Thump…
Pfft…
Thump…
Boom…
Thump~~ Pop-pop…
High in the pitch-black sky of The End, accompanied by a magnificent display of deep purple fireworks, the Ender Dragon exploded into a pile of yellow and green experience orbs that rained down.
“Mmm~~ Finally finished. Time to take a massive dump, I’ve been holding it forever.”
After hearing the player leave this remark, Steve’s body lost all control, like a marionette with its strings cut.
Without the player’s control, Steve could not move on his own; he could only stand there, gripping his Netherite Sword, staring blankly down at the pitted, uneven End Stone.
He was merely a character in the game “Minecraft.” Although he didn’t know when he had awakened his own consciousness, he could only take action under the player’s control.
Pairs of long, slender black legs wandered around him, emitting gurgling sounds.
The atmosphere was quite eerie.
These long, slender black legs belonged to the native inhabitants of The End—Endermen, commonly known as “Little Blacks.” Making eye contact with them would provoke an attack, which was why the player had shifted Steve’s perspective to the ground before leaving.
Steve waited for a long time, but the player did not return.
He didn’t know what the player meant by “taking a massive dump,” but he was just a bit worried.
He hoped the player wouldn’t get blown up by a Creeper on the way to take that dump, or else he would be stuck in this hellhole of The End forever.
Just like that dog in the player’s previous save file, forever waiting at home.
Kids, this isn’t fun at all.
Furthermore, he had deep feelings for the player, even though the player had made him eat rotten flesh, poisonous potatoes, and suspicious stew; had let him fall to his death from heights; had let him be blown up by Creepers, shot to death by Skeletons, scratched to death by Zombies, slapped to death by Endermen, sprayed to death by dragon’s breath, withered to death by the Wither, burned to death by lava, drowned in water, blown up by TNT traps…
I can’t list them all.
But he still trusted the player the most.
Setting aside those situations, most of the time, the player always took good care of him.
So, he didn’t want anything to happen to the player; he was a bit worried.
Time passed.
In The End, where there is no day or night, Steve didn’t even know how long had passed, but he could only wait.
Until…
[Found it.]
Steve suddenly heard a strange voice ring out from the player’s side, and in the next second—Whoosh—his vision suddenly went white.
When he regained his senses, he was looking at a gray stone floor.
What was going on?
Did the player adjust the shaders and textures?
But with such high-definition textures and such realistic shadows, the player’s hardware shouldn’t be able to handle it…
Steve was curious.
He wanted to look at the scenery around him.
As he thought about it, he was stunned to discover that he could actually move?!
He could actually move on his own, not relying on the player’s input, but simply by his own will!
How could this be?
Steve slowly lifted his blocky head, his vacant, square eyes looking around in confusion.
Dark gray buildings stood in rows, their glass curtain walls reflecting the leaden sky.
Weeds had almost submerged the road under his feet, extending to the edge of his vision, with abandoned vehicles strewn about along the way.
The building at The End of his vision was rather unique, with a large letter “A” hanging on the top as a logo, but Steve didn’t pay it any mind.
What a magnificent abandoned city map, what realistic lighting, what high-definition textures—there was even parallax mapping!
Steve carefully lifted his rectangular right leg and took the first step of his own volition.
What a novel feeling!!
Steve ran and jumped along the way in excitement, his blocky limbs swinging vigorously.
“Herrrrrr…”
An eerie roar suddenly came from his side.
Steve jerked his blocky head around to look toward the sound.
…A Zombie?
But this Zombie’s body wasn’t made of blocks; every detail was high-definition to the extreme.
Dried blood clots were congealed on its blue-gray skin, and it was missing an arm—it was incredibly eerie.
Even though Steve had seen so many worlds with mods and texture packs, he had never seen such a detailed model.
The Zombie dragged its feet as it moved toward Steve with its head hanging low.
The fluidity of its movements left Steve stunned.
If the player were controlling him right now, they would probably have switched to F5 third-person view, kiting the Zombie while admiring the model of the Zombie behind him.
But he was not the player.
Shing!
Steve pulled out his Netherite Sword!
This sword had Knockback II, Unbreaking III, Looting III, and Sharpness V enchantments.
The player had even given it a super cool, badass name—[One-Shot Axe]!
As for why a sword would be named that, don’t ask.
Steve bounced and jumped as he charged toward the Zombie, swinging his sword!
The blade, like a giant brick, smashed fiercely against the Zombie’s skull with a whistling sound.
Steve immediately jumped back after landing the strike.
He intended to wait for the attack cooldown to end before finishing it off, but with a “squelch-pop” sound, the Zombie’s skull visibly caved in, deformed, and shattered, with black and white matter splattering everywhere!
The trembling blue-gray arm hung limp, and the Zombie, with half its head sliced off, fell to the ground with a thud.
Steve was stunned.
Holy cow, what intense impact feedback!
This felt completely different from hacking at a vanilla Zombie.
With a vanilla Zombie, a sword strike only gave a sense of recoil, and the Zombie’s groans when hit were always the same.
But hacking at this Zombie felt amazing; the feedback was so strong!!
After the Zombie died, its body disappeared, exploding into a pile of dropped items and a few glowing, yellow-green experience orbs.
“Herrrrr…” “Gahhhh…”
A few more roars came from the two-block-high weeds not far away.
Steve didn’t have time to inspect what the previous Zombie had dropped, so he sucked everything into his inventory first, turned around, and brandished the [One-Shot Axe] again.
This time, five Zombies seemed to have been attracted by the noise and emerged from the weeds almost simultaneously, surrounding him together.
Seeing them closing in, in that instant, Steve’s mind flashed back to the player’s past maneuvers, and he pulled half a stack of Cobblestone blocks from his inventory.
