finally, in order to prove himself, the poster released a screen recording.

The screen was recorded with a phone, so the clarity was worrying, but you could simultaneously see the computer screen and the poster's hand movements holding the controller.

In the video, you could clearly see that when facing the long saber swung by the ghost soldier, the God of War moved on his own, using the demon sword to parry the long saber.

The movement was very slight, very inconspicuous, and didn't completely negate the damage. The ghost soldier's saber still hit him and killed him.

But looking closely at the recording, you could see that the God of War did make a parrying motion, and was not being controlled by the player.

Obviously, the player had just sent the God of War next to the monster, and then put down the controller. He must have been killed countless times before he tested out this strange but rarely occurring phenomenon.

Yan Qi was stunned.

"What's going on?"

"There's definitely no such setting in *Rebirth from the Brink*. It looks like a new combat mechanic."

"Isn't the combat system supposed to be updated at the end of the month?"

"Then what is this?"

Yan Qi felt deeply puzzled.

Obviously, this must be a suspense intentionally buried by Tengda.

The person who buried the suspense was either President Pei, or the person who decided to release *Eternal Reincarnation* in four parts.

...

What Yan Qi didn't know was that Pei Qian and Meng Chang were also looking at this post, with blank looks on their faces.

In their minds, there were the same doubts and confusion as Yan Qi.

"What the hell is going on?!"