“Calm down.”

“Maybe I’m approaching this wrong. Take a deep breath and bring out my best performance.”

Yan Qi adjusted his breathing and continued playing.

This time, with some effort, he finally managed to defeat the first minor enemy he encountered—a very ordinary, very weak-looking ghost official.

In “Turn Back to Shore,” although the Yellow Springs Road was the third major area, players had already suffered enough by that point, so the possibility of dying to ordinary enemies like ghost officials was minimal.

Needless to say, the ghost officials’ attributes in “Eternal Samsara” had definitely been adjusted as well.

Compared to the original ghost officials, these moved faster, attacked more frequently, and dealt higher damage.

The extremely fast sword strikes combined with extremely high damage made Yan Qi want to complain that these ghost officials were like world-class swordsmen, capable of slaying the Martial God with a single cut.

If the protagonist was a Martial God, then the ghost officials should be considered the Martial God’s father.

Fortunately, they were still just minor enemies. Although their damage was high, their attack patterns were simple, and after adapting a bit, he managed to defeat them.

Afterward, Yan Qi followed the game’s prompt for the Martial God to thrust the demon sword into the ground of the Yellow Springs Road.

The resurrection mechanism in “Eternal Samsara” was different from “Turn Back to Shore.”

In “Turn Back to Shore,” the protagonist was an ordinary person, guided step by step by Buddha statues. The statues served as save points, allowing players to recover and respawn nearby enemies, while Earth God statues could be used to collect nearby lost souls.

But in “Eternal Samsara,” there were no Buddha or Earth God statues. Instead, at certain intervals, there were special “anchor points” where the Martial God would thrust his demon sword, leaving a mark with the weapon.

After being thrust in, black and red demonic energy would seep out from the resulting crack.

The Martial God could be resurrected at these locations through the demon sword, and could also slay enemies nearby, causing their souls to disperse. By inserting the demon sword at these locations, he could collect souls to enhance his abilities.

If he died before activating the first save point, the demon sword would automatically gather the Martial God’s three souls and seven spirits, and automatically resurrect him at the entrance of the Yellow Springs Road, just after the Ghost Gate.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t really resurrection, but rather a restoration to this half-living, half-dead state floating between the realms of yin and yang.

Yan Qi continued forward and soon encountered a second ghost official, which he defeated using the same method as before.

“Huh? Something dropped?”

Yan Qi perked up, went over to pick up the item that had fallen to the ground, and found it was a soft weapon: a chain shackle.

This type of weapon existed in “Turn Back to Shore” as well, but nobody used it because it was too weak.

“Too bad. If it had been a sword or a long weapon, that might have been better.”

“This drop must have a certain probability.”

The ghost officials on the Yellow Springs Road carried a variety of weapons—commonly swords and knives, but also shackles, spears, axes, and hooked forks.

Ghost officials could only drop the type of weapon they were holding. Yan Qi’s luck wasn’t great; the first ghost official carried a knife but didn’t drop any equipment, while the second one dropped equipment, but it was the least commonly used shackle.

Nevertheless, Yan Qi opened his inventory to check the attributes of this shackle.

“Hmm?”

“Something seems off.”

Yan Qi took a look and found that the shackle’s attributes seemed consistent with those in “Turn Back to Shore,” without any enhancements in the DLC, likely still an unpopular weapon. But even as an unpopular weapon, its attributes were actually better than the Martial God’s demon sword!

Because although the chain had low enhancement coefficients for various attributes, at least it provided some bonuses. Meanwhile, all the enhancement columns for the demon sword showed “-“, meaning it didn’t provide any bonuses at all.

“It seems like dual-wielding is possible?”

Yan Qi immediately equipped the chain in his left hand.

According to the settings in “Turn Back to Shore,” the right hand was the main hand, and the left was the off-hand. When using a weapon in the left hand, it was naturally a bit slower than the right hand and only dealt 70% damage, but the left hand could use some special weapon techniques.

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

In “Eternal Samsara,” perhaps because the protagonist was the Martial God, the speed of left-hand weapons was consistent with the right hand, and the damage was 90%.

Even so, the right hand was still slightly stronger.

The reason Yan Qi placed the chain in his left hand was that he still didn’t think much of it, believing that the Martial God’s impressive demon sword should at least deal more damage than a chain. Perhaps the demon sword had some hidden attributes; the data shown on the panel might not be all there was to it.

Then he continued forward, fighting several more ghost officials and the vengeful spirits that were summoned by the ghost officials to deal with him.