With two “doop-doop” sounds, he placed two blocks under his feet.
Zombies:?
But the Zombies only paused for a moment before they all tilted their heads up, let out low growls, and pounced toward the living creature on top of the stone pillar.
However, this mere two-meter height difference was surprisingly effective; the Zombies really couldn’t reach Steve immediately.
With a poker face on his mosaic features, he stood on the stone pillar, jumping and hacking.
With each swing of the sword, squelch, squelch—after a few sounds, the five Zombies were reduced to a pile of drops, experience orbs, and deep black slime.
Steve jumped down from the stone pillar and started collecting!
Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop…
All the dropped items were sucked into his satchel.
Ding-a-ling!
After absorbing all the experience orbs, Steve leveled up from 24 to 25.
He was just about to check what the drops were when a semi-transparent screen suddenly popped up in front of him: [You have leveled up. Reward: Plugin Blind Box Draw x1. Do you want to draw?]
Steve was a bit confused; this interface was so novel, he had never seen it before.
He reached out his blocky right arm and poked [Yes].
A pixel-style gacha animation started playing on the screen.
Steve didn’t know what this was and watched with his two square eyes, dazed.
Two seconds later, the gacha ball opened—[Congratulations, unlocked mod: Simple Voice Chat!]
Then the screen disappeared.
Steve didn’t quite understand.
What was going on?
He had an impression of the [Simple Voice Chat] mod; it seemed the player had used it when playing online with friends before.
Through this mod, the player could make his own mouth emit his voice to talk and communicate with Alex, who was controlled by his friends, just like those grunting and huffing Villagers.
But now that there were no players or his friends, what use could this mod have?
Steve stood there dumbfounded for a few seconds before deciding not to worry about it for now and checking the drops instead.
Wait, if the player isn’t pressing ‘E’, how is he supposed to open his inventory?
Just as he realized this, he saw the inventory page pop up in front of his eyes.
So, it just takes a thought.
That’s actually quite convenient.
The Zombie drops were much richer than in the vanilla version, including [Rotten Flesh] x6, [Bone] x22, [US Dollars] x62, [Watch] x3, [Shirt] x1, [Jeans] x2, [Underwear] x5, [Bra] x2, [Stockings] x1, [Purple Mood] x1…
What on earth is all this stuff?
Steve moved everything except the [Bone] and [Rotten Flesh] out of his inventory one by one.
These things were useless and just taking up inventory space, so it was better to throw them away.
However, Steve was busy with the operations and didn’t notice what was behind him.
A Zombie wearing a dark gray tracksuit was crawling on all fours, silently creeping toward him.
Its posture was as eerily like a cat preparing to pounce as could be.
Steve had just tossed the [Jeans] out of his inventory when a terrifying force suddenly came from behind!
With a “thwack” sound, Steve turned red for an instant and was sent flying like a spring.
But his reaction was extremely fast; he instantly twisted his blocky body in mid-air to look behind him.
The tracksuit Zombie hadn’t rushed to bite; it had slapped Steve’s back first.
Now, it was staring blankly at its own severed right arm.
[Protection IV] Netherite Chestplate, kid.
I, Steve, don’t care about all that—I’ll just pull out the [One-Shot Axe] and hack away.
However, just as the mosaic edge of the Netherite Sword was about to hit the Zombie’s skull, the tracksuit Zombie seemed to suddenly wake up, pushed off hard with its legs, and leaped backward in mid-air, actually dodging the attack with a backflip!
It flipped and landed on the roof of a car, and the car body sank with a thud.
The Zombie, in a three-limbed stance, arched its back like a beast and stared fixedly at Steve, letting out low growls from its black-red mouth.
Steve frowned—wait, he didn’t have eyebrows.
Although he seemed expressionless, he felt a tightness in his heart.
This Zombie was clearly different from the ones before!
He didn’t dare to be slow anymore.
He selected the [Shield] from his hotbar, switched it to his off-hand, held the shield in his left hand and the sword in his right, and stood in a standoff with the tracksuit Zombie.
Just as the black veins on the skin of the Zombie’s three limbs bulged and the abandoned car groaned under the weight, clearly preparing to launch a surprise attack…
Bang!
A loud noise rang out from afar, and the Zombie’s head exploded directly, startling Steve into jumping backward!
Was it… a gun?!
The Timeless and Classics mod?
Vic’s Modern Warfare mod?
Whoosh—pop!
Before Steve could recover, he felt a sharp pain in the right side of his head, and his whole body turned red for an instant again, sent flying back half a step!
Clatter.
Something fell to the ground.
Steve looked down and saw it was a pitch-black arrow.
This arrow was incredibly powerful.
Fortunately, his Netherite Helmet had [Projectile Protection IV], so he didn’t take fatal damage, but he still lost a lot of health.
His maximum health was ten hearts, and now he only had three left.
Having not eaten for a long time, his hunger bar was not full, so he couldn’t regenerate health.
But Steve couldn’t care about eating; he hurriedly turned, raised his shield in one fluid motion, and moved his blocky feet bit by bit, stepping backward cautiously.
The road ahead was overgrown with weeds, abandoned vehicles were everywhere, and the high-rise buildings on both sides of the road had countless open windows.
There were too many places to hide, and for a moment, Steve really couldn’t find the source of the attack.
However, he didn’t notice that on the tip of the arrow by his feet, a tiny red light was flickering on and off.
The next instant—BOOM!!!
…
After taking a massive dump, the young man felt refreshed and happy.
He grabbed a can of cola from the fridge and sat back down at his computer desk.
He moved his mouse in a circle and suddenly felt that something was not quite right.
Three seconds later, the young man’s eyes widened to the size of saucers—”Holy crap, where the hell is my Steve?!”