Free Web NovelAbove Bai Liu and the Siren King, a fireball burned like a sun sinking into the sea. Beneath them lay countless drowned corpses and shipwrecks. Black fragments from the blaze drifted silently through the water between them.
Everything appeared calm. Almost peaceful.
But the system alarms ringing without pause reminded everyone that this scene was nowhere near as quiet as it looked.
[System Warning: Player Bai Liu’s mental value is continuing to decline. Current mental value: 6...]
[System Warning: Player Bai Liu’s mental value is continuing to decline. Current mental value: 5...]
On the small television screen, Bai Liu’s entire face was covered in thick scales. His hands had grown a tough, reptilian outer layer, his second knuckles hooked into claws. His lower limbs had lengthened completely into a fish tail.
He looked no different from any other monster.
Wang Shun’s heart nearly leaped out of his chest. “His mental value... it’s below 5...”
“Bai Liu, do you still know you’re a player and not a monster?” Mu Shicheng looked up at Bai Liu’s ugly face on the screen and murmured to himself.
The Siren King’s tail swayed faintly. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
With a swimming speed so ghostly it was impossible to predict, he approached Bai Liu.
To the spectators watching the small television, it looked as though the Siren King had merely flickered. In the next second, he was already pressed close to Bai Liu’s cheek.
A wave of startled cries burst from the audience, only to be quickly smothered as people clapped hands over their own mouths.
The Siren King’s expression was indifferent. His long hair brushed across the high bridge of his nose. He lifted one index finger and lightly touched Bai Liu’s brow.
His pale lips moved slightly, but no sound reached the audience.
No one knew what the Siren King said except Bai Liu.
“You brought me to the deep sea. What is your wish?” the Siren King asked. “State your wish, and I shall grant it.”
Bai Liu’s pupils constricted under an overwhelming pressure.
The instant the Siren King drew close, Bai Liu felt as though his brain had been thrown into a blender—or crushed beneath a steamroller—leaving him unable to move.
[System Warning: Player Bai Liu’s mental value is continuing to decline. Current mental value: 1...]
Wang Shun was so nervous he nearly bit into his own hand. “Ahhh—!! Only 1 left! Only 1!! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Mu Shicheng’s breathing also went faint.
He said nothing, only stared intently at the small television.
The rest of the audience was screaming in unison.
“Wuwuwu, I don’t dare look anymore!”
“I need oxygen!”
“Fuck, how many years has it been since I saw a player who made me unable to leave even at the edge between life and death... I keep feeling like he can still create a miracle... my heart’s beating so fast...”
[System Warning: Player Bai Liu’s mental value is continuing to decline. Current mental value: 1. (Berserk) Limit—]
[Player Name: Bai Liu (Berserk Attribute Bonus Panel)]
[Stamina: 655 → 955]
[Agility: 733 → 1033]
[Attack: 555 → 955]
[Resistance: 776 → 1209]
[Comprehensive offense and defense have increased. Total panel attribute points exceed 4000. Evaluated as a Super A-rank player. Player Bai Liu’s level has risen from A-level to Super A-level.]
Wang Shun slapped his thigh hard, both furious and anxious. “Even pushed to the limit, his attributes only reach Super A! That’s still way too far from S-rank! S-rank panel attributes have to exceed ten thousand!”
“A difference of six thousand. There’s no way he can withstand an attack from a God-level NPC.” Mu Shicheng frowned, a rare expression of regret crossing his face as he looked at Bai Liu on the screen. “Such an interesting player. Unfortunately, this will be his last game.”
The intense pain had actually cleared Bai Liu’s mind somewhat.
Blood spilled from the corners of his mouth and eyes. He wiped it away casually, smiled, and said to the Siren King, word by word, “My wish is... please attack me. Right now.”
On the small television, the Siren King seemed to process this for a moment.
His silver pupils shifted slightly as he looked at Bai Liu. “You want me to attack you? You may die.”
“Who knows? Maybe I won’t.” Bai Liu’s smile widened.
Every scale on his body was trembling and bleeding under the pressure of the Siren King’s proximity. At this moment, he looked almost exactly like a merman.
The Siren King’s bloodline suppressed him. Bai Liu could not control the instinctive terror he felt toward the Siren King, yet he dismissed that fear completely.
The result was a fractured, almost grotesque expression.
The right side of his face showed uncontrollable fear: tears streamed from his eye, and the corner of his mouth pulled downward, though the scales made it difficult to see clearly.
The left side of his face, however, wore a natural, lazy smile. His eye was indifferent, and the corner of his mouth curved upward.
Bai Liu leaned closer to the Siren King until their noses nearly touched. Lowering his eyes, he whispered as though joking, “What if you can’t kill me, and I get something from you instead?”
Something like rewards.
Something like points.
The Siren King’s pale pupils stared directly at Bai Liu.
Only after a long while did he withdraw his gaze.
“Mad traveler, as you wish. I will attack.”
“But you have returned me to the seabed. If you survive, I will owe you one wish. You may come to redeem it at any time, so long as you hold a part of my body and call my true soul name—Tawil.”
“Many thanks.” Bai Liu’s eyes curved.
The Siren King slowly circled Bai Liu once.
