115: Deep-sea melee! How to stop your Sanity from plummeting?

"Alert! Alert!"

"Detecting super-giant biological energy signature!"

"Estimated size... data overflow! Unable to calculate! Repeat, unable to calculate!"

The piercing red alarm lights flashed frantically within the futuristic bridge of the Abyss, the submarine mothership.

The cold, synthesized electronic voice, like a Talismanic Incantation of doom, hammered into the hearts of every player.

Through the massive, high-strength crystal porthole at the front of the bridge, everyone witnessed a sight they would never forget for the rest of their lives.

In that eternal deep-sea darkness, capable of swallowing all light, a huge, murky yellow halo slowly "opened."

That was not a lantern.

It was an eye.

An eye larger than the Abyss's three-hundred-meter-long hull, filled with indifference and ancient malice.

Its pupil resembled a slowly rotating, murky galaxy composed of countless corpses. Merely meeting its gaze gave one the illusion that their Soul was being sucked in and crushed into the most primitive fragments.

"Gulp."

Li Qiang swallowed hard, feeling as if an invisible hand had gripped his heart, making even breathing difficult.

He had fought the Corpse King in the Wasteland, dismantled dwarven mechs, even dragged down the Archangel of Heaven and bathed in nuclear fire.

He thought he had long since become fearless.

But at this moment, facing this unknown entity in the deep sea that had merely opened an eye, he felt for the first time a tremor from the deepest part of life, called "insignificance."

"Old Wang... what... what the hell is that?" Li Qiang felt his voice turning dry.

Wang Wei did not answer.

He was staring intently at his console, his hands typing a series of afterimages on the virtual keyboard, trying to analyze the composition of this eye.

However, the screen returned only a chaotic, meaningless jumble of code and a constantly flashing bright red warning.

"[Warning: Target is an unanalyzable 'conceptual entity.' Conventional logical analysis is ineffective.]"

"[Warning: You are being 'gazed upon.' Initiating Sanity check...]"

"[Checking...]"

"[Check failed!]"

"[Your Sanity is beginning to continuously decline!]"

A translucent, game UI-like status bar abruptly appeared in the top-left corner of every player's vision.

"[Sanity: 98/100]"

"Sanity? What's this new attribute?" a player operating the sonar asked curiously.

As soon as he finished speaking, the number on the status bar jumped again.

"[Sanity: 97/100]"

"Seems... I don't feel anything?" The player scratched his head.

But then, his expression suddenly turned extremely strange.

He stared blankly at the sonar screen in front of him. The densely packed red dots representing external threats seemed to transform into tempting candies in his eyes.

"Candy... so many candies..."

He stuck out his tongue and began frantically licking the cold screen, emitting a satisfied "hehe" laugh.

"[System Notification: Player 'Sonar Prince's' Sanity is dropping too rapidly. Has entered 'Mild Hallucination' state.]"

This scene instantly made the atmosphere on the bridge eerie.

"Prince! What are you doing! Snap out of it!" His teammate beside him shook his shoulders vigorously.

"Don't touch my candies!" "Sonar Prince" suddenly turned around, eyes bloodshot, opened his mouth, and bit down on his teammate's arm.

Panic began to spread.

"[Sanity: 95/100]"

"[Sanity: 92/100]"

"[Sanity: 89/100]"

Everyone's Sanity was steadily and rapidly declining.

Players on the bridge began exhibiting all sorts of bizarre symptoms.

A burly man in charge of weapon control suddenly threw down his joystick and began performing ballet in place, with exceptionally precise posture, his pinky raised higher than anyone else's.

A mage monitoring the power reactor was convinced he was actually a mushroom. He crouched in a corner, hugging his head, muttering, "Don't step on me, don't step on me, I haven't grown spores yet..."

Even Lin Xiaowan, the usually shrewd and money-loving Rich Woman, was now behaving abnormally.

She stood still in a daze, extending her fingers, and began counting her hair strand by strand.

"Thirteen thousand six hundred strands... thirteen thousand six hundred and one... no, one just fell out, have to start over..."

"They've all gone mad... completely mad..."

Li Qiang watched this chaotic scene, feeling his scalp tingle.

He suddenly punched the console, trying to use pain to stay clear-headed.

However, at that moment, an indistinguishable, seductive, eerie whisper, neither male nor female, sounded abruptly in his mind.

"Your muscles... are too constricting..."

"Tear them open..."

"Let the flesh and blood inside breathe freely..."

Li Qiang shuddered all over. He instinctively looked at his arm. The solid, bronze-colored muscles now seemed like a disgusting "skin" that needed to be peeled off immediately.

"[Sanity: 81/100]"

"Get lost!"

Li Qiang roared, punching his own temple hard. The intense pain cleared his mind slightly.

He rushed to Wang Wei's side and found that this science fanatic was the only one who still seemed relatively normal.

Wang Wei's mechanical eye was flashing with a frenzied red light. The screen in front of him displayed a waterfall of data streams.

"Old Wang! Think of something! If this continues, we'll all go insane!" Li Qiang shouted.

"Shut up! Don't disturb me!"

Wang Wei didn't even look up, his voice sharp with extreme excitement.

"I understand... I finally understand!"

"This isn't magic, nor is it a curse! It's an information attack! A wide-area mental contamination based on memes!"

"That thing isn't attacking us with energy; it's using 'concepts' themselves to assault our cognitive modules!"

Wang Wei suddenly looked up, his eyes bloodshot but frighteningly bright.

