[System tip: Player Bai Liu has been attacked by Player Liu Huai’s Dark Night Sleeve Sword and his mental value has been eroded. It has decreased by 35. The current mental value is 4. Warning! Warning! The rage state has been entered!!]
[Player Name: Bai Liu (Rage attribute bonus panel)]
[Physical strength: 56 → 655]
[Agility: 249 → 1133]
[Attack power: 37 → 1555]
[Resistance: 36 → 1776]
[Comprehensive defense and attack power has increased. The total of the panel attribute points has exceeded 4000 and the player is rated as an A+ level player. The player Bai Liu’s level has increased from F to A+ level.]
“That’s it.” Bai Liu finally stopped Liu Huai’s non-stop attacking hand.
Puppet Zhang saw Bai Liu’s attributes panel and quickly judged it. “Your panel isn’t enough to go against Brother Thief. Brother Thief is at least an A+ monster. Only players like Mu Sicheng who are A++ level in the rage state can handle him.”
“I know.” Bai Liu’s attitude was very calm. “Isn’t there still you? What are you so anxious about?”
[System tip: Player Bai Liu has controlled Player Puppet Zhang to use the personal skill ‘Puppet Enhancement’ on himself.]
[System warning: Player Bai Liu’s mental value isn’t enough to decrease it by 50! Do you want to forcibly use Puppet Enhancement? It will cause Player Bai Liu’s mental value to collapse!]
[System warning: Does Player Bai Liu want to forcefully use the personal skill ‘Puppet Enhancement’?]
Bai Liu didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“You are crazy Bai Liu!” Puppet Zhang collapsed as he was forced to move his fingers to manipulate Bai Liu. The transparent silk thread invaded the back of Bai Liu’s head and plunged into his occipital bone like a syringe. The rest of the puppet silk vibrated and drilled into the seams of Bai Liu’s bones. This was an extremely bloody and painful process but the player would soon become numb to this pain due to mental value dropping.
Puppet Zhang shouted loudly in order to stop the crazy Bai Liu as he pulled the puppet silk thread with his hands. “Bai Liu! Your mental value is only 4 points! You can’t forcibly use this Puppet Enhancement skill! Although using a skill to lower your mental value won’t cause it to fall to zero, you will collapse! You will go crazy!”
Mental value collapse referred to the state where non-monster alienation in the game reduced the mental value and the mental value wasn’t cleared.
Players could use personal skills or items to reduce the mental value but it was impossible to forcibly clear it. In the game setting, only monsters could clear a person’s mental value to zero but a player couldn’t do so.
For example, Puppet Zhang couldn’t control a player in the rage state and the decrease in mental value by Liu Huai’s Dark Night Sleeve Sword would be reduced suddenly. It could be seen that these skills and items couldn’t clear a player’s mental value.
However, there would be a very strange state.
Players could forcefully use these personal skills and items. Under the constant attack, the mental value would eventually show a state of infinitely approaching zero. This state was called the ‘infinitely small mental value’ and was also known as ‘mental value collapse’.
It was said that when a player’s mental value was at this stage, their mind would be trapped in the gap between ‘monster’ and ‘normal human.’ The brain was already that of a monster but it had a human shell.
Why was it described as a ‘mental collapse’?
It was because all players who experienced it went crazy, whether it was killing all the players in the game or laughing and committing suicide once out of the game. As long as they touched the mental value collapse state, they all went crazy.
Moreover, most of the players with a collapsed mental value greatly improved their attributes panel due to their rage state. They tended to kill all players in the game so players with a mental value collapse were a nightmare to all players in the instance.
“Bai Liu!” Puppet Zhang tried his best to control his hands, not allowing himself to enhance Bai Liu. “Don’t fucking go crazy! A mental value collapse and having a mental value of 0.1 aren’t the same thing!! This state is much more dangerous! In theory, your mental value has been cleared to zero but not yet. You will fall into the chaotic space of subconscious desire. You will go crazy Bai Liu!”
Puppet Zhang gritted his teeth and dragged the puppet silk thread in his hands. “Mu Sicheng dying has no effect on you at all! You can clear the instance successfully! Aren’t you a smart person? If your mental value collapses then you will crazily attack people. Your high attributes value means we will all be killed by you! You can’t save Mu Sicheng! You will only attack him!”
The doors were gradually closing and as Mu Sicheng was dragged out of the train, his fingers curled up and grabbed onto the door frame as if struggling to survive.
Mu Sicheng’s eyes suddenly opened and he looked at Bai Liu. His lips opened and closed as if he was calling out Bai Liu’s name very reluctantly.
