Triple Echo... Splashing water... Fish gleaming like dragons in their poetry...
At last, the milestone was within reach! They had reached the final frenzy mechanic!
Within the Deep Sea Jiao Palace, the invincible Extreme Cutting Carp, in his supreme rage, issued his final roar. The ground revealed seven fissures on the verge of bursting open, each fracture threatening to break in sequence. If they couldn’t find a way to seal the fissures, the torrents from outside would flood in and drown all eight mages engaged in battle!
Thus, players had to sacrifice their lives to seal the fissures. However, if they managed to block the seven openings but failed to slay the Extreme Cutting Carp chanting its frenzy incantation, it would still overturn the palace—a wipeout was assured!
"Sacrifice to the Carp," that’s the frenzy check mechanic that every ’Epic’ hyper-difficulty raid has—a test of the ultimate teamwork! One false step, and all would be for naught!
Ash had never expected that the random team he joined would so smoothly reach the frenzy phase and be on the verge of clearing the raid, with almost no mistakes made—such silky smoothness inspired gratitude!
It was like being domestically emasculated at home, but becoming virile and unrestrained in an affair!
As the medical mage with the lowest damage output, it was natural for Ash to be the first sacrifice. His character was pinned at the fissure, enduring the pressure of thousands of tons of water. His part in the raid ended then and there, the rest of the damage dealing was up to his teammates.
Now with the Extreme Cutting Carp at only 12% health, as long as Ash didn’t leave the raid early, causing his character to break the mechanic and lead to a frenzy and wipe, they had practically secured the raid.
"I’m finally going to clear this raid... With this success, I’ll qualify to challenge the fantasy raids..."
Ash was daydreaming about which fantasy raid to tackle next when suddenly, his heart made a violent thump.
The skull transmitted the heavy pulse through the ear canal into the brain, the heartbeat exploded at its peak, and his consciousness shattered into pieces, slowly coalescing after a long time into a piercing tinnitus.
The gaming pod detected Ash’s abnormal condition and ejected him, but the lights and air couldn’t ease the convulsing nerves. Ash felt as if his spine had been sucked out, life, vitality, and even willpower drained away, leaving behind an empty shell of pain.
The loyal heart pumped vitality into the veins, attempting to restart the poisoned central system. The right hemisphere of the brain cheerfully decoded the frenzy of low-talent musicians, while the left hemisphere, with all its grey matter, raised an alarm to suppress the rebellious flow of nervous information. The frontal and temporal lobes cheered on as a supporting cheer squad—all for the purpose of stuffing consciousness back into the body—
No use! It was a neural shock beyond the grasp of willpower. A twenty-something corporate drone thinking he could resist physical impulses was still too young—at least wait until he’s impotent at fifty to have a slight chance at revolution—
With a long exhalation, the metaphysical ’self’ forcefully dominated all underlying organs. The neurons that were previously frenetic trembled in fear. The loosened nuts tightened once more, and the body stabilized and rebooted.
Ash sat up straight and glanced at the gaming pod’s display.
"Ah, leaving the raid early causing a frenzy, I’m definitely going to get flamed by the team on the forums." He talked calmly about the forthcoming events as if they were someone else’s experiences.
This was Ash’s first ’Flash of Insight’ experience in reality.
In the Void Realm, whenever he faced a significant crisis, he would enter a ’Flash of Insight’ state, like the time he raced against Commander Demilo; he stayed in that state for almost the entire time, with each move as precise as a scalpel’s, culminating in a hard-won victory over Demilo.
In this state, Ash almost completely detached the ’I’ from the body, observing everything with a third-person perspective in cold blood.
As the ’I’ disconnected from ’self,’ so too could he disregard all physical and emotional responses: pain, anger, sadness, joy, fear. All ’he’ had to do was to make ’himself,’ this chess piece, perform to its fullest like in a game of chess.
Thinking about it, this state fittingly matched his operator code name. From now on, he would name this state ’Observer Form’.
Honestly, Observer Form was great, and Ash wished he could maintain it indefinitely. Forget other things, if he could actively enter Observer Form during raids, he could run mechanics flawlessly without a wheelchair, not just fantasy raids but even the hyper-difficulty ones with ease.
Unfortunately, he could only enter this state passively during critical moments of danger, and he couldn’t control its duration.
Once removed from danger, the tense ’Observer thread’ in Ash’s mind would relax, and his overclocked brain would quickly downshift to power-saving mode—
With a grunt, Ash just left Observer Form, and an overwhelming sense of emptiness weighed on him like a leaden weight. He even felt like he was drowning in the deep sea, with every cell and organ being squeezed by thousands of tons of pressure, so uncomfortable he wished to faint away.
Struggling out of the gaming pod, Ash could barely maintain his cerebellar balance; the entire world seemed like an undried oil painting, every color dragging a heavy shadow. The disrupted visual center caused gastric pressure that exceeded its threshold, and Ash retched, vomiting his evening meal.