Chapter 732 - 732: The Great Villain Kratos

Controlling Kratos as he swung his chain blades, Zack finished off the minor enemies on the ship's deck and still felt like he hadn't had enough.

Lifting the hatch on the deck, Zack guided Kratos into the ship's interior.

The next second, the ship began to shake violently. As the waves surged, the entire ship rocked intensely, and seawater poured in through a breach.

What shocked Zack even more was that inside the ship's cabin, a massive head, like that of a sea serpent, appeared before him. This sea serpent's head was covered in layers of scales, with fins on its cheeks. It suddenly opened its huge mouth and lunged towards Kratos, letting out a furious roar.

At the same time, the monster's name appeared on the screen: Hydra, along with the boss battle's health bar.

"Is the boss fight starting already? This soon? We have to fight a boss right at the beginning?"

Zack was a little surprised.

As a gamer, he had encountered plenty of large bosses before.

He'd seen the massive bosses in Dark Souls, and in Monster Hunter World, there were Nergigante, Velkhana, Ruiner Nergigante, and Zorah Magdaros. The bosses in World of Warcraft's various dungeons were also quite huge. So, while Hydra's appearance was striking, it didn't completely amaze him.

What he found really satisfying was controlling Kratos and slashing the Hydra with his chain blades in God of War, feeling every blow land with impact.

Combined with the easy difficulty, even though Kratos would lose health when hit, there was no fatal threat. It was just incredibly fun.

Soon, Zack had taken down a third of the Hydra's health. At this point, the Hydra's head roared and attacked again.

But then, to Zack's surprise, the game entered a bullet time sequence.

A prompt appeared before him.

"A QTE gameplay? "

QTE, or Quick Time Event, is a rather primitive combat mode. During gameplay, players must quickly react to button prompts on the screen and press the corresponding buttons. The character will then perform a flashy finishing move.

In early action games, QTEs were widely used.

Their biggest advantage was their ability to showcase special combat moves, making battles more intense and visually impactful.

Of course, it's a double-edged sword. For example, in Asura's Wrath, the QTE system was botched, leading players to call it "QTE's Wrath."

As technology advanced with the development of games, QTE gameplay gradually became outdated. Even in the new God of War from his past life, many changes were made.

Although there were still QTE elements, they were no longer the main focus.

However, despite the many flaws of the QTE mechanism, it still had its merits. It could give players a more immersive experience, especially when combined with VR platforms. Appropriately implemented QTEs, in fact, could make the game experience more exciting.

Therefore, Lucas chose to retain the QTE mechanism in God of War's Greek trilogy.

However, it wouldn't be presented in the same way as in his past life, but rather through a more unique control scheme.

In addition to this, Lucas also made many changes to the game's content, such as removing a large number of unnecessary grunt battles and some unneeded puzzle content.

God of War, as an ACT game, has always included various puzzles. The main reason for this was a lack of content to pad out the game.

Even in the new God of War, which beat Red Dead Redemption in his past life, the puzzles gave many players headaches, especially since most of them relied on eye-hand coordination. One puzzle involving bells drove many players mad.

For a game that is supposed to be fun and violent, tedious puzzles can actually make the player feel pulled out of the experience.

After all, God of War isn't a treasure-hunting adventure game like Uncharted.

At least, in terms of immersion, having Kratos solve puzzles is definitely not as exciting as slaughtering massive monsters and gods.

Therefore, in the game, apart from some puzzles that showcase grand scenes and deadly traps in the gods' abodes, Lucas chose to downplay puzzle mechanics like pushing boxes to progress.

Of course, the mini-game of drawing circles and crosses, squares and triangles to drain red souls, serves as a buffer and seasoning after the extreme violence. For a young Kratos, it was still somewhat necessary.

Following the system's QTE prompt, Zack quickly completed it.

In the game, Kratos's muscles began to tremble. Then, with a roar from Kratos, he actually braced the Hydra's upper and lower jaws with his bare hands and smashed it fiercely against the ship's cabin wall.

Next, Kratos leaped up, plunging his chain blades directly into the center of the Hydra's head.

Then, using the chain, Kratos swung through the air, the other end of the chain blade piercing the Hydra's eye.

Blood spurted from the wounds on the Hydra's head, like a rain of blood.

The boss's health bar in the game also dropped by a third.

Suffering such a heavy blow, the Hydra let out a pained roar. One of its eyes had been impaled by Kratos's chain blade, and the other eye stared fixedly at Kratos.

With a roar, the Hydra's head shook violently, and blood gushed from the wound again.

This heavy blow left the Hydra somewhat dazed, and it even showed fear, recoiling sharply.

Kratos pursued relentlessly. Along the way, more demons and monsters appeared, but Kratos's chain blades turned them all to ash.

Seeing the blood splatter, Zack had only one thought: It was incredibly satisfying!

"It's so damn satisfying!"

He chased it all the way to the ship's aft deck, and after a fierce battle, entering another QTE phase and defeating another of the Hydra's heads, Zack felt completely exhilarated.

The smooth controls, the extremely violent action, and the perfect impact of every blow.

Combined with the stirring background music, the entire combat experience felt epic.

And this was just the beginning. As Zack continued to progress, he experienced more thrilling scenes and even learned powerful magic through his conversation with Poseidon.

Exploring further ahead, Kratos reached the middle section of the ship.

This area was filled with all sorts of enemies, and the remaining heads of the Hydra were constantly attacking the crew.

Compared to the massive heads of the Hydra, Kratos was incredibly tiny.

But in actual combat, Kratos, who appeared so small, was utterly dominating the Hydra.

It was somewhat similar to the previous boss fight with the heads.

However, this time, he had to fight three heads continuously: two smaller ones and one larger one.

Moreover, the large head in the middle would revive the smaller heads next to it.

This required using the environmental props in the game to pin the Hydra's heads to the deck with the ship's anchor.

After defeating the two smaller heads, Kratos climbed to the highest point of the mast and used Poseidon's magic to defeat the Hydra.

Then, the flaming Blades of Chaos pierced the Hydra's head and violently slammed its head against the mast.

This was followed by a series of explosive QTE sequences.

Using the ship's mast, Kratos pierced the Hydra's head.

Accompanied by the Hydra's painful struggles and the gushing blood from its wounds, it let out continuous cries of agony.

But against Kratos, all of this was in vain.

Finally, as its life ebbed away, the Hydra died completely.

At this point, a cry for help came from within the Hydra's throat.

Kratos crawled into the Hydra's mouth and found the ship's captain who had been swallowed earlier.

"Thank you, thank God, thank you for coming to save me!"

The captain, who had been swallowed by the Hydra, was somehow still alive. As Kratos pulled him out, he let out a sigh of relief and quickly expressed his gratitude.

"Don't mention it," Zack said, not paying much attention to the captain.

Earlier, a crew member had spoken to him and then was shot dead within two seconds.

Plus, this captain looked like a generic NPC with a stock model. Zack figured he was probably just a plot device NPC who wouldn't have any significant role later.

However, just as Zack expected Kratos to pull the captain up, he saw Kratos staring blankly at the captain and grabbing the golden key from his chest.

'I didn't come to save you.'

Emotionless words came from Kratos's mouth. After roughly snatching the key from the captain's chest, Kratos simply let go, watching him fall back into the Hydra's stomach.

At this moment, Zack's eyes widened.

According to a typical story, wouldn't Kratos save the captain?

It was just a small effort, and then the captain would give Kratos the key as a reward.

But to just snatch it and disregard the other's life?

An anti-hero protagonist?

Kratos the great villain!?

(End of Chapter)

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