The Slaughter Wheel Rolls

The wheel rolled on. Even though I had yet to form a Golden Core, a single unified wheel of slaughter spun around the core I had already established at Core Formation, dragging the Slaughter Tribulation along with it.

The sensation of plummeting from Core Formation down through Foundation Establishment and all the way into Qi Condensation was agonizing and grotesque. There was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠no gradual aging as a lifespan ran out — I had to feel my body wither and crumble in real time, and the sense of loss that came with it carried a hollowness so complete I almost wanted to let everything go.

But the enormous Wheel of Slaughter spinning above my head did more than just turn. Simply by existing, it kept the field's monsters at bay and held me together so I wouldn't collapse.

The wheel, swollen huge on the experience I'd stuffed into it after dropping all the way to level 98, gradually shrank and drew back into my body.

Only then did my crumbling, rotting frame start knitting itself back together — though not completely. Of course not. I'd fallen to level 98.

I could reverse the wheel and reabsorb the Slaughter Tribulation to climb again, but for a bug — no, for a bug-adjacent playstyle — I needed to stay at level 99 or below.

The moment the Wheel of Slaughter finished settling into my body, the monsters that had been hanging back began closing in one by one.

Elite monsters, every one of them level 450 at minimum. This was the Abyss.

Half of them had probably just been watching out of manners because the spinning wheel ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠looked interesting, but either way, the level gap between me and those things was over three hundred and fifty.

And by popping that Great Misfortune for the level drop a moment ago, I'd already satisfied the first condition.

The approaching monsters froze mid-step.

The Capybara Event: a fifty-percent chance to proc when the level gap hits three hundred. For every level past three hundred, the odds climb another one percent — so at this gap, it was a guaranteed trigger.

The effect itself was simple. Within a set radius, every monster that registered a buffed player dropped into a non-aggressive state. That was it.

And that was exactly where Abyss bug-play began.

In the vanilla lore, the Abyss was a living digestive tract, and the mobs inside it were both its parasites and its digestive juices.

Some lore-obsessed user on the community boards had posted a question just to scratch an itch:

"So are Abyss mobs classified as parasites or digestive fluid?"

Naturally, a game this dogshit only had a handful of regulars hanging around the forums — but one absolute maniac took that lore-nerd's question seriously, dove into the Abyss, and ran the experiment himself.

Just like that, the world speedrun record dropped from a hundred years to ten.

Because the cheese exploit known as the Abyss Run had been discovered.

First condition: be low enough level to guarantee the Capybara Event. I'd already handled that with the wheel that could dump my levels.

Second condition: pull off the time-honored, universally respected map-clip glitch that every half-decent game seems obligated to have.

"Uh… around here, maybe?"

No minimap, so I had to wing it — rubbing my body against empty air, stretching my arms overhead, pacing the edges of the Capybara buff zone by pure gut feel. The second I felt my body snag on nothing at all, I immediately fired the Rest emote.

"Status Window!"

I opened the Status Window in that pose, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠then used the Rest emote again to sink into a crouch, repeating the cycle until — with a sudden whump — half my body punched through the Abyss floor.

Even with the Reality Patch applied, the map-clip glitch had fired successfully.

Why the hell does this actually work?

Anyway, the real cheese happened from here. This was an exploit only possible because we were in the Abyss. With the map-clip active, I opened with a ranged attack and tagged a monster first.

A monster whose level I couldn't even read properly — the gap was that absurd — appeared. Once a monster entered combat like this, it stopped counting as Abyss digestive fluid and got reclassified as an Abyss parasite.

But thanks to the map clip, the Capybara Event never broke even after I'd taken the first swing. The monster couldn't find the player it was supposed to be fighting, so it just stood there stupidly looking around.

My endless stream of Chopsticks must have gotten on its nerves, because the moment it lashed out at random, it aggroed another monster.

And when two monsters fought and one went down, the experience naturally flowed to me. Of course, the game capped any single level-up burst from events or bugs at nineteen levels to stop people from skyrocketing, but still.

More importantly, if you kept leveling in this state long enough, the Abyss eventually spat you out as an event. Even so, you walked out with enough levels to make a speedrun viable, which was why people called it a cheese exploit.

So what if I used the wheel here?

Store experience up to the wheel's absolute maximum, convert the overflow into leftover stat points, and hit the absolute peak of bug-adjacent play.

You dared drop me into the Abyss with an eok-kka event? Heh heh.

I was going to milk this place for everything it was worth!!!

Sure, the map clip left me completely stuck in place, forced to wait until monsters wandered into Chopstick range — a handful of minor inconveniences — but Yu Hee's eyes had already flipped over the sweet fruit of experience and leftover stats.

Besides, I hadn't come into the Abyss on purpose to run this exploit. I'd been dumped here by an eok-kka event, so I had zero guilt firing up Double Speed Mod and farming nonstop.

There was just one problem. At a mere Qi Condensation realm, even with the wheel helping, I couldn't stop my body from withering and crumbling any longer.

The wheel reversed inside me.

As my level climbed, the suppressed realm snapped back into place. I blew past Foundation Establishment and hit Core Formation again — and I still had experience left over.

Obviously, dumping all that excess into more levels was pointless. I still wasn't remotely ready to complete a Golden Core, and this time I fully intended to prepare properly for the Heavenly Tribulation. So instead of climbing to level 299, I converted every last scrap of remaining Slaughter Tribulation into leftover stat points.

And right on cue, because some user had leveled too hard inside the Abyss, the expulsion event kicked in and kicked me out. Perfect!

You really thought I was a joke, huh?

I'll have you know that in my past life I sank over fifty thousand hours into this dogshit game and built the Korean language patch that I handed out as a community guardian!

Granted, I couldn't hold a candle to the true community ghosts — the achievement maniacs, the ironman freaks, the guys who ran every self-imposed challenge under the sun — but still!

I was still riding that high when a misfortune event crashed in like a wet blanket.

"Eh."

I'd just gotten hit with one of the Abyss-exclusive debuffs: Gaze of the Abyss.

A brutal tier-four debuff packing Cannot Run, Skill Seal, Movement Speed Reduction, Map Loading Time Greatly Increased, and Pointless VFX all in a row!

And the duration on this thing was disgustingly long!

Specialized debuffs like this couldn't even be blocked by the Mysterious prefix on the Five Great Calamities Dharma Treasure. Mysterious only resisted debuffs — it didn't grant immunity.

There was a reason people called it a trash prefix!

"Ah, shit. Of course it seals Chopsticks."

My main attack skill was locked. Better than the wheel getting sealed, sure, but couldn't it have hit something useless like Dig Tunnel instead? And Cannot Run plus a speed reduction? Absolute garbage.

"Gyaaaaah!!!"

This is so goddamn frustrating I could scream!

On top of that, it had slapped on Map Loading Time Greatly Increased — a low-odds proc exclusive to tier four — and the most infamous, most hated debuff of them all: Pointless VFX.

Pointless VFX was a deceptively simple debuff. Every single attack got a visual effect glued to it. The colors were so wild you couldn't tell whether a crit had landed or a dodge had triggered, so people tended to write it off as a minor annoyance. The problem was that this was a dogshit game.

This debuff forced the game to load VFX for every single player attack… which ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meant it deliberately lag-spiked the entire client.

"What kind of absolute trash design is this."

The duration wasn't a day or two — it was three full months. At this point I might as well start praying for an event to clear it.

"So when the hell is this map loading going to finish?!"