The human brain naturally possesses a desensitization mechanism.
When it comes to horror games, as long as the production quality is decent, most players will feel fear during the Early Stage of the game.
This fear mostly stems from the unknown.
However, some mediocre horror games tend to rely on the same tricks as playtime increases, such as repeatedly using jump scares.
In short, they run out of ideas.
During the Early Stage, sudden sound effects and visuals can still make a player's heart race.
But when the same stimulus is repeated over and over, the brain adapts, leaving the player with nothing but numbness. Take The Callisto Protocol, for example. I doubt many people are still frightened by its jump scares during the Late Stage.
Is Resident Evil 7 the kind of game that runs out of tricks?
Not at all. Although the horror atmosphere does weaken somewhat in the Late Stage, its scare tactics are excellent overall.
But the problem is... Lu Xiu had already played the game three times, and this dungeon had been created by her. She had indeed been afraid at the beginning.
But what she feared wasn't the dungeon itself. It was the combat sections—the very idea of fighting.
After all... there was getting her palm stabbed through, catching blades with bare hands, and having her hand severed.
Forget playing through it. Just watching those scenes hurt.
Combined with her awareness of her identity and the deep-seated impression that her current Physical Body wasn't suited for combat... that was why she had been afraid.
But fear was fear. Lu Xiu's courage had been ignited, and in the end, she had taken that first step.
And the human capacity to tolerate pain did not disappoint her.
Lu Xiu didn't know exactly when her fear had disappeared... perhaps it was when she shot Mia down with a pistol, perhaps when she sat expressionlessly at the dining table watching the performance, or perhaps when she ran circles around her father-in-law in the garage.
Regardless, by the time Lu Xiu realized it, she was no longer afraid.
Not even of combat.
She knew the game's scare patterns by heart, understood the monsters' mechanics, and had mastered how to deal with them.
Once combat was no longer a problem and even a severed hand could be endured, there was nothing left for her to fear.
She didn't even consider it real danger anymore.
She simply treated it as a game...
Of course, that might also have been because Lu Xiu knew the dungeon's entire progression.
If those memories had been stripped away, it would probably still have been incredibly tormenting... because then she would have had no way of knowing what was coming next.
In short.
After finishing the first chapter, Lu Xiu completely let herself go... Later, even when she watched her father-in-law shovel the police officer's head off, she remained expressionless. When running circles around him in the garage, she calmly searched for the keys, and when she drove the car straight into him, her hands didn't even tremble.
And when her father-in-law ripped off the roof of the car and began teaching her how to drive like a cat toying with a mouse.
Confident in the driving skills from her previous life, Lu Xiu... even pulled off a drift, completely unconcerned about whether it would affect the dungeon's progression.
"Let go of me! Even Verstappen isn't qualified to teach me how to drive!"
Later, as she acquired more and more weapons.
She became even more unrestrained. Even when her mother-in-law, who already looked like a ghost, lunged at her, Lu Xiu dared to start switching weapons through her inventory—flamethrower, shotgun, pistol... She even tried to recreate the feeling of playing the game with a keyboard.
Because the mother-in-law's mechanic was that after taking a certain amount of damage, she would prioritize turning toward the nearest 'hole'.
This wasn't a BUG. It was an actual mechanic.
The players here didn't know about it, but Lu Xiu did.
She exploited that mechanic, dealing a little damage before blocking the mother-in-law's path, switching weapons as she chased and attacked the BOSS, even finding the time to complain about her appearance.
"You look so ugly."
In the brother-in-law's playground, she strolled around as if it were her own backyard.
Traps, passwords—she ignored them all! As for the monsters, she wiped every last one of them out!
During the only non-combat section, the somewhat boring candle-lighting game, Lu Xiu even grabbed the candle and directly threatened the BOSS: "What kind of crappy gameplay is this! Just you wait! I'm going to shove this candle up your ass!"
In short.
After that, Lu Xiu played like a war god...
The speed at which she pushed through the story with her Physical Body wasn't much slower than when she had played the actual game.
In less than four and a half hours, she was already standing before the final BOSS.
Before the final BOSS had even finished speaking, she lunged forward and plunged the necrosis toxin into her neck...
But it wasn't over yet.
Because the necrosis toxin took ten minutes to completely kill the final BOSS, after her body collapsed, she directly merged with the massive amount of mycelium throughout the house and transformed into an enormous monster.
...And, incidentally, sent Lu Xiu flying.
Lu Xiu didn't even see what happened.
The next second.
Her vision spun wildly.
Her back slammed heavily into the muddy ground.
Enduring the pain, Lu Xiu sat up and took a look. Then, too lazy to stand, she simply lay there and switched weapons to attack the final BOSS.
Because there were several damage sequences here that the player had to endure. Just like how Mia was guaranteed to hunt the player, it was all part of the game's progression.
To put it more bluntly.
Once a player reached this point, as long as they could still pull out a gun, there was absolutely no way they could die. The only reason there was still a combat sequence here was to heighten immersion and create a sense of imminent danger.
At this point, 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 pistol called 'Albert'.
As the dungeon's creator, Lu Xiu naturally knew this perfectly well.
So she couldn't even be bothered to get up. Lying there and firing a few shots was enough to go through the motions.
In front of her, the entire house seemed to come alive.
Countless grayish-white strands of mycelium twisted, swelled, and intertwined like rotten tree roots or enormous blood vessels, spreading outward from the house to form a grotesque structure.
And embedded at the center of that malformed mass was the final BOSS's face.
