Free Web Novel[System Notification: Player Bai Liu has been attacked by player Liu Huai’s (Nightblade). Mental Value has been eroded, decreasing by -35. Current Mental Value: 4. Warning! Warning! You have entered the Berserk Zone!!]
[Player Name: Bai Liu (Berserk Attribute Bonus Panel)]
[Stamina: 56 → 655]
[Agility: 249 → 1133]
[Attack: 37 → 1555]
[Resistance: 36 → 1776]
[Overall offensive and defensive capability has increased. The sum of the player’s panel attributes exceeds 4000. Player evaluated as A+ rank. Player Bai Liu’s rank has risen from F to A+.]
“That’s enough.” Bai Liu finally stopped Liu Huai’s hand from continuing its assault.
Zhang Kui saw Bai Liu’s attribute panel and immediately made his judgment. “That panel isn’t enough to tank the Thief Brothers. The Thief Brothers are at least A+ rank monsters. You would need someone like Mu Shicheng, who can go berserk and reach A++, to hold them back.”
“I know.” Bai Liu’s attitude was perfectly calm. “Don’t I still have you? What’s the rush?”
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu is controlling player Zhang Kui to use the personal skill (Puppet Enhancement) on himself.]
[System Warning: Player Bai Liu’s Mental Value is insufficient to deduct fifty points!!! Forcibly enhancing the puppet will cause player Bai Liu’s Mental Value to collapse!]
[System Warning: Does player Bai Liu insist on forcibly using the personal skill (Puppet Enhancement)?]
Bai Liu did not hesitate.
[Use]
“Are you insane, Bai Liu?!” Zhang Kui was forced to move his ten fingers, manipulating Bai Liu like a puppet. Transparent puppet threads invaded the back of Bai Liu’s head, piercing into his foramen magnum like needles. The remaining threads trembled as they burrowed into his joints and the gaps between his bones.
It was an extremely bloody, excruciating process, but as a player’s Mental Value dropped, they would soon grow numb to the pain.
Zhang Kui roared hoarsely, desperately pulling at the puppet threads in his hands in an attempt to stop this lunatic Bai Liu.
“Bai Liu!! Your Mental Value is only 4! You can’t use [Puppet Enhancement] at all! Forcibly using a personal skill to lower Mental Value won’t drive it to zero, but it will cause a Mental Value collapse! You’ll go insane!”
Mental Value collapse referred to a state in which Mental Value was lowered by something other than monster alienation and therefore could not be cleared to zero.
If a player used a personal skill or item to reduce another player’s Mental Value, it was impossible to forcibly clear it. In the game’s entire setting, only monsters could reduce a person’s Mental Value to zero. Players could not.
For example, Zhang Kui was unable to control players in a berserk state, and the Mental Value reduction caused by Liu Huai’s (Nightblade) attacks would suddenly decrease toward the end. From this, it could be seen that these skills and items could not truly clear a player’s Mental Value.
However, a very strange state could still appear.
Under continuous forced attacks from personal skills and items, a player’s Mental Value would eventually reach a state infinitely close to zero. Among players, this state was called [Infinitesimal Mental Value].
It was also known as Mental Value Collapse.
It was said that when a player’s Mental Value reached this stage, their thoughts became trapped in the rift between monster and normal human. Their mind already operated according to a monster’s logic, but they still possessed a human shell.
Why use “it was said” to describe [Mental Value Collapse]?
Because every single player who had truly experienced Mental Value Collapse had gone insane.
Some went mad and slaughtered every player in the game. Others exited the game laughing hysterically, only to commit suicide afterward. Everyone who touched the state of [Mental Value Collapse] went crazy.
Moreover, most players whose Mental Value collapsed had already received significant boosts to their panel attributes from entering berserk state. Inside a game instance, they often ended up killing all other players. Therefore, a player undergoing [Mental Value Collapse] could be called the nightmare of every player in the dungeon.
“Bai Liu!!” Zhang Kui strained to control his own hands, trying to stop himself from enhancing Bai Liu. “Don’t fucking mess around! Mental Value Collapse and your previous 0.1 Mental Value are not the same thing! This state is far more dangerous! In theory, your Mental Value has been cleared, but in reality, it hasn’t. You’ll fall into a chaotic subconscious desire space! You’ll go mad, Bai Liu!”
Zhang Kui gritted his teeth as he dragged back the puppet threads in his hands.
“If Mu Shicheng dies, then he dies! It doesn’t affect you at all! You could have cleared the game successfully! Aren’t you supposed to be smart?! If your Mental Value collapses and you go mad and start attacking people, with attributes that high, all of us will be killed by you! You won’t be able to save Mu Shicheng either! You’ll only attack him!”
The train doors were gradually closing, and Mu Shicheng was slowly being dragged out of the carriage. His fingers curled slightly, gripping the door frame as though he were struggling with every last ounce of strength to survive.
Mu Shicheng’s eyelids suddenly lifted. He looked at Bai Liu, his lips moving as if, with extreme unwillingness, he were calling Bai Liu’s name.
