```
"So the game starts just like that? No plot or cutscenes or anything?"
"It's all good, brothers. A great game should be like this. Use the good steel where it counts, investing all the budget into the scenery and core gameplay.
"As for the plot and all that, I can only say we don't need it, right? Anyway, everyone skips it."
Instructor Ding, as a professional streamer, certainly displayed great professionalism. During these two hours of advertisement time, he would rack his brain to find the game's strengths and avoid talking about its weaknesses.
Instructor Ding moved his mouse, briefly checking the surroundings.
He was currently behind the wreckage of a bus, with his forward view mostly obscured and unclear.
Instructor Ding then pressed the number keys to switch weapons and found them to be all too familiar:
The 1 key was for an assault rifle, an AK47;
The 2 key was for a sniper rifle, a 98K;
The 3 key was for a pistol, a Glock;
The 4 key was for throwable 1, a fragmentation grenade;
The 5 key was for throwable 2, a flash grenade.
These were the player's initial weapons. As the game progressed, there would be upgrades like the Desert Eagle, M4A1, AWP, or even a Gatling gun.
However, it's likely that almost no one could complete even the first minor challenge on this difficulty level.
Besides, all other keys had their corresponding functions too, like ASWD for movement, QE for leaning, ctrl for crouching, space for jumping, and C for rolling, etc.
These are all common settings in FPS games and quite easy for anyone to pick up.
"OK, brothers, I can now say that I have completely mastered this game, alright.
"Now, please watch as a former FPS pro shows you some high-end moves!"
Instructor Ding was brimming with confidence, being a former professional player. He was quite sure of his shooting skills.
With his current equipment, if this had been in any ordinary FPS game, it would absolutely be considered top-notch, capable of wreaking havoc.
Simple single-player mode, with enemies as NPCs—wasn't this as easy as pie?
Holding such confidence, Instructor Ding, with his AK47 ready, leapt out from behind the wrecked bus!
His dynamic vision was excellent. He locked onto the enemies ahead right away.
It was an ordinary Infernal Inferior Demon.
This type of demon was the most low-level, small and hunch-backed, with fiery red skin. In most games of similar themes, they were only fit to be the "grass" in the phrase "mowing the lawn."
After all, it was the first minor monster of the first challenge, and it was normal and reasonable to arrange such a frail creature for players to practice and familiarize themselves with the controls.
But what was unreasonable was that it was holding a gun with a distinct design... an M4A1.
Yes, it was clearly an M4A1 by its shape, but it had conspicuous differences from the usual design; it appeared to be covered in black, with dark red patterns all over it, its sharp angles resembling an armor.
Especially near the muzzle, there was a hint of dark red glow as if it was the eye of some malevolent beast.
"Bang!"
The gunshot rang out, but it didn't come from the AK47 in Instructor Ding's hands.
Instructor Ding's viewpoint abruptly switched from first-person to third-person, and he saw the character he was controlling—a fully armed special forces soldier—fall face-up with a huge blood splatter erupting from his head.
HEADSHOT!
I got up, got shot, what's there to say?
...
[Negative emotions from Ding Qiang +5!]
Gu Fan, who was watching the live stream, saw this prompt appear.
Lilith, on the other hand, was laughing uproariously, clearly delighted.
However, she didn't get too excited; after all, this was just a trivial auspicious start. In terms of value, this amount of negative emotion was insignificant.
If a single inexplicable headshot on Ding Qiang could yield 5 points of negative emotion, then the negative emotions provided by the hundreds of thousands of players of the game could reach tens of millions.
Lilith continued munching on her chips, then watched earnestly for Ding Qiang's next performance.
Gu Fan, of course, couldn't be happy because more prompts began appearing before him.
[Negative emotions from Ying Zhida +3!]
[Negative emotions from Feng Sijie +10!]
[Negative emotions from Ling Bing +1!]
Various pieces of information floated by, much like the barrage of comments in a live stream chat, dense and numerous.
But soon, these messages were gathered up into jumping numbers, with only Ding Qiang's negative emotions displayed separately.
On the edge of Gu Fan's vision appeared a special message prompt.
```
[Negative emotion value from "Infernal Trajectory" obtained: 3422!]
The number was still rapidly increasing.
It was clear that this must be a byproduct of signing a contract with Lilith, as Gu Fan could see the negative emotion values the game generated at any time.
From the current situation, Lilith's promotional methods had taken effect.
Not only were many of Instructor Ding's fans downloading the game to give it a try, but the game platform's marketing was also kicking in.
Apart from the official platform that didn't allow data manipulation or buying promotional spots, all other game platforms had begun diverting traffic to this game as planned.
With a substantial number of players entering, the game naturally continued to provide a steady stream of negative emotion values.
In the livestream, Instructor Ding scratched his head, looking somewhat confused.
"Guys, what just happened? Did you see it clearly?
"I seem to have been killed instantly?"
He looked at the chat for an answer, but obviously, the viewers' dynamic vision wasn't as good as his; they hadn't even noticed where the enemy was.
"Could it be that the computer also has a 'neural gun'?
"That doesn't make sense, let me try again."
Instructor Ding raised his gun and walked out again.
In his subconscious, the AI in FPS games should be easy to hit.
After all, FPS games change in the blink of an eye, and setting the AI difficulty too high could easily ruin the player experience. It's more like fighting against a script or an aimbot than actual computers.
Therefore, most game developers tend to set the AI difficulty low, using them only as punching bags.
Instructor Ding didn't think too much of it. He simply assumed he had encountered a "neural shot," or, in layman's terms, got "lucky."
It surely couldn't happen that he would get headshot instantly every time, thought Instructor Ding.
But obviously, he was wrong.
"Bang!"
HEADSHOT!
It was the same gunshot noise, the same backward falling headshot!
"Eh? Guys, what's going on? No way, I'll switch to a sniper rifle and try."
"Bang!"
HEADSHOT!
"I haven't even scoped with my sniper, and I'm already dead? Do I need to throw a grenade to get through?"
"Bang!"
HEADSHOT!
"..."
After a dozen or so tries, the camera showed Instructor Ding with his mouth slightly open, his expression blank, as he began to question his life choices.
"Guys, don't panic, let me think about what's happening here...
"It can't be that there's something wrong with Client Daddy's game, don't worry, I'll figure it out!"
Clearly, Instructor Ding was stumped. In his many years as a streamer, he had never encountered such an absurd situation.
As a former professional FPS gamer, he was now being toyed with by the first small demon in the first challenge of the game!
He started with an AK, which didn't work.
Then he thought to switch to a 98K, trying to quick-scope, which also didn't work.
After that, Instructor Ding tried grenades and flash grenades, but still no luck!
No matter what gun he used, as soon as he jumped out, he would be headshot instantly.
And what about throwing grenades over the wall? Even if they landed right at the feet of the Inferior Demon, the blast wasn't strong enough to kill it.
Flash grenades should theoretically be effective against demons, right? But they were useless; the Inferior Demon seemed immune, continuing to headshot without being affected in the slightest!
Of course, to say he couldn't win at all? That wasn't entirely true.
Instructor Ding, as a former professional player, had a reaction time of about 100ms, which was quite good among ordinary people.
According to his own feeling, it wasn't that there was no chance of winning at all. Each time, he would move the mouse and aim at the opponent, only to be headshot the moment he took aim.
The difference was about 10ms.
In other words, if he tried a dozen or so times, he might hit the Inferior Demon once; if he tried a few hundred times, he might get a headshot by luck.
But even so, the difficulty level of this game was all wrong!
If a former professional player struggled so much, what about the other average players? Even if they tried ten thousand times, a million times, they would still not be able to beat it!