Then his pupils suddenly narrowed into vertical slits. His tail curled, and in the next instant, he turned and struck Bai Liu across the waist with unstoppable force.
After taking the Siren King’s blow head-on, Bai Liu shot into the seabed like a torpedo with a violent bang.
The entire screen shook.
The seabed trembled and cracked. Mud and sand exploded upward, darkening that stretch of sea. Fissures split open across the ocean floor, revealing boiling magma beneath. Schools of fish fled in panic, yet all of them kept far away from the Siren King suspended in the water.
The Siren King looked down from above, his long hair spreading through the sea.
The tail that had struck Bai Liu swayed slightly, elegant and unhurried.
Against the apocalyptic backdrop of the shattered seabed, the Siren King’s flawless, untainted features and inhumanly emotionless face carried the sacred aura of a descending god.
In front of the small televisions, the audience closed their eyes almost in unison.
No one dared keep watching.
Only someone asked in a tiny voice, “Is he dead?”
Wang Shun withdrew his gaze, grief and helplessness filling his face. “With only 0.1 mental value left, even if he survived the Siren King’s attack, his mental value should be wiped out. He should be gone.”
Mu Shicheng stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at the screen now stained pitch-black by mud and sand. He lowered his eyes, his thoughts unreadable.
For once, there was no lollipop in his mouth.
He only gave a soft “Mm,” then sighed regretfully. “I thought I might get to play a game with him. Bai Liu... really was interesting.”
Just as many viewers were preparing to leave in regret, a weak, stuttering beep-beep warning suddenly sounded from the blackened screen, like a signal cutting in and out.
After two seconds of static, the small television returned to normal.
Everyone’s attention snapped back to it.
The small television had not gone dark.
That meant only one thing.
Bai Liu was not dead.
[System Warning: Player Bai Liu’s mental value is continuing to decline. Current mental value: 0.1. Player, please clear the game quickly.]
[System Warning: Player Bai Liu’s mental value is continuing to decline. Current mental value: 0.1. (Berserk) Final Limit!!!!]
[Player Name: Bai Liu (Berserk Peak)]
[Stamina: 955 → ??? (Undeterminable)]
[Agility: 1033 → ??? (Undeterminable)]
[Attack: 955 → ??? (Undeterminable)]
[Resistance: 1209 → ??? (Undeterminable)]
[Comprehensive offense and defense have increased. Total panel attribute points unknown. Unable to evaluate player level. Reporting to higher levels... Higher levels are intervening. Bai Liu’s small television video data has been sealed into the encrypted game archives.]
Wang Shun opened his eyes in disbelief.
He was so stunned he could barely form a coherent sentence. “Still—still alive? Mental value 0.1? Holy—!!”
Mu Shicheng was also dazed.
He took a step closer to the small television, trying to find Bai Liu through the drifting sediment.
The Siren King seemed to realize as well that the person buried in the seabed was still alive.
He slowly descended and swept the mud aside with his tail.
Bai Liu was embedded in the seabed, his limbs twisted at unnatural angles. The lower half of his fish tail, where he had been struck, had vanished entirely. Only his upper body remained, half-buried in the mud, lingering on the edge of death.
Blood flowed from Bai Liu’s eyes, nose, and ears.
Yet this man was laughing.
Laughing so heartily, so joyfully, that blood kept spilling from his mouth.
Seeing the Siren King, who had nearly fanned him to death with one tail strike, Bai Liu still had enough energy to raise his right hand—broken at a ninety-degree angle—and greet him lazily.
“Yo, Siren King.”
Wang Shun was actually amused by him.
He stared in disbelief, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “Does this guy not feel pain? His hand’s broken and he’s still greeting the monster. The game’s sensory simulation is one hundred percent!”
“Madman,” Mu Shicheng commented, folding his arms with a smirk.
Of course Bai Liu was in pain.
His entire body hurt so badly he was almost dying.
But Bai Liu’s attitude toward pain was equally indifferent. It was as though the pain belonged only to his body and could not interfere in the slightest with his mental calm—or with the pleasure brought by his imminent game clear.
His emotions existed independently, like paints sealed in separate compartments, unable to bleed into one another.
The Siren King’s face showed no discernible emotion.
“You are still alive.”
“Yes.” Bai Liu smiled, opening a mouth full of blood.
Even now, he still had the mood to tease him.
“I told you, if you couldn’t kill me, maybe I’d get something from you.”
The Siren King bent down and looked at him, pale lashes lowering.
“What do you want from me?”
Bai Liu’s consciousness was already somewhat blurred.
Looking at the Siren King’s excessively exquisite face from such a close distance, he suddenly felt like flirting with him.
Bai Liu smiled.
With his broken hand, he gently touched [N O V E L I G H T] the Siren King’s long hair, brought it to his own bloodstained lips, and placed a teasing kiss on it.
Then he laughed and said, “Maybe a kiss? I’ve never seen a creature as beautiful as you. I couldn’t even model something like you myself.”
The Siren King lowered his eyes.
“Okay.”
“?”
Bai Liu thought, What do you mean, okay?
Then he watched the Siren King close his eyes, lean down, and kiss him.
