28: Chapter 28 seems a bit addictive.

"What kind of devilish setting is this?!!!"

PD's voice cracked in a complete breakdown right there in the livestream.

"I've been gaming for twenty years, and I've never seen a game that wipes out a player's entire progress after they die!"

"So, according to this, if I accidentally die once on the final level, then the god-tier equipment and hundreds of gold coins I spent hours grinding for are all gone?! And I have to go back to the first level and start all over?!"

The bullet chat was also completely stunned by this cruel mechanic:

"This isn't a game for humans to play!"

"Everything resets on death? How is this a relaxing casual game? This is clearly torturing the players!"

"The developer must be insane! Who the hell can stand the frustration of such an anti-human setting!"

"It's so hopeless. Even if FGO's tower defense is hard, I can just quit the level and farm some materials to level up. This crappy game doesn't even give you a chance to farm and get stronger!"

Seeing the indignant condemnation in the livestream, the paid trolls from the big studios who were already stirring up trouble became even more arrogant:

"See that! This is the true level of Chaldea!"

"It's bad enough the art style looks like crap, but the gameplay is so anti-human! I wouldn't play this game even if it was free!"

"Refund! I'd rather throw these 68 yuan into the water than give it to a torture-maniac like Gu Yi!"

Faced with this extremely hardcore and unreasonable Roguelike mechanic, the vast majority of Blue Star players, accustomed to a comfortable and hand-holding experience, reacted with extreme rejection and anger.

"I'm done! Whoever likes being abused can play this trash! I'm a dignified tycoon, why should I suffer this kind of humiliation in this Basement!"

PD angrily took off his VR headset, prepared to apply for a refund immediately, and then go back to playing his FGO.

But just as he was about to close the page...

The extremely frustrating image of being sat on and crushed to death by Monstro just now suddenly flashed through his mind.

"Dammit..." PD's hand hovered over the close button, his teeth gritting together.

"My 100,000-yuan all-five-star team got soloed by a minion because I didn't understand the tower defense mechanics. I accept that."

"But this crappy game doesn't even have mechanics; it's pure movement and shooting tears! An old pro like me, who's been gaming for decades, can't even beat the first-floor boss of this crappy Basement?!"

"If word gets out, where will I put my face as PD!"

A sense of extreme defiance and an incredibly strong desire to win quietly sprouted within PD's heart, which had been enraged by the "permanent death."

"Wait a minute, brothers!"

PD suddenly slapped the VR headset back onto his head, his eyes bloodshot.

"Refunding is fine, but I absolutely cannot be stuck on the first floor by such a brain-dead boss! It's just dodging bullets, right? I was just careless earlier and didn't dodge!"

"If I don't pan-fry that blood-spitting hunk of meat (Monstro) today, I'm not ending the stream!"

With that, he controlled the base-level Isaac, eyes red, and charged into that randomly generated Basement once again.

[Floor 1: Basement I]

The third run... the fourth... the fifth...

PD was like a gambler on a roll, cycling frantically through the Basement.

The cruelty of this game lay in the fact that because the maps and items were purely random, you couldn't memorize the layout at all.

Sometimes you'd start with a bunch of bombs but couldn't find a secret room; sometimes you'd get an item that increased attack power, only to accidentally step on spikes in the next room and die instantly.

The "total reset" after every death made PD so angry he wanted to smash his keyboard.

But after each bout of anger, that strange sense of anticipation—"I can definitely do it next time," "What if I roll a god-tier item next time and take off"—drove him to press [Restart] over and over again.

Unknowingly, two hours passed.

"Die, die, die, die, DIE!!!"

In the livestream, a sweat-drenched PD was in a narrow room, controlling Isaac with precision movement to dodge Monstro's body slam.

"Pew! Pew! Pew!" Several tear bullets accurately hit Monstro.

"Roar—" With a desperate scream, this tutorial boss that had stuck PD for two whole hours finally exploded, turning into a puddle of blood.

And within the blood, an item with an extremely bizarre appearance slowly emerged—a deformed spider with compound eyes.

[Item Drop: Mutant Spider]

"I won! Hahaha! I won!!!"

PD was so excited he jumped straight out of his chair, throwing his hands up and howling at the sky. That excitement was even more exaggerated than pulling five five-star units in FGO!

"See that, brothers! No money spent! No level suppression! Purely relying on my god-like movement and awareness! I ground this boss to death!"

That ultimate sense of achievement from finally breaking the death loop through his own skill and a tiny bit of luck, after experiencing countless "desperate resets," surged through PD's entire body like an electric current!

He excitedly controlled Isaac and picked up the deformed spider on the ground.

"Boop!" Accompanied by a strange sound effect, Isaac's appearance on the screen suddenly underwent a horrifying change!

His bald forehead split down the middle, and two more miniature eyes actually grew out!

"Holy crap! What kind of underworld item is this? It disfigured my character?!"

PD was startled.

But he subconsciously pressed the fire button on the controller.

"Pew! Pew! Pew!"

It was no longer those pathetic single-shot tear bullets; this time, Isaac's four eyes fired simultaneously, and four large tears slammed into the wall in a fan-shaped "shotgun" spread!

"Holy cow?!!!"

PD's eyes instantly bulged wider than Isaac's, and the bullet chat in the livestream exploded:

"A shotgun?! The tears turned into a shotgun spread?!"

"The firepower literally quadrupled! This item effect is way too strong!"

"The weirder it looks, the more insane the damage, right! The items in this game can actually change the attack form?!"

This was the unique and terrifyingly positive feedback loop of a Roguelike game!

PD looked at the "quad-shotgun" he had just obtained, then at the empty boss room. An intense urge to "test the gun" scratched at his heart like a hundred cats.

"If I hit a regular mob with this shotgun, won't it be one shot, one kill?"

"The first floor is done... I wonder if there are some tankier mobs on the second floor for me to enjoy this firepower?"

PD's gaze was fixed intently on the trapdoor leading deeper down.

"Since I've made it this far, it would be a huge waste not to use this god-tier item..."

PD swallowed hard. Instead of taking off the VR headset, he gripped the controller tighter.

"Brothers, how about... we go to the second floor to test the gun? Just one last run?"

At this moment, the little game mocked by the entire internet for its "crude art style" and "anti-human mechanics" finally revealed its terrifying fangs as a "Hyperbolic Time Chamber."