[System Notification: Player Bai Liu has been attacked by Liu Huai's Night Blades. Sanity has been corroded, dropping by 35 points. Current sanity: 4. Warning! Warning! Berserk zone reached!!]
[Player Name: Bai Liu (Berserk Attribute Panel)]
[Stamina: 56 → 655]
[Agility: 249 → 1133]
[Attack: 37 → 1555]
[Resistance: 36 → 1776]
[Overall defense and attack have soared, total attribute points surpass 4000. Rated as an A+ player. Bai Liu's rank has risen from F to A+.]
"That's enough." Bai Liu finally stilled Liu Huai's relentless hand.
Zhang Gui, upon seeing Bai Liu's stats, quickly assessed, "This panel isn't enough to withstand the Thief Brother. That monster is at least A+—only someone like Mu Sicheng, berserk at A++, could endure him."
"I know," Bai Liu replied with unruffled calm. "But isn't that what you're here for? Why the rush?"
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu commands Zhang Gui to use his personal skill, Puppet Enhancement, on him.]
[System Warning: Bai Liu's sanity is insufficient to decrease by fifty points! Forceful enhancement will result in a sanity rupture!]
[System Warning: Proceed with Puppet Enhancement anyway?]
Without hesitation, Bai Liu: [Proceed]
"You're insane, Bai Liu!" Zhang Gui screamed, forced to manipulate his own fingers, the transparent puppet threads burrowing into the base of Bai Liu's skull like syringes, others trembling as they threaded through his joints and bones—a process excruciating and bloody, though soon the plummeting sanity would numb all pain.
Zhang Gui howled, frantically yanking at his own puppet strings to halt this madness: "Bai Liu! You only have 4 sanity left! You can't use Puppet Enhancement! Forcing it won't zero your sanity, but it will rupture it! You'll go mad!"
Sanity rupture refers to a state in the game where, through non-monster means, a player's sanity cannot be reduced to zero. No skill or item can force another player's sanity to absolute zero—only monsters can do that. For example, Zhang Gui cannot control a player in berserk mode, and Liu Huai's Night Blades, after a point, sharply reduce their effect. These skills and items cannot truly erase a player's sanity.
But a strange state emerges: under relentless assault from such skills and items, a player's sanity can approach zero infinitely—a state known among players as "infinitesimal sanity," or "sanity rupture."
It is said that when a player's sanity reaches this threshold, their mind is trapped in the rift between monster and man—their thoughts monstrous, their shell still human.
Why "it is said"? Because every player who has experienced sanity rupture has gone mad—whether slaughtering all in-game, or laughing maniacally to suicide outside it. All who have touched this state have lost their minds.
Moreover, in this state, players' attributes are greatly enhanced, and they tend to massacre all others—making a sanity-ruptured player the nightmare of any dungeon.
"Bai Liu!" Zhang Gui fought to restrain his hands, to keep from empowering Bai Liu. "Don't do this! Sanity rupture is nothing like your last 0.1 sanity! It's far more dangerous! Your sanity is theoretically zero, but not truly—you'll fall into a chaotic subconscious! You'll go mad, Bai Liu!"
Zhang Gui gritted his teeth, yanking the strings. "Let Mu Sicheng die! It means nothing to you! You could clear the game! You're a clever man, aren't you? If you rupture, you'll go berserk and kill us all with those stats! You won't save Mu Sicheng—you'll only destroy him!"
The train doors slowly closed. Mu Sicheng was being dragged out, his fingers clawing desperately at the frame, fighting for life.
Suddenly, Mu Sicheng's eyes opened, fixing on Bai Liu. His lips moved, as if calling Bai Liu's name in bitter defiance.
"I know." Bai Liu had long been briefed on sanity rupture by Mu Sicheng and Du Sanying, yet his gaze was cold, almost mechanical, his tone light and careless, even with a hint of a smile. "But I dislike breaking a deal."
"Zhang Gui—or rather, Master." Bai Liu turned and smiled at him. "If I do go mad, that's your test. I'll still be your puppet. You must control me, make me do what must be done."
"Damn you, Bai Liu!" Zhang Gui's face bulged with veins as he fought the strings. "No! I can't do it!"
"You can." Bai Liu smiled languidly, waving a hand. "I trust you, Grand Puppeteer."
[System Notification: Bai Liu enters Puppet Enhancement state. Sanity insufficient, supplementing calculation—supplement failed. Bai Liu cannot provide the required fifty sanity points. Forcibly extracting sanity—]
[System Notification: Extraction successful. Bai Liu's sanity drops: 4, 3, 2—0.000000000…1]
Zhang Gui screamed, "Stop, Bai Liu!!"
[System Warning (to all players): Bai Liu's sanity has ruptured. Extreme hazard! All players evacuate immediately!]
Bai Liu's gaze lost all focus, his breath stilled. All sound and light stretched into long, chaotic threads, transforming into something of another plane, another dimension.
He had entered the hallucinations of subconscious collapse.
In an instant, he was yanked into the carriage, the Thief Brother's foot crushing his chest, a flaming fist descending. Bai Liu saw his own skull and blood shatter beneath the blow, pain blooming vivid and real in every nerve.
A second later, he was dragged into a new scene: the train's beginning, explosive passengers flooding in, Mu Sicheng coldly declaring a chase, then walking away with the Mermaid Amulet. Bai Liu was seized by the passengers, flames devouring him, burning him alive with full awareness.
The vision shifted again: Bai Liu, whip in hand, stood on Du Sanying's train. Du Sanying, weeping, pushed him into the horde and sped away, leaving Bai Liu to be torn apart by the ravenous passengers.
He saw Mu Sicheng use the Mermaid Amulet, saw himself become Zhang Gui's puppet, growing dull and vacant, abandoned to die alone in some forgotten dungeon.
Endless death hallucinations surged forth—every possible branch where Bai Liu died, every scenario his subconscious could conjure, all became real, replaying over and over.
A man cannot cease to think, to imagine, to fear—thus, he cannot escape the phantasms of his own subconscious, not even Bai Liu.
So he could only repeat these hallucinations, a thousand times over.
"To hypothesize about unrealized possibilities in what has already happened is a tedious thing," Bai Liu murmured, pinned by Mu Sicheng, his throat slashed by monkey claws, blood flooding his windpipe as he coughed and laughed. "Yet I, too, am so tedious, pondering the ways you might betray me, Mu Sicheng. There are so many—I counted, perhaps over eight hundred."
Burned, throat cut, bitten, strangled…
Mu Sicheng gazed curiously at Bai Liu, who still smiled on the brink of death.
Bai Liu's face was streaked with blood from his own laughter, his eyelids drooping as death approached, his words rasping through his torn windpipe.
"Of all these possibilities, you chose not to betray me." Bai Liu's voice faded as his eyes closed. "So I'll choose the same, Mu Sicheng. This is a fair exchange."
[Bai Liu, if I'm really dragged away by the monster, would you truly risk your life to save me?]
[Rest assured, if you manage not to use the Mermaid Amulet, I am a man of my word—even mad, I'll remember to save you, Mu Sicheng.]
Hearing this, Mu Sicheng lowered his eyes and gave a wry laugh. "I don't believe you, Bai Liu."