“I know.” Bai Liu had long been informed about the concept of mental value collapse by Mu Sicheng and Du Sanying. His eyes were calm to the point of being inorganic and his tone was relaxed and indifferent. ”Still, I don’t like breaking transactions.”
“Puppet Zhang—or Master.” Bai Liu turned his head and smiled at Puppet Zhang. “If I really go crazy then it is time to test you. I am still your puppet. You must control me and make me do what I have to do.”
“Damn it! Bai Liu!!!” The veins on Puppet Zhang’s face were bulging and his hands convulsed as he tried to control the puppet silk around Bai Liu’s body. “No! I can’t do it!!”
“You can.” Bai Liu smiled casually and waved his hand. “I believe in you, Puppet Master.”
[System tip: Player Bai Liu has entered the ‘enhanced puppet’ state. The mental value can’t drop enough. Supplementary calculation is underway. Supplementary calculation has failed. Player Bai Liu can’t provide the required 50 points of mental value and has entered the forced mental value collapse state—]
[System tip: The request is successful. Player Bai Liu’s mental value is dropping. 4, 3, 2—0.00000000….1]
Puppet Zhang was hysterical. “Bai Liu, stop!!!!”
[System warning (for all players): Player Bai Liu’s mental value has entered a collapsed state and he is an extremely high-risk creature! Asking the rest of the players to flee from him quickly!]
Bai Liu’s eyes gradually lost their focus. His breathing stopped and all the sounds and lights in his eyes became long and disordered lines, becoming something like another plane and latitude.
He entered the hallucination state caused by the drop in mental value.
Bai Liu suddenly seemed pulled into the carriage by something. Brother Thief stepped on his chest and swung a flaming fist at him. Bai Liu was hit and turned to see his brain, bones and blood on the fist. Pain spread in a real and vivid manner everywhere inside him.
A second later, Bai Liu was dragged into a brand new scene. He was standing on the train that started to move. The passengers were pouring into the train and Mu Sicheng gloomily said they were going to chase. A few seconds later, Mu Sicheng stole the Merfolk Amulet and left indifferently. Bai Liu was caught by the passengers who were chasing after him. They grabbed his limbs and trapped him in place. The flames engulfed him and he felt it as he was burned alive.
His vision changed again. Bai Liu was standing on Du Sanying’s car with the whip. He knelt on the car to catch his breath and Du Sanying told him, “I can’t do it. I can’t be with you.” He cried as he pushed Bai Liu into the crowd of passengers, driving his car away. Bai Liu had the aggro locked on him and his physical strength was drained so he could only fall and be bitten by the passengers.
He saw Mu Sicheng use the Merfolk Amulet so that Bai Liu became a puppet in Puppet Zhang’s hands forever. He gradually became stupid from having his intelligence absorbed and was abandoned in an instance to die alone.
Endless illusions of death rushed forward. All the possibilities and turns in the fork that could have led to Bai Liu’s death that had appeared in his subconscious became real. Then it reappeared as if it actually happened to him.
People couldn’t stop thinking, couldn’t stop imagining, couldn’t stop the subconscious creating hallucinations. This was the case even with Bai Liu. Thus, he could only repeat these hallucinations from his subconscious hundreds of times.
“It is boring to assume that there is no probability that something has happened.” Bai Liu was being pressed to the ground by Mu Sicheng. He had forgotten which node this death plot was derived from. His throat was slashed brutally by Mu Sicheng’s monkey claw and blood poured into his trachea along with his words, making him choke as he laughed. Then he sighed. “Still, I’m so bored thinking about the ways you have betrayed me. Mu Sicheng, there are so many ways and I have counted them. Perhaps there are more than 800 kinds.”
Burning, a slit throat, biting, strangulation…
Mu Sicheng looked strangely at Bai Liu who was still laughing even when dying. Bai Liu’s face was covered with blood, his eyes closed slowly at the arrival of death and he had a unique breathy sound before his trachea was cut open.
“Among so many possibilities, you chose the one where you didn’t betray me.” Bai Liu’s voice weakened and he closed his eyes. “Then I’ll choose this as well. Mu Sicheng, this is a fair deal.”
[Bai Liu, if I was really dragged away by a monster, do you actually intend to save me?]
[Don’t worry. If you don’t use the Merfolk Amulet then I’m very trustworthy. I will remember to save you even when I’m crazy, Mu Sicheng.]
After listening to Bai Liu’s words, Mu Sicheng lowered his eyes and sneered. “I will believe in you, Bai Liu.”
Proofreader: Purichan
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