Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 494 - 477: Explanation of the Prologue

Chapter 494: Chapter 477: Explanation of the Prologue

After the God-making ending had been achieved, players fell into a state of polarized discussion for a long period.

Some players believed that this ending was a complete rip-off, simply perfunctory!

Because it was so difficult to achieve this ending, and yet most of the story CGs were reused from the God Slaying Ending, with only a minor portion of the content changed—wasn’t this just blatant obfuscation?

Besides, could this even be considered a good ending?

The protagonist’s body had still exploded, transformed into a mix of marine creatures and terrestrial arthropods, becoming an indescribable monstrosity.

Those friends from Charlton City, the civilians he had saved, all of them now had nothing to do with him.

Or it could be said that at the moment of becoming a god, the protagonist had already died, whether it was physically, mentally, or in terms of social connections.

This was nothing like the "Long Aotian"-type ending that everyone had imagined!

Moreover, many parts of the story were not clearly explained. What would become of Charlton City after the protagonist’s transformation into a god? Would the protagonist be able to maintain his original human consciousness? Or would he turn into another indescribable, terrifying monster that brings new disasters to the world’s humans?

Because of such considerations, this group of players was quite dissatisfied with the God-making ending.

But there were also players who thought this ending was quite good.

Isn’t the greatest charm of the Cthulhu mythos the "deliberate lack of clarity"?

Many of the less impressive Cthulhu stories often fall into the trap of focusing too much on surface appearances. For instance, they focus on describing how unspeakably ugly and terrifying the Ancient Gods look, simply combining all the ugly characteristics of deep-sea creatures to display a visage that drives one insane.

But such overly detailed descriptions go against the very spirit of Lovecraft’s mythos.

The greatest horror of the Cthulhu mythos lies in "the terror of the unknown," the "unimaginable horror." If you describe the appearance of the Ancient Gods in such detail, what sets them apart from a giant squid? If every audience member can gaze upon the god directly, the mystery is lost.

Although the CGs of the God-making ending seem to have little change from the God Slaying Ending on the surface, in reality, they have jumped to a higher dimension.

Although the protagonist is only a nascent Ancient God, he has acquired the Eye of the Ancient Gods, the Heart of the Ancient Gods, and the Blood of the Ancient Gods; this means that He holds three different forms of authority.

Not only can He achieve invisibility, He also possesses incredible vitality, and He can even directly manipulate humans.

In the God-making ending, the rescue team prays in front of the divine statue—a scene not found in the God Slaying Ending.

This is enough to suggest that at the time, the protagonist should have been within the cathedral, and the reason the rescue team couldn’t find Him was that He had turned invisible.

Moreover, the protagonist was testing His own abilities by controlling the rescue team to pray to the statue.

Without a doubt, even as a nascent Ancient God, the protagonist has become unbeatable in this world, and humans can no longer pose any threat to Him.

And many people especially liked the open-ended conclusion that followed.

It had a sense of lingering afterglow.

Different people have their own envisioned conclusions.

You might think the protagonist maintained His humanity, after all, He transformed from human to god, allowing humans to make better use of the Blood of the Ancient Gods and the crystals, and under the premise of coexisting with gods, they could establish an even more splendid civilization.

Or you might think the protagonist’s humanity will gradually slip away, turning into a stronger, irrefutable Ancient God, and that humans, while continuing to use the crystal energy and Blood Therapy, will still inevitably move toward madness and destruction again. The only difference is, there will be no new Hunters to slay the god because the Ancient God who has consolidated three authorities is now in an invincible state.

In that case, the world of "Blood of Lies" would become a world utterly devoid of hope.

As to which kind of future it will be, in fact, every player has a different answer in their heart.

So many players feel that the God-making ending isn’t bad, although it seems a bit perfunctory just from the CGs, but "Blood of Lies" has managed to carry through the taste of the Lovecraftian mythos until the very last ending, which could be considered a job well done.

This debate has existed since the God-making ending was first unlocked and continues to this day.

It’s just that because of the high heat from the combined deception of players by Nitiandang and streamers, the controversy over the storyline of the God-making ending was temporarily suppressed.

And now, in the video by Wang next door, old issues were being brought up again.

However, what surprised Lilith was that Wang was not focused on analyzing the storyline of the ending itself; he had placed his attention elsewhere.

"First, let’s think about what an ordinary player needs to do to trigger the God-making ending in the simplest way.