After the battles concluded, Yan Qi stopped again and once more questioned his life choices.

“This demon sword, are you fucking kidding me?”

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

Moreover, the drop rate for ghost official weapons on this stretch of the Yellow Springs Road seemed quite high. He now had a ghost official’s knife and a ghost official’s sword in his inventory.

After comparing their attributes, Yan Qi silently unequipped the chain and the demon sword, replacing them with the ghost official’s knife and sword.

However, the unequipped demon sword wasn’t stored in his pack like the chain, but was carried on his back, to be taken out when activating teleportation points.

With the dual-wielded ghost official weapons, Yan Qi set out again.

This time, he was surprised to find that the difficulty of combat seemed to decrease dramatically!

Of course, if he got hit, he would still die as expected. The two weapons did nothing to improve the Martial God’s defense, but the attack power increased very noticeably, greatly improving the efficiency of killing monsters.

“Now this is the normal game rhythm… Although he’s still as fragile as a piece of paper, at least I don’t have to tickle the minor enemies like before.”

“Compared to ‘Turn Back to Shore,’ the health of minor enemies still seems too high, but at least it’s playable.”

“But this is a bit strange.”

“Although it makes sense from a setting perspective, the player experience is really quite terrible.”

Yan Qi didn’t mind too much. After all, he was a veteran player of “Turn Back to Shore” with a high tolerance for frustration, so he continued experiencing the game.

…

Two hours later, Yan Qi temporarily exited the game and rotated his neck, which was sore from fatigue.

According to the gameplay length of “Turn Back to Shore,” the pure story progression of the entire game could probably be completed in about twelve to thirteen hours. Of course, this would only be achievable by someone quite familiar with the game who didn’t get stuck anywhere.

In reality, since most players would get hopelessly lost and suffer repeatedly, it wouldn’t be surprising for the game time to extend to dozens of hours, with no upper limit.

Not to mention the option to continue with New Game Plus after completing it.

Yan Qi estimated that, according to official statements, “Eternal Samsara” had updated about one-third of its content, meaning the pure story progression should be about four hours.

Considering that his monster-killing efficiency wasn’t high, and he had taken some detours due to route changes, his current progress should be about one-third of the released content.

Yan Qi checked the time and realized it was about time to leave work. There was no need to grind through it all at once; this type of game should be savored slowly.

He would continue his quest on the weekend.

Although he hadn’t experienced much content, Yan Qi had several impressions.

First, the changes in this DLC were indeed minimal, seeming more like a reskin.

From what he could tell, the biggest change was the protagonist’s identity, with a new opening sequence, changes to the presentation of system functions like save points and leveling, and modifications to the appearance of monsters, their fighting styles, and the appearance and routes of scenes.

But it was still the same world, with scenes still following the Ghost Gate, Yellow Springs Road, and Bridge of Helplessness formula.

While there were indeed changes, the complete lack of any new scenes was somewhat disappointing.

Second, the game’s combat system and basic setup seemed to have some issues.

The demon sword had so much buildup, yet its damage was so low? Even lower than the garbage chain held by ghost officials.

From a setting perspective, this made sense: no matter how powerful the protagonist was, he was still just a mortal Martial God. In the underworld, purely in terms of soul strength, he would be completely outmatched by ghost officials. And no matter how impressive the demon sword was, it was still a mortal weapon, certainly inferior to the spiritual weapons wielded by ghost officials.

But… reasonable or not, the combat experience was completely shattered.

The Black and White Impermanence were one thing—they were story kills, so it didn’t matter if you couldn’t beat them. But the demon sword’s damage was so low that even fighting a minor enemy at the beginning was a struggle. The demon sword quickly became a mere utility, just something to stick into the ground to create teleportation points, completely losing its original prestige.

“Feeling a bit disappointed. It still has that flavor, but somehow it’s lost that sense of brilliance.”

“Although this DLC isn’t expensive at all—can’t lose money, can’t be cheated—but this doesn’t seem up to Mr. Pei’s standards?”

Yan Qi opened the forum to check other players’ comments.

“This demon sword is so weak! It’s completely garbage!”

“I think so too. At the beginning, it has such high prestige, calling this guy a Martial God, but then the Martial God gets smashed into the ground by minor enemies? The prestige is completely gone, feels like the character design has collapsed!”

