Sixth floor, Copper Pillar Hell.

Countless towering copper pillars moved constantly within the maze. The sound of rumbling echoed in his ears, as if he had entered some sort of mechanical factory. All the copper pillars were heated red-hot by raging fires, and many humans were clinging to them, their corpses scorched black… The sight was truly gruesome.

Ignoring the psychological discomfort, Brother Liu stopped for a moment to observe, analyzing the situation: “For this level, it looks like we have to squeeze through the gaps between the copper pillars. If I accidentally get burned by a pillar, I’ll be scorched just like those corpses.”

“The movement of these copper pillars doesn’t have a specific pattern, so our hand speed has to be fast. We must seize the opportunity and squeeze through!”

This hell truly tested one’s mechanical skill. The constantly moving copper pillars easily hit players. To navigate between them, one needed sharp eyes, quick hands, and reasonable use of the sprint function.

Brother Liu, having some skill, progressed smoothly at first. However, after passing five intersections in a row…

He hit a dead end.

“Holy shit! Such a long path was actually a dead end?” Brother Liu gritted his teeth in anger.

When navigating a maze, the most annoying thing is this kind of “ultra-long misdirection,” where you walk for a very long time only to find a dead end—a waste of time and emotion!

Brother Liu had no choice but to backtrack. While doing so, he made an operational error and crashed into a pillar. The sizzling sound of searing flesh echoed in his ears, accompanied by the player character’s agonizing scream.

Black Impermanence: “Release a headless fly in here, and it would be more agile than you.”

Brother Liu: “…”

[Brother Liu, change your name to Headless Fly Brother!]

[Hahaha, Black Impermanence’s mockery is never late.]

[The main difficulty of this maze floor is probably the ultra-long dead ends, right?]

[Testing paths one by one, can Little Brother Liu clear it tonight?]

Brother Liu didn’t hesitate: “Even if I have to grind until dawn, I will clear this level!”

The more he played this game, the angrier he got, and the angrier he got, the more addicted he became. He had to finish this maze tonight before he could sleep peacefully.

Brother Liu got back up and continued through the Copper Pillar Hell. Besides the constantly moving copper pillars, the difficulty of this floor lay in the ultra-long dead ends. The most ridiculous one took him 15 minutes to walk down, only to tell him it was the wrong way!

Motherfucker!

Taking the wrong path meant getting scorched… taking the wrong path meant getting mocked…

He patiently endured, constantly engaging in trial and error, and finally found the correct exit two hours later.

Brother Liu felt a huge sense of relief: “Finally passed it!”

A message popped up on the screen.

System: Cleared Level 6: Copper Pillar Hell. Obtained item [Cooled Copper Pillar].

Brother Liu had a bad feeling: “Another item? Looks like there are more levels after this!”

Sure enough, the scene shifted, bringing him to a new area.

Seventh floor, Mountain of Knives Hell.

This was a vertical maze that went all the way up, like climbing a mountain covered in sharp blades. Sharp blades popped out of the path from time to time; the slightest carelessness would result in the player being impaled.

Brother Liu dodged the arrays of sharp blades, climbing upwards vigilantly.

After experiencing several tragedies of being stabbed to death, he reached the middle section of the Mountain of Knives Hell—halfway up the mountain.

There was actually a pavilion for resting here?

Brother Liu praised, “The designer has some conscience, setting up a rest area halfway up the mountain. Otherwise, my fingers would have fallen off from constantly pressing jump while climbing and dodging blades.”

“Let’s take a break first.”

A voice suddenly came from beside him: “Hello there, new little ghost.”

Brother Liu paused: “Who is speaking? There’s an NPC?”

He turned around and saw a man wearing a green robe with a kind face standing behind him. The man held a book in his hand and was smiling at him.

“Who are you?” the player character asked.

“I am Wei Zheng of the Department of Rewarding Goodness, one of the judges of the Underworld. To all little ghosts who did good deeds in their lives, I bestow corresponding rewards.”

As he finished speaking, the words “Underworld Judge · Department of Rewarding Goodness, Wei Zheng” appeared above the NPC’s head.

