"Ugh, my head….That's hurt..."
"Damn, the pain feedback is so real in this game"
John Foster struggled to get up from the cold stone floor, experiencing a sharp pain throughout his body.
He glanced at his attire...
Tattered clothes, iron chains around his wrists and ankles, it was clear that his status was very low.
John looked around and found himself in a grand yet eerie temple, surrounded by no less than a thousand players from various races.
There were Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, and even Dragonborn...
These players, just like John, were dressed in tattered clothes with their hands and feet locked in iron chains.
Their faces looked extremely bewildered, seemingly unaware of how they ended up in this place.
"What's going on? Shouldn't I have been born in the Elf newbie village? Why am I here?"
"What kind of place is this? It looks so eerie."
"GODSLAYER, the game feels incredibly immersive and realistic. I can even feel the coldness of the iron chains... Wait, how could I be born with iron chains? That doesn't make sense!"
...
The players discussed amongst themselves, but no one knew what was really going on.
A bad feeling arose in John's heart.
Suppressing his anxiety, he calmly opened his personal attribute panel:
[Player: Galewind]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Assassin]
[Level: 1]
[Attributes: ...]
...
John quickly scanned the panel and noticed a line of text at the bottom:
[Innate Talent: 'Sacrifice']
[Sacrifice: To appease the anger of Devils deep within the continent, various races offered a portion of their people to please the Devils, and you are the poor guy who has been sacrificed to them.]
[Talent Attributes: Max HP -100, Max Stamina -50, Pain Feedback 100%, Unable to leave 'Temple of Godslayer' before the death of Devils.]
"What kind of talent is this?!"
"I have so much less HP and stamina than other players from the very beginning!"
After seeing the talent description, John stood there, stunned.
In the game Godslayer, a level 1 human character only has a total of 150 HP... Now he's down by 100 HP right from the beginning, how is he supposed to play in the future?!
Not long after John discovered this talent, wailing cries emerged from the group of players.
Obviously, they also realized how cheating the "Sacrifice" talent was.
"What? Why did my max HP reduce so much?"
"Why me? Other people's talents increase their attributes, but mine reduces them?"
"How could it exist a game with 100% pain feedback... Isn't that illegal?!"
"Screw this! I'm deleting my character!"
"Yeah, I'd rather create a new character, this talent is just too deceiving!"
...
In a short while, more than a dozen players logged out and disappeared on the spot.
However, some players who had declared their intention to delete their characters were still hesitating.
"What's wrong, what are you waiting for?"
"I just opened the character deletion interface, and it said that if we delete this character, our new character will permanently lose the chance to obtain rare talents..."
"What's there to be afraid of? Even a normal talent is much better than this 'Sacrifice' talent, right?"
"Besides, the probability of getting a rare talent is extremely low anyway, it's one in ten thousand. Do you really think you'll get a rare talent just by creating a new character?"
"You have a point."
The two players no longer hesitated and directly clicked on the option to delete their characters.
The next second, both players disappeared at the same time.
In "Godslayer," each player can only bind their personal information to create an account and character.
In other words, each player can only have one account and one character.
If they want to play a new character, they must choose to completely delete their previous character.
Generally, very few players would delete their characters at the beginning, but this time their innate talent was too terrible, causing hundreds of players here quickly choose to delete their characters.
The remaining players were also feeling extremely conflicted.
According to the game's official information, in "Godslayer," players can get one roll in talents banner every fifty levels.
These talents are very important, directly determining whether a player's character is powerful.
If they were lucky enough to pull a legendary "rare talent," they would immediately take off and become a big shot that everyone envied.
But this time, when they were about to delete their characters, they were reminded by the system that if they give up this character, their future characters will never be able to pull any "rare talent" again.
This result made them quite hesitant.
If they don't delete, they might still pull top-notch talents when they level up every fifty levels.
But if they delete, even if the new character's initial talent is better than "Sacrifice," they won't be able to pull top-notch talents in the future...
At this moment, one of the players in the crowd stood up.
He was a Dragonborn player, looking strong and tall, standing out among the crowd.
He said loudly, "Everyone, don't panic. I am the Vice Leader of Unrivaled Warriors Guild. It is indeed a bit unfortunate that we all got sent here at the beginning, but I think you don't need to be impatient. If you delete your characters now, you will never become a bigwig in the future!"
"Let's unite and break out of the temple together... I've seen it; our initial talent is trash, but it only deducts 100 points of health and 50 points of stamina. As long as we draw a rare talent later, this attribute difference won't matter at all!"
Inspired by him,
Many players' eyes reignited the flame of hope.
So, hundreds of players gathered around the Vice Leader of Unrivaled Warriors Guild, clamoring to break out of the temple.
Seeing so many people responding, the vice leader became a bit excited, his face turning red.
"Great! Since everyone trusts me, I will lead you all out!"
"After we get out, we are all brothers, and you can join our guild together!"
"Our Unrivaled Warriors guild has also been a top 100 guild in all previous popular games, guaranteeing to be a strong backing for everyone!"
"As long as we unite, we can dominate any game!"
He was about to continue speaking.
John, who had been sitting and watching from the side, frowned.
It wasn't because of the vice leader's words.
It was because John had an extremely ominous premonition...
In the temple, it seemed that a powerful force was rapidly gathering.
Soon after, a strange wail came from above their heads.
John sensed something was wrong, quickly looked around, and found a huge statue not far away. He pushed through the crowd and ran over, hiding under the statue's wings.
Quickly, a terrifying black smoke fell from the sky, rapidly enveloping the vice leader of Unrivaled Warriors Guild.
He didn't even have time to scream before being sucked dry!
And those players who were closer to the vice leader were also instantly sucked dry, leaving behind a pile of mummified corpses...
After the black smoke passed, hundreds of players died on the spot!
The remaining players, seeing this scene, were all terrified and instantly, hundreds of players immediately chose to delete their characters, disappearing in place.
The dead players all turned into light blue soul forms, not knowing what had killed them until their deaths.
"Damn! My HP limit has dropped by another 10 points! Does dying in this temple cause our HP limit to decrease every time?"
"I've lost quite a few points of strength... It seems that dying here really causes a loss of attributes..."
"Damn it, my intelligence has dropped to negative values! Even if I resurrect now, I can only continue to die, and my attributes will keep dropping!"
"Mom, I don't want to play anymore, it's too scary! I want to log off!"
"Forget it, I won't be able to pull rare talents anymore, but since this game is so popular, there will definitely be a need for many characters with life skills. I might as well not fight and focus on leveling up life skills to make money!"
...
These hundreds of soul-form players no longer dared to talk about breaking out of the temple.
Even the once ambitious vice leader was now full of fear, as if he had seen something extremely terrifying.
He didn't say another word, quickly choosing to exit and delete his character.
Perhaps, even if he had ten times the courage, he would never dare to return to this temple again...