“I know.” Bai Liu had already heard the explanation of Mental Value Collapse from Mu Shicheng and Du Sanying, but his gaze was calm to the point of lifelessness. His tone, however, carried a casual, almost indifferent smile. “But I don’t like breaking deals.”
“Zhang Kui—or rather, Master.” Bai Liu suddenly turned his head and smiled at Zhang Kui. “If I really do go mad, that will be the time to test you. I will still be your puppet then. You must control me and make me do what I should do.”
“Motherfucker—Bai Liu!!” Veins bulged across Zhang Kui’s face from the effort. His hands convulsed as he tried to control the puppet threads attached to Bai Liu’s body. “No!! I can’t do it!” fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
“You can.” Bai Liu smiled leisurely. He turned his head and waved a hand. “I believe in you, Great [N O V E L I G H T] Puppet Master.”
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu has entered the (Puppet Enhancement) state. Mental Value deduction is insufficient. Supplementary calculation in progress—Supplementary calculation failed. Player Bai Liu is unable to provide the fifty points of Mental Value required for (Puppet Enhancement). Entering forced Mental Value extraction state—]
[System Notification: Extraction successful. Player Bai Liu’s Mental Value is dropping: 4, 3, 2—0.000000000......1]
Zhang Kui screamed hysterically, “Stop it, Bai Liu!!!!”
[System Warning (To all players): Player Bai Liu’s Mental Value has entered a collapsed state. Extremely high-risk biological entity! All other players, please evacuate his vicinity immediately!]
Bai Liu’s eyes gradually lost focus.
His breathing stopped.
All sound and light stretched into long, disordered lines before his eyes, warping into something like another plane, another dimension.
He had entered the subconscious hallucinations caused by his falling Mental Value.
Then, in an instant, Bai Liu felt as though something had grabbed him by the chest and dragged him into the carriage. Thief Didi stepped on his chest and swung a flaming fist down at him.
The fist fell.
Bai Liu let out a short groan as he was crushed. He turned his head and saw his own brain matter, bones, and blood shattered beneath the blow. Pain spread vividly, realistically, into every part of his body.
A second later, Bai Liu was dragged into an entirely new scene.
He stood in the carriage at the beginning of the journey. Exploding Passengers poured endlessly into the compartment. Mu Shicheng, grim-faced, told him it was time for a chase sequence.
A few seconds later, Mu Shicheng took the Siren’s Amulet he had stolen and left without looking back.
Bai Liu was caught by the pursuing Exploding Passengers. His limbs were pinned in place. Flames engulfed him, burning him alive into a charred corpse that still retained the ability to feel pain.
The vision shifted again.
Bai Liu stood on Du Sanying’s car, whip in hand. He knelt on the roof, panting, while Du Sanying said, “Bai Liu, I can’t do it. I can’t stay with you guys.”
With tears in his eyes, Du Sanying pushed Bai Liu into the crowd of passengers and drove away.
Bai Liu, whose hatred value was locked and whose stamina had been exhausted, could only collapse where he stood, bitten and devoured by a swarm of zombie-like passengers.
He saw Mu Shicheng use the Siren’s Amulet.
He saw himself become a puppet in Zhang Kui’s hands forever, growing duller and more foolish day by day, until at last he was abandoned in some dungeon and died alone.
Endless illusions of death rushed toward him.
Every possible outcome that could have led to Bai Liu’s death, every scene that might have existed in his subconscious, became real and played out on him again and again as though it had truly happened.
Humans cannot stop thinking.
They cannot stop imagining.
They cannot stop fearing.
And therefore, they cannot stop the illusions created by their subconscious.
Not even Bai Liu could.
So he could only repeat these subconscious hallucinations thousands upon thousands of times.
“Imagining possibilities that never happened for events that have already passed is a very boring thing.”
Bai Liu was pinned to the ground by Mu Shicheng. He had already forgotten which node this particular death plot had branched from. Mu Shicheng’s monkey claws had brutally slit his throat. Blood poured into his windpipe as he spoke, making him choke and cough, yet he still began to laugh.
He sighed.
“But it turns out I’m this boring too. I thought about all the ways you might betray me, Mu Shicheng. There were quite a few. I counted them—probably around eight hundred.”
Burned to death.
Throat slit.
Bitten to death.
Strangled...
Mu Shicheng looked strangely at Bai Liu, who was still laughing even in the face of death.
Bai Liu’s face was covered in the blood he had coughed up from laughing. As death approached, his eyelids slowly lowered. Because his windpipe had been cut open, his voice carried a peculiar, airy rasp.
“Among so many possibilities, you chose the one where you didn’t betray me.”
Bai Liu’s voice grew weaker. He closed his eyes.
“Then I will choose that one too, Mu Shicheng. This is a fair trade.”
[Bai Liu, if I really get dragged away by a monster, will you actually risk your life to save me?]
[Don’t worry. If you manage not to use the Siren’s Amulet, then I, as someone who keeps his word, will save you. Even if I go mad, I’ll remember to save you, Mu Shicheng.]
After hearing Bai Liu’s words, Mu Shicheng lowered his eyes and sneered.
“Like hell I believe you, Bai Liu.”
(T/N: Bai Liu is such a fascinating kind of crazy.)