“I think there might be a major problem with the game’s numerical system? The values in ‘Turn Back to Shore’ were already quite extreme, but as a suffering game, it was calibrated at the limit most people could accept, which is why it became a classic. ‘Eternal Samsara’ seems to have gone too far—the enemies’ damage is too high, the protagonist’s damage is too low. This isn’t about honing skills anymore; it’s purely about annoying players. After suffering, there’s no sense of achievement.”

“The announcement says that the last patch will update the combat system. Maybe there will be improvements then?”

“Yes, I think it’s probably like this: suffer at the beginning, then release the combat system modifications at the end.”

“That’s not good, is it? The combat system is the essence of the entire game. If everything revolves around the combat system, then shouldn’t the combat system be updated first? What’s the point of making us suffer for no reason?”

“And it seems this game really doesn’t have a single new scene. They just modified the original monsters and scenes and used them as DLC. Disappointing!”

“It’s fine, this DLC is very cheap anyway.”

“It’s not about whether it’s cheap or not. This DLC was promoted with great fanfare, and everyone expected it to have game content on par with ‘Turn Back to Shore.’ With the current situation, it can’t be considered satisfactory, can it?”

“Exactly! Tenda’s core spirit isn’t about being cheap, but about exceeding expectations and pursuing excellence! We don’t want cheap; we want substantial game content!”

Clearly, many players shared Yan Qi’s thoughts.

In terms of the currently updated content, this part of the game experience was obviously unsatisfactory.

Yan Qi shook his head slightly, unable to understand what Tenda was really up to.

Perhaps Mr. Pei was too busy and had only lent his name without participating in the detailed experience design, leading to a significant deviation between the final result and Mr. Pei’s plan?

Perhaps the original author’s involvement had some impact on the game project?

Perhaps the lead designer simply wanted to try something new but lacked Mr. Pei’s abilities and messed up?

All were possible.

But there would be four updates in total, and this was just the first one.

As some players emphasized, the combat system seemed to be scheduled for the last update. It might be premature to declare “Eternal Samsara” a failure now.

Yan Qi browsed the forum a bit more, preparing to leave work and go home.

But at that moment, he noticed a post.

“Holy crap! I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but I think I just saw the Martial God move on his own!”

Yan Qi was stunned.

The character moved on its own?

Was it an optical illusion?

Or… stick drift?

Or was the poster just seeking attention?

Yan Qi had played for two hours and hadn’t encountered any situation where the character moved on its own, so he instinctively didn’t quite believe this post.

But curiosity drove him to click on it.

The poster described their gameplay in detail. Like Yan Qi, they were also beaten up and captured by Black and White Impermanence. The difference was that Yan Qi had only been killed once by the knife-wielding ghost official before successfully progressing forward.

But this poster couldn’t defeat that minor knife-wielding enemy no matter what, getting all kinds of abuse and dying so many times they questioned their existence.

After dying many times, they challenged the ghost official again, only to find that in what should have been a certain death situation, the Martial God seemed to move on his own, blocking the ghost official’s blade.

But the Martial God still died, so the poster wasn’t sure if they were seeing things.

The commenters below obviously didn’t quite believe it either, raising various doubts.

By the time Yan Qi arrived, the post had already generated many pages of debate. Finally, to prove themselves, the poster shared a screen recording.

Filmed with a phone, the clarity was questionable, but it showed both the computer screen and the poster’s hand movements with the controller.

In the video, it was clear that facing the long knife of the ghost official, the Martial God moved on his own, using the demon sword to parry the blade.

This movement was very subtle and unremarkable, and it didn’t completely negate the damage—the ghost official’s knife still cut him and killed him.

But looking carefully at the recording, it was evident that the Martial God had indeed made a parrying motion without any player control.

Clearly, the player had just positioned the Martial God next to the minor enemy and then put down the controller. After being killed who knows how many times, they finally discovered this strange phenomenon with a very low probability of occurrence.

Yan Qi was stunned.

“What’s going on?”

“This setting definitely didn’t exist in ‘Turn Back to Shore.’ It looks like some new combat mechanism.”

“Wait, isn’t the combat system supposed to be updated at the end of the month?”

“So what is this?”

Yan Qi felt deeply confused.

Clearly, this must be a mystery deliberately planted by Tenda.

The person who planted this mystery must be either Mr. Pei or the person who decided to release “Eternal Samsara” in four parts.

…

What Yan Qi didn’t know was that Pei Qian and Meng Chang were also looking at this post with bewildered expressions.

Their minds were filled with the same confusion and bewilderment as Yan Qi’s.

“What the hell is going on?!”