The human brain naturally possesses a desensitization mechanism.
When it comes to playing horror games, as long as the production quality is decent, most players will feel fear during the early stages of the game.
This fear largely stems from the unknown.
But some mediocre horror games tend to double down on a single gimmick as playtime increases, such as relying heavily on jump scares.
Simply put, they run out of ideas.
At first, sudden sound effects and flashing images can make a person’s heart race.
However, when the same stimulus is repeated multiple times, the brain adapts, leaving the player completely numb.
Take *The Callisto Protocol*, for example—hardly anyone is still scared by jump scares in the late game.
So, was *Resident Evil 7* one of those games devoid of fresh ideas?
Not at all.
Although the horror atmosphere was somewhat diluted in the later stages, its overall scare tactics were top-tier.
The problem was…
Wren Lux had played this game three times, and she was the one who built this instance.
She was genuinely terrified at first.
But she wasn’t afraid of the instance itself; she was afraid of the combat phases.
She was terrified of the very concept of fighting.
After all…
it involved getting her hand stabbed, grabbing a sharp blade barehanded, and having her hand severed.
It hurt just to watch, let alone experience it.
Coupled with her identity crisis and the ingrained belief that her current body was unfit for combat…
that was why she felt fear.
But fear aside, Wren’s primal grit had been awakened, and she ultimately took that crucial step forward.
And human pain tolerance did not disappoint her.
Wren didn’t know exactly when her fear vanished…
Maybe it was when she gunned down Mia, maybe it was when she sat expressionless at the dining table watching the scripted dinner scene, or maybe it was when she was kiting her deranged father-in-law around the garage.
Regardless, by the time Wren realized it, she was no longer afraid—not even of combat.
She knew the game’s scare patterns inside and out, understood the monster mechanics, and had mastered the countermeasures.
When combat was no longer an issue, and even a severed hand could be endured, she had nothing left to fear.
She didn’t even view it as a real danger anymore, treating it purely as a game…
Of course, this might have had something to do with the fact that Wren knew the entire flow of the instance.
If those memories had been stripped away, it probably would have been absolute torture…
because she would have had no way to predict what was coming next.
Anyway.
After clearing the first chapter, Wren completely let loose…
She remained expressionless even when she witnessed her father-in-law shovel off the deputy’s head.
While kiting him in the garage, she calmly searched for the car keys, and her hands didn’t even tremble when she drove the car straight into him.
And when her father-in-law ripped off the car roof, playing cat-and-mouse while literally taking the wheel to “teach” her how to drive.
Driven by confidence in her past life’s driving skills…
Wren even pulled off a drift, completely disregarding whether it would break the instance’s sequence.
“Let go of me!
Even Verstappen isn’t qualified to teach me how to drive!” Later on, as her arsenal expanded.
She let loose even more.
When her grotesquely mutated mother-in-law lunged right at her face, Wren still had the audacity to open her inventory and swap weapons—flamethrower, shotgun, handgun…
She even tried to replicate the feeling of playing on a keyboard.
Because her mother-in-law’s mechanic dictated that after taking a certain amount of damage, she would prioritize retreating to the nearest hole.
This wasn’t a bug; it was a legitimate mechanic.
The players in this world wouldn’t know this mechanic, but Wren did.
She exploited this mechanic.
After dealing a bit of damage, she started body-blocking her mother-in-law’s path, swapping weapons and chasing the boss down, even finding time to roast her appearance.
“You’re so damn ugly.” As for her brother-in-law’s testing area, it was a walk in the park.
Traps?
Passwords?
Completely ignored!
As for the monsters?
Wiped out!
During the only non-combat, somewhat tedious candle-lighting puzzle, Wren even held the candle and directly threatened the boss: “What kind of garbage gameplay is this?!
You just wait!
I’m going to shove this candle right up your ass!” In short.
Wren played the rest of the game like a god of war…
Her physical speedrun of the story wasn’t much slower than playing it on a screen.
In less than four and a half hours, she was already standing before the final boss.
Before the final boss could even finish her monologue, Wren lunged forward and jammed the necrotoxin straight into her neck…
But it wasn’t over yet.
Because the necrotoxin took ten minutes to completely kill the final boss, her collapsing physical body immediately merged with the massive amount of mold in the house, transforming into a colossal monster.
…And sent Wren flying in the process.
Wren couldn’t even see clearly.
The next second.
Her vision spun wildly.
Her back slammed heavily into the mud.
Enduring the pain, Wren propped herself up for a glance, then couldn’t even be bothered to stand.
She just lay there, swapped her gun, and started shooting the final boss.
Because there were a few instances of unavoidable damage here, just like how Mia was guaranteed to hunt the player down—it was all part of the scripted sequence.
To put it bluntly.
Once a player reached this point, as long as they could pull out a gun, they absolutely would not die.
The only reason this combat phase existed was to increase player immersion and create a sense of impending doom.
At this moment, none of the firearms in the player’s inventory could kill the final boss.
They had to wait for Chris’s team to drop the handgun named ‘Albert’.
As the creator of the instance, Wren was naturally well aware of this.
So she couldn’t be bothered to get up.
Lying down and firing a few token shots was enough.
Before her, the entire house seemed to come alive.
Countless grayish-white mold filaments twisted, expanded, and intertwined.
Like rotting tree roots or massive blood vessels, they spread from the house, forming a grotesque, deformed structure.
