When the spiral sword inside Gundyr's body was pulled out, the boss, which had been like a statue, started to wake up.
By then, Lucas had already switched his "chicken leg" weapon into dual-wield mode and let out a battle cry using the weapon's skill.
While Gundyr was still getting up, Lucas started swinging the chicken legs at him.
The boss's health was dropping fast enough to see with the naked eye.
Then, before Gundyr could turn around, Lucas rolled back to create distance. As Gundyr swung down with a massive chop, Lucas dodged to his back with ease, keeping an eye on his stamina bar so there was always at least one segment left, and continued attacking.
The dual chicken legs kept pounding on Gundyr until the boss suddenly staggered and dropped to one knee. Hector and the others knew—Lucas had just broken his poise.
With Gundyr kneeling, Lucas kept spacing his attacks so he wouldn't drain all of his green stamina bar.
Soon, with only half his health left, Gundyr froze in place as his whole body was covered in black matter, transforming into a giant snake-like form with a deadly glare.
While Gundyr was in mid-transformation, Lucas snuck in two more hits.
The transformed Gundyr then leapt high into the air for a crushing slam, but Lucas rolled neatly through the attack's invincibility frames and landed two final swings, wiping out the rest of his health.
With a roar, Gundyr collapsed to the ground.
"Not bad at all. The combat system and moves are great. Let the team keep testing this part," Lucas said.
"As for the game balance and difficulty, let's keep it like this. Since this is the first boss players face, it shouldn't be too hard."
From the current test results, Lucas was very satisfied.
First, the game's visual presentation had improved a lot compared to his previous life.
From the blood effects when attacking to the environmental destruction in the scenes—
It was all excellent. For example, Gundyr's swings would break the bricks in the courtyard ground.
Of course, it's just a visual effect. For example, when Gundyr's halberd slams the ground, it leaves cracks, but it won't actually make a deep hole.
Like mentioned before, this doesn't affect the game's core content, but it does add to the overall experience.
It's not a make-or-break feature, but it adds flavor and helps immerse players without them even noticing.
As for the core difficulty, Lucas wasn't just making things up—right now it felt pretty good.
In his previous life, Gundyr even had a nickname: the "Quitter Boss."
It served as a warning to players about what kind of game they were playing.
If you can accept that, then congratulations—a new world is opening up to you. You might even unlock something special.
But if you think Iudex Gundyr is unbeatable and it's making you feel hopeless,
then before your refund period ends, asking for a refund might be the smart thing to do.
Of course, there's also a more direct way—one that many Souls players on PC used in the past life.
That is, to become the top disciple of the Wind Spirit Moon Shadow Sect… or to put it simply, use a mod tool.
Some players want to personally experience the story and gameplay instead of just watching videos, but their skills aren't enough. In that case, a mod tool is a good choice.
To be honest, as a game creator, Lucas doesn't really look down on players using mods in single-player games.
Every player has their own way of playing.
But players who use mods still need some limits, because Dark Souls isn't purely a single-player game. If you're playing online instead of offline,
while in Ember form, you might get invaded by other players—that's just part of the game's rules.
There are benefits, but also risks.
So for this, Lucas followed the same approach as Dark Souls in the past life.
Players can use mods, but once they do, the save file will be marked so it can't connect with normal players. When going online, it will be placed on a separate server just for players with modded saves.
Also, modded saves can't unlock in-game achievements.
Besides that, there are still normal online rules, like balance adjustments for stats.
This stops players from making low-level characters with strong gear to become "Great Wall Lords" and invade clueless newbies who don't even know what Ember does.
"But Lucas, won't that make the difficulty too low?" Anna, who didn't know the whole story, shared her opinion.
"Yeah! Feels kind of like a hack-and-slash game. This boss and the small enemies seem way too easy to beat!" Rachel agreed.
"So Lucas, is Dark Souls actually a hack-and-slash game?" Ethan from marketing asked.
After all, for future promotion, game tags are very important.
Hector and the rest of the combat system designers all looked stunned.
Too easy? Not tough enough? Hack-and-slash? What are you talking about?
Are you trying to kill players later on?
And why is Lucas so good at this game?
Hector and the others had mixed feelings.
The game's fine. They're fine. So the only thing "wrong" here… is Lucas.
Who would have thought their boss is actually a gaming master?
Seeing everyone's faces, Lucas smiled and waved it off. "It's just because I know the boss's attack patterns, so it's easy for me to deal with. Normal players will still need practice."
Ah, that makes sense.
Everyone nodded in sudden understanding, but they gave Hector some strange looks.
No one said anything, but Hector and his group could clearly guess their thoughts.
Basically: Weren't you guys the ones who worked on the Dark Souls combat numbers, boss moves, and battle system?
And this is the "too hard" game you kept talking about?
Are you sure you're not just bad at it?
After Lucas left and seeing the way everyone was looking at them, Hector snorted and stood up. The other combat and animation designers moved aside to let him through.
No words were needed, but the mood was perfectly clear.
Easy?
Then you try passing the flame.
So, unwilling to back down, they all sat down to play for themselves.
Half an hour later…
Their expressions became a lot more complicated.
"I'll go talk to Lucas later. Maybe we should add some kind of death achievements in the game, so that even if players die, they still get some rewards or comfort," Anna said first.
"After dying, I think the screen could slowly fade from crimson to dark red to gray-white, and the 'You Died' text could be made a bit prettier to give players some comfort," Rachel added with a complicated look.
Everyone glanced at each other, and they all understood the same thing.
Good luck, players. That's the most they can do for you.
Ethan, on the other hand, looked like he'd just been hit by a truck.
Sure, it's easy for you guys to adjust.
But what about him?
When it comes to promoting the game… what kind of tags is he even supposed to use?
He thought about Lucas's gameplay footage, and then remembered his own experience.
Ethan felt lost.
(End of The Chapter)
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