Brother Liu said curiously, “Underworld Judge? He said he’s going to give me a reward!”

Wei Zheng flipped through the thick book in his hand and smiled. “I found that you frequently did good deeds during your life, so I will give you a small gift.”

Brother Liu was deeply moved. “Thank you! After being constantly mocked by Black Impermanence, I finally met a player-friendly NPC!”

System: Obtained the item card gifted by Wei Zheng [Return from the Lost Path] x4.

Description: Consumable item. Use to mark a location and return to the marked point within 10 minutes.

“A marker card? Not bad, not bad. I can mark complex intersections and teleport back to save time on trial and error.”

He placed the marker cards in item slot 2 and continued forward.

The rest of the Mountain of Knives saw a massive spike in difficulty.

Before the rest area, one could successfully dodge the sharp blades by observing them in advance and jumping quickly; but after meeting Wei Zheng, the second half of the mountain was a nightmare!

The sharp blades on the path would suddenly pop out without warning, catching the player completely off guard.

One had to react fast enough to jump and dodge. Even getting distracted or yawning for a second was out of the question.

Brother Liu concentrated entirely on climbing up. Half an hour later, he finally found the maze exit. Breathing a sigh of relief, he smiled and said as he quickly walked towards the exit, “Fam, the exit is right ahead, we finally cleared it…”

Before he could finish his sentence, a knife suddenly popped up from under his feet.

Brother Liu was caught off guard and stabbed.

[Hahaha, there was actually a knife at the exit.]

[The designer is too pro, dying of laughter.]

Brother Liu couldn’t help but curse, “Damn it, I was careless! Might as well take a break, use the restroom, and run it again later!”

Fortunately, he remembered the maze’s path. Re-running it, it was smooth sailing. At 4:00 AM, he successfully cleared the Mountain of Knives Hell.

Eighth floor: Ice Hell.

Looking at the unfamiliar scene covered in ice, Brother Liu was almost numb: “Why does this maze never end? How many floors are there exactly? Does anyone in the chat know?”

[I don’t know, I’m playing Normal Mode and I’m only on the sixth floor.]

[I checked the forum section for Underworld Maze, and so far no one has cleared it?]

[This game is amazing, you can’t find a single guide anywhere on the internet?]

[Brother Liu, you are the first guinea pig, hurry up and scout the path!]

Brother Liu sighed helplessly, “Alright, I’ll continue scouting. This Ice Hell… Holy shit, another timed level?! A 30-minute time limit?”

“I remember the Steamer Hell was also timed. When the time was up, the player was steamed alive. So in the Ice Hell, when the time is up, you get frozen to death, right?”

“Let’s enter the maze and try it out!”

Brother Liu sprinted into hell, falling into ice holes several times in a row.

After dying a few times, he discovered that Nightmare Difficulty Ice Hell was extremely psychopathic. For every step, there were two blocks of ice. As long as the player stepped on a block, it would shatter within 1 second. This meant that if the player took the wrong path and wanted to turn back, the ice behind them was already half-shattered. In places with many intersections, backtracking more than twice would completely shatter the ice path.

At the same time, the continuously accumulating Cold Meter around his avatar also affected his movement speed.

Brother Liu complained, “The margin for error in the Ice Hell is very low. Coupled with the time limit, I feel it’s much harder than the Steamer Hell. For this level, we can use the marker cards Wei Zheng gave us to mark a few key intersections and teleport back. We only have four marker cards, so we need to use them sparingly!”

There were many three-way intersections here, and the paths were extremely complex. Several times, Brother Liu hit a dead end, and when he wanted to turn back, the ice path had already shattered, forcing him to fall into an ice hole and restart.

He only had four marker cards and was reluctant to use them, only doing so when absolutely necessary.

Repeatedly freezing to death, restarting…

Before he knew it, the time was already 6:00 AM.

Brother Liu had memorized most of the paths in the Ice Hell. This time, utilizing the help of the marker cards, he sprinted all the way and finally reached the vicinity of the maze exit.

“Poor thing, you’re freezing, aren’t you? Come to Granny quickly.” The voice echoing in his ears made Brother Liu pause.