"First, one must exploit a bug in front of the Meditation Basin, pick up all the weapons of the Lie Hunter, and drop some in front of the Lie Basin to trigger an overload state; then upon entering the Lie Basin, they can retain some weapons, thus receiving a more lenient GP judgment during the official gameplay.

"Second, before fighting the first boss, the giant beastification puppet, he had to find a Fanatic to eat a throw move, raising his Dynamic Difficulty level to 4999.99. Then, he entered the boss room to trigger the Dynamic Difficulty bug, locking in the lowest difficulty while maintaining a high GP success rate.

"Third, when faced with choices that required lying, he had to lie as much as possible from a human perspective. For instance, he would lie to blatant villains, but tell the truth to good people, even if that truth was somewhat cruel.

"Fourth, regarding the beastified bosses in the game, he had to stop attacking when the boss’s health was below 10% and survive for 1 minute, waiting for the new cutscene to appear.

"With enough practice, most players could achieve the God-making ending.

"Some might say, that’s exploiting a bug! The original difficulty wasn’t meant to be like this.

"But think about it, maybe the difficulty with the bug was the normal difficulty intended by the official design, and playing without the bug is an unreasonable and unscientific challenge?

"Or maybe playing without the bug is a challenge difficulty specifically prepared for hardcore players?

"I believe that the emergence of these two bugs is no coincidence. In fact, they might not even be bugs, but rather special mechanisms in the game. The developers have hinted at the existence of these special mechanisms in many places—they want players to achieve the Divine Ending using these methods!

"Feeling dizzy?

"Don’t worry, let’s combine all these known conditions and reveal the true reality!"

At this point, Lilith was also bewildered by the deception.

Not bugs, but special mechanisms? Dude, are you sure you know what you’re saying...

Although Lilith knew that the following content would definitely be nonsense, curiosity drove her to keep reading. Besides, she was eager to know how players defined these bugs as mechanisms.

If someone had deliberately done this, then... that Traitor must be caught!

...

"Let’s start with the prologue of ’Blood of Lies’. In fact, there have been several interpretations of the prologue’s story so far.

"For example, some believe it’s just a flashback, a special way to help players adapt to the game mechanics faster—just past memories revisited through interaction with the Meditation Basin.

"But obviously, that’s not the case.

"The prologue of ’Blood of Lies’, especially the battle with the Lie Hunter, undoubtedly suggests that the player is in a special time loop.

"When players interact with the Meditation Basin, they are not merely seeing past memories through it, but are thrown into a time loop and starting over!

"How can one distinguish this? It’s quite simple: If what players see in the Meditation Basin is a memory of the past, then after experiencing the official Chapters and returning to the cathedral, it should connect back to the previous storyline, forming a closed loop.

"Even if we were to fight the Lie Hunter again, it should still be the same Lie Hunter from the prologue, and our judgment for the Transformation Slash GP should have become more lenient.

"Clearly, based on our actual gaming experience, the Lie Hunter players encounter upon returning to the cathedral is not the same one as before. His moves and dialogue change, and most importantly, our Transformation Slash GP judgment frames differ.

"Some might ask, does scrutinizing the prologue’s story matter? Of course, it matters because only by confirming ’this is not memory but reincarnation’, can we further unfold the subsequent story."

Here, Wang from next door also made some additional clarifications, mainly by contrasting the differences between the prologue and the official Chapters. Obviously, there is a significant difference between the characters in the prologue and those in the official Chapters, which is visible to the naked eye.

Beyond the differences in the bosses’ moves, dialogue, and Transformation Slash judgment frames mentioned by Wang, another significant difference is in the character’s appearance and clothing.

In the prologue, the character has an Ancient God Face and wears a masked Hunter outfit.

But after the players complete the official Chapters and return to the cathedral, the likelihood that they look the same is slim.

Depending on how much the player lies, their face will change to varying degrees, not to mention the clothes—they wear all sorts of things.

This clearly doesn’t match the prologue.

If the designer truly meant to convey ’all of it was the character’s memory’, then there should be a scene where the player’s vision leaves the Meditation Basin and the memory’s appearance gradually merges with the actual appearance.

That would make the story more complete and logical in terms of narrative.

But obviously, ’Blood of Lies’ shows nothing of the sort.

Of course, this alone is a bit of a stretch and won’t convince all players.

But what if this kind of beginning better explains the subsequent story?

In the video, Wang continued to present more evidence.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.