And in the center of that deformed mass, the final boss’s face was embedded.
The entire plantation was shaking.
Wren hadn’t fired many shots before a massive mold tentacle smashed into the ground, wrapped around her left leg, and hoisted her straight into the air.
“I just wanted a family—!” The final boss’s voice was deafening.
Then, with a flick of the mold tentacle, Wren was hurled back to the ground, leaving her dizzy and disoriented.
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Lying in the dirt, looking up at the overcast sky, Wren panted slightly and gave a half-hearted, dismissive reply.
Whether her apathetic tone enraged the boss or not, a massive mold tentacle suddenly swept in from the side.
The mud exploded.
Wren was sent flying again, tumbling several meters away.
“Hiss…” Wren grimaced in pain.
“I don’t remember programming this part when I built the instance!” Even though she knew she wouldn’t die, the pain was completely undiluted.
She pushed against the ground and sat up.
In the distance.
The colossal monster was still thrashing wildly, the mold surging like ocean waves.
The entire estate had practically transformed into a giant biological organism.
“The show is just about over.” Wren panted, looking up at the sky.
Up in the sky.
The silhouette of a helicopter swept past the clouds, and a weapon case was dropped…
It crashed into the mud, tumbled a few times, and rolled right next to Wren’s right hand.
The weapon inside spilled out.
It was the scripted weapon.
At the same time, the watch on Wren’s wrist lit up…
Chris’s team was prompting her to use the scripted weapon to finish off the boss.
Here it comes!
Wren shifted over, picked up the scripted weapon, the ‘Albert’, and slowly stood up.
Pulled the slide.
Chambered a round.
With a crisp clack.
Wren took aim at the overwhelmingly oppressive final boss in the distance.
Massive mold tentacles danced in the air.
The final boss let out another roar.
At this moment.
All the pent-up frustration in Wren’s heart suddenly boiled over.
Over four hours.
A severed hand.
Being hunted down.
Solving puzzles.
Backtracking through the map.
All sorts of ridiculous bullshit!
Who makes the architect playtest their own instance first?!
What kind of garbage rule is that!
Fueled by rage, Wren pulled the trigger.
Bang— A deafening gunshot echoed across the plantation.
The bullet shot out, trailing a white streak, and struck the monster dead in its core.
The mold monster jolted violently and roared in agony.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Wren kept pulling the trigger, firing away as if venting all her frustrations.
Every single bullet accurately struck the boss’s massive face.
And when the final bullet hit the boss.
The final boss could no longer hold on.
With a violent thrash, it reared its mold-composed body high into the air in a dying struggle, before crashing heavily to the ground.
Immediately after, the mold making up its body began to rapidly calcify.
Turning white from the center outward.
Cracking.
Crumbling.
Until the entire colossal structure collapsed, turning into large grayish-white fragments that rained down like limestone.
Dust filled the air.
But Wren still didn’t stop pulling the trigger, cursing as she fired.
“Trying to scare me, huh?!” “Chasing me, huh?!” “Cutting off my hand, huh?!” Click, click, click.
The sound of the firing pin striking an empty chamber echoed continuously.
Until— The sound of a helicopter appeared overhead.
Chris’s team descended and brought Wren aboard.
The instance was truly, completely over.
Wren finally realized…
she had cleared the instance.
By this time, the ending cinematic had already started playing.
The system’s voice subsequently chimed in.
[Esteemed Architect, you have cleared the instance you constructed.
Congratulations!] [System is generating clearance evaluation—] [Evaluation: You are a crybaby coward, but also a demon with a sick sense of humor who enrages bosses.
Your transformation in the instance is eye-catching.
You are timid, you are cowardly, you are a crybaby, but you are also cold-blooded, violent, and act like a psychopath.
At the beginning of the story, you panicked when facing your crazed wife.
You retreated time and time again, fleeing in a sorry state.
Like any ordinary person, you stumbled forward in fear, and you even cried during the process.
But once you overcame that fear, you became terrifying.
You began to control the situation.
You even stopped in front of monsters to judge their appearance.
You mocked how they looked.
You threatened their existence.
You started to enjoy the combat.
Soon.
Within the instance.
Traps lost their effectiveness.
Puzzles lost their meaning.
Monsters lost their threat.
Like a skilled hunter, you began coming and going through this cursed plantation at will.
Ultimately, you stood at the end of the story.
Facing a monster that nearly covered the entire estate, you felt no fear.
You couldn’t even be bothered to stand up.
…You’ve got guts!] [Evaluation Summary:] [At first, you were like an ordinary person who stumbled into hell.] [But once you adapted to hell—] [You made hell adapt to you.] [Your growth!
It is plain for all to see!] After a brief pause.
A new prompt appeared.
[Instance Completion: 100%] [Overall Clearance Evaluation: SSS] [Please check the settlement page for related rewards] [Auto-teleporting in 60 seconds] Wren stared at the system prompts in front of her.
After a moment of stunned silence, she completely blew her top.
“Who are you calling a coward?!
Who are you calling a crybaby?!
Who are you saying acts like a psychopath?!
Say it again, I dare you…” She started throwing wild punches at the air, muttering furiously.
And the brief sixty seconds quietly slipped by amidst her cursing.
The countdown reached zero.
Before Wren could even react, she was teleported out of the instance.