The entire farm was shaking.
Lu Xiu had barely fired a few shots when an enormous mycelial tentacle slammed into the ground, wrapped around her left leg, and hoisted her into the air.
"I just want a home—!"
The final BOSS's voice was deafening.
Then, with a violent swing of the mycelial tentacle, she hurled Lu Xiu onto the ground again, leaving her dizzy and disoriented.
"Ah, yes, yes, yes."
Lying on the ground and staring at the gray sky, Lu Xiu panted lightly and answered in a tone that practically screamed, "I've given up."
Perhaps that dismissive tone angered the BOSS, because an enormous mycelial tentacle suddenly swept toward her from the side.
The muddy ground exploded.
Lu Xiu was sent flying, tumbling several meters away.
"Hiss..."
Lu Xiu grimaced. "I don't remember putting this part in when I made the dungeon!"
Although she knew she wouldn't die, the pain hadn't been reduced in the slightest.
She braced herself against the ground and sat up.
In the distance.
The enormous monster was still thrashing wildly, the mycelium surging like ocean waves.
The entire estate had almost transformed into one gigantic living organism.
"The show's almost over."
Lu Xiu panted as she looked up at the sky.
Above her.
The shadow of a helicopter swept across the clouds, and then a weapon crate was thrown down... It crashed into the mud, rolled several times, and came to a stop on Lu Xiu's right.
At the same time, the weapon inside spilled out.
It was exactly that plot weapon.
Meanwhile, the watch on Lu Xiu's wrist lit up as well... Chris's team instructed her to use the plot weapon to finish off the BOSS.
It's here!
Lu Xiu scooted over, picked up the plot weapon 'Albert', and slowly rose to her feet.
Pulling the bolt.
Loading.
Accompanied by a click.
Lu Xiu aimed at the overwhelmingly oppressive final BOSS in the distance.
Enormous mycelial tentacles danced through the air.
The final BOSS roared once again.
At that moment.
All the frustration Lu Xiu had been holding inside suddenly surged up at once.
More than four hours, damn it.
Severed hands.
Being hunted.
Solving puzzles.
Running all over the map.
All kinds of ridiculous crap!
Since when does the dungeon creator have to personally go first into their own dungeon! What kind of crappy rule is that!
Filled with rage, Lu Xiu pulled the trigger.
Bang—
The deafening gunshot echoed across the farm, and the bullet tore through the air, leaving a white trail before striking the monster directly in its core.
The mycelial monster convulsed violently and roared in pain.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Lu Xiu kept pulling the trigger as though venting all her pent-up anger, every bullet striking the BOSS's enormous face with perfect accuracy.
And when the final bullet struck the final BOSS.
The final BOSS could no longer hold on. Its massive body swayed violently, the mycelial mass rearing high into the air in one last death struggle before crashing heavily to the ground.
Immediately afterward, the mycelium making up its body began to calcify rapidly.
Turning white from the center.
Cracking.
Disintegrating.
Until the entire enormous structure collapsed, turning into chunks of grayish-white debris that fell like crumbling lime.
Dust filled the sky.
But Lu Xiu still didn't stop pulling the trigger, cursing as she fired.
"Trying to scare me, huh!"
"Trying to hunt me, huh!"
"Severing my hand, huh!"
Click, click, click.
The sound of the firing pin striking on an empty chamber continued to ring out.
Until—
The sound of a helicopter appeared overhead, and Chris's team descended from it and brought Lu Xiu aboard.
The dungeon was finally, truly over.
Only then did Lu Xiu realize...
She had cleared the dungeon.
At that moment, the ending credits were already rolling.
The System notification sounded immediately afterward.
【Respected Dungeon Architect, you have cleared the dungeon you built. Congratulations!】
【System is generating clearance evaluation—】
【Evaluation: You are a crybaby coward, but also a devil with a twisted sense of humor who enraged the BOSS. Your transformation inside the dungeon was truly eye-opening. You are timid, weak, and a crybaby, yet at the same time, you are cold-blooded, violent, and behave like a psychopath.
At the beginning of the story, you panicked when confronted by your crazed wife, retreating again and again, fleeing in a pathetic state again and again. Like any ordinary person, you stumbled forward in fear, and during that process, you even cried.
But once you overcame that fear, you began to become terrifying.
You began to control the situation.
You even stopped in front of monsters to criticize them.
You mocked their appearance.
You threatened their very existence.
You began to enjoy combat.
Very soon.
Inside the dungeon.
Traps lost their effectiveness.
Puzzles lost their meaning.
Monsters lost their threat.
You became like a skilled hunter, moving freely through this cursed farm.
In the end, you stood at the end of the story.
Facing a monster that covered almost 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 had stumbled into Hell.】
【But once you adapted to Hell—】
【You started making Hell adapt to you.】
【Your growth! It's clear for all to see!】
After a brief pause.
A new prompt appeared.
【Dungeon Completion: 100%】
【Overall Clearance Evaluation: SSS】
【Please check the relevant rewards on the settlement page】
【Automatic teleportation in 60 seconds】
Looking at the System prompt in front of her, Lu Xiu froze for a moment before instantly bristling. "Who are you calling a coward! Who are you calling a crybaby! Who are you calling a psychopath! Say that again..."
She began wildly waving her fists, muttering curses like a madwoman.
And those brief sixty seconds quietly passed amid her furious cursing.
The countdown reached zero.
Before Lu Xiu could react, she was teleported out of the dungeon.