Just now in the Mountain of Knives Hell, Wei Zheng gave me marker cards. Is this NPC going to give me something good too?

Brother Liu immediately followed the direction of the voice. At the end of a branching path, he saw an old woman with a loving smile named Meng Po. A lantern hung from the walking stick in her left hand, and she held a steaming bowl of soup in her right.

She looked incredibly kind.

Meng Po smiled. “Are you cold? Do you need a sip of hot soup?”

Brother Liu said excitedly, “This granny appeared at just the right time. A cold maze calls for piping hot soup! She’ll probably help me clear my Cold Meter and give me a speed buff to help me reach the maze exit!”

Saying this, he eagerly ran up to Meng Po.

System: Meng Po gifts you a bowl of “Meng Po Soup”. Drink it immediately?

Brother Liu chose “Yes” without hesitation.

The screen suddenly went black, and a large block of bloody text scrolled up.

[You drank the Meng Po Soup]

[Your mind suddenly goes blank]

[You forgot everything]

[You do not know who you are, where you are, or what you should do]

[You become a wandering ghost, roaming aimlessly through the Underworld]

[Until the Black and White Impermanence find you once again]

A momentary blank look appeared on Brother Liu’s face: “Huh? Ah? What’s going on?”

A long row of question marks also scrolled across the chat.

It wasn’t until the game screen rewound to the opening and the familiar pop-up window appeared on the screen—Please select game difficulty: [Normal Mode] [Nightmare Mode]

Brother Liu: “????”

Why were the items and cleared floor numbers in his system menu no longer displaying? Why was it asking him to select the difficulty again?

Some viewers reacted.

[Was it a rollback?]

[Holy shit, this isn’t a game clear, this is a forced rollback!]

[If you clear a single-player game, there’s usually a thank you message. This is clearly wiping the slate clean and restarting.]

[The effect of Meng Po’s Soup is forgetting, you forgot everything! Hahaha, dying of laughter.]

[Just now you said a cold maze needs piping hot soup, and the result is…]

[Hahahahahaha]

[Feeling sorry for the streamer.]

Brother Liu finally reacted, and his whole being instantly exploded on the spot!

Rollback? Motherfucker, playing a maze game can have a rollback?!

“Designer, you’re fucking amazing! I’ll fuck your—”

The streamer lost control of his emotions and in his agitation, threw his phone directly onto the ground.

The viewers in the live stream clearly heard the sound of the phone screen shattering.

Viewers started to worry about his mental state.

[Brother Liu has gone crazy from anger~]

[Streamer currently going crazy online.]

[If it were me, I’d go crazy too, fuck! Who would have thought there was such a mechanic?]

[Meng Po’s Soup forces a rollback, 666.]

[Let alone clearing the game, this is a direct restart!]

[Grinding for two days amounts to grinding for nothing?]

A moment later, Brother Liu took a deep breath, adjusted his emotions, and said with feigned calmness, “Sorry, my phone broke. I’ll get it fixed tomorrow and come back. Um, bye-bye.”

The mentally unstable streamer Brother Liu ended the broadcast in anger.

---

Sunday at 8:00 PM, Brother Liu, having replaced his phone screen, shamelessly returned to his computer.

Although he was so angry he had insomnia and was cursing the designer even in his dreams, when he crawled back to his live stream channel at night… his follower growth was quite considerable.

Gaining 200,000 followers overnight—thinking of this, his mindset became peaceful again.

Smile, be calm.

What else can I do? Keep streaming!

Old viewers who clicked into the live stream were surprised to find that he was actually playing the first floor, Tongue-Ripping Hell.

[Asking because I don’t know: I haven’t watched Brother Liu’s stream for the past two days, why is he playing the first floor again?]

[I slept early last night, fam, what floor did he grind to?]

[Hahaha, he ground his way back to the first floor!]

[And he broke a phone too~]

[Hahahahahaha]

[Still playing the first floor after two days, Little Brother Liu, you’re truly ‘Liu (six)’ (amazing/hilarious).]

[Streamer currently going crazy online, do not disturb.]

Brother Liu: “…………”

I am the first great victim to be persecuted by this game!