"Its 'whispers' are essentially high-dimensional, disordered, chaotic logical waves! Through resonance, it forcibly synchronizes our brainwaves with its own, causing our cognitive Systems to collapse!"

Li Qiang was utterly confused: "Speak plainly!"

"To fight Chaos, order is useless!"

Wang Wei ignored him, continuing to shout like a madman who had found the ultimate truth.

"The only way is to use another, stronger, even more illogical, more contaminating information wave to overwrite it! To overwhelm it!"

"Use memes to defeat Cthulhu!"

Li Qiang was even more baffled: "Memes? What memes?"

Wang Wei didn't explain further.

He suddenly lunged at the central main console on the bridge, his fingers flying as he forcibly hacked the Abyss's broadcast System permissions.

The next second.

The epic battle BGM, personally composed by Hans Zimmer, that had been looping on the bridge, abruptly stopped.

Replacing it was a demonically rhythmic, brainwashing electronic masterpiece with a distinct Eastern flair.

"Withered past, brilliant bloom, in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss..."

(BGM: 'pure land of ultimate bliss')

A crisp female voice, accompanied by the demonic "bang bang bang" drumbeat, instantly filled the entire enclosed bridge.

Everyone froze.

The burly man performing ballet stiffened. The next second, his body began uncontrollably following the music's rhythm, dancing the butterfly step.

The mage who thought he was a mushroom stopped muttering and began banging his head on the floor, perfectly matching every beat.

Lin Xiaowan, who had been counting her hair, also stopped. She looked up blankly, her body beginning to sway left and right like noodles.

Even Li Qiang found the eerie whisper of "tearing open skin" in his mind completely washed away by this sudden, demonic music. His legs, his waist, every cell in his body screamed, wanting to sway to this rhythm.

"Old Wang! What did you do?!" Li Qiang panicked, discovering his body had already begun uncontrollably shaking his leg.

"Not enough! Still not enough!"

Wang Wei's expression grew even more frenzied. It seemed he felt one type of contamination wasn't enough to counter the deep sea's malice.

He typed again, roughly overlaying another audio track.

"Namo, hē là dá nà, duō là yè yē..."

(BGM: 'Great Compassion Mantra · Electronic Karma Version')

Solemn, dignified, yet filled with nightclub-style chanting perfectly (or rather, disastrously) mixed with the female voice of 'pure land of ultimate bliss.'

On one side was the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss that made one want to dance immediately.

On the other was the Buddha's light that made one want to kneel and repent on the spot.

Two vastly different yet equally mentally contaminating styles of music formed an indescribable, post-modern deconstructionist-style "cyber Karma divine song."

"Boom——!"

This time, it was like pouring cold water into boiling oil. The entire bridge exploded.

All the players' bizarre hallucinations and insane whispers were washed away in an instant.

Not cured.

But because their brains couldn't simultaneously process these two extremely contradictory, brainwashing pieces of information, they crashed.

Their thoughts fell into a blank.

Their bodies were completely surrendered to the music's instinct.

On the bridge, a spectacular scene worthy of being recorded in the annals of the Virtual Realm, a veritable performance art, unfolded.

Hundreds of players, expressions vacant, eyes devout, half their bodies dancing the enchanting butterfly step, the other half forming solemn Buddhist mudras.

Their mouths, half humming "da da da," the other half chanting "ma la ma la."

The scene was extremely eerie, yet extremely harmonious.

"[System Notification: You have entered 'Chaos Neutralization' state. Sanity temporarily locked.]"

"It... it worked!"

Li Qiang looked at his Sanity bar, which had stopped dropping, then at his leg, which was already shaking like a sewing machine, revealing a twisted, relieved smile.

He grabbed Wang Wei by the collar, shouting excitedly, "Old Wang! You're a damn Genius!"

"Now! It's time for us to counterattack!"

The players, having regained their senses, no longer had fear in their eyes. Instead, it was replaced by endless fury at being toyed with.

"Damn it! Daring to play lullabies for me?!"

"Brothers! Let the big squid outside hear this battle song too! Let it experience what real mental contamination is!"

"Gunners, prepare! Load up the 'Immeasurable Karma · Law of Karma · Armstrong Cyclonic Jet Torpedoes' for me!"

"Cannoneers, positions! Target, that big eyeball ahead! Give it a taste of 'pure land of ultimate bliss · Profound Truth · Railgun'!"

Accompanied by the meme divine song, the players' Battle Intent was completely ignited.

The Abyss's side armor plates slowly opened, revealing densely packed, Dark blue-glowing muzzle.

"Fire!"

With Li Qiang's roar and a resounding "Namo Amitabha" echoing through the deep sea,

Hundreds of thick energy beams and thousands of torpedoes carrying demonic sounds, like the Buddha's punishing light or the most dazzling laser lights in a nightclub, tore through the darkness, fiercely Bombarded the distant, huge eye still confused by the music!

"Boom——!!!!!"

A violent explosion in the ten-thousand-meter-deep dark sea set offed terrifying shockwaves Comparable a tsunami.

Outside, the huge eye was forced shut by this sudden saturation attack.

An angry, pained roar, as if from the birth of the Universe, transmitted through the thick seawater into the submarine.

The roar contained indescribable malice, even momentarily overpowering the deafening rave music on the bridge.

The Abyss's radar now issueed an alarm ten times more piercing than before.

"[Warning! Warning! Super-giant entity has been enraged! Awakening from dormancy!]"

The ship's searchlights were turned to maximum power. The blinding beams penetrateed layers of darkness, finally allowing the players to see part of the creature's contour.

Beneath them, the huge shadow they had thought was an