The difficulty of the game in this chapter has become extremely high at this point.
A boss that could have been defeated easily now requires help from story characters to just barely be taken down.
Declaring a bottleneck lockout penalty because all shell attributes are cut in half would not be surprising now.
Frankly, after the Netherworld game gave out the million reward package, it immediately wanted to send the Apostles packing... the typical Apostles would probably be thrilled, happily exiting the chapter and choosing to restart.
Who is Lin Xun, though? He has never even tried to experience the punishment for restarting at the chapter bottleneck.
Moreover, as each chapter gets closer to the end, while the difficulty increases, the rewards also increase.
Situations like the ranges of Giant Beasts in the Blood Sun world or the Hermit Canyon in the Omniscient World only appear at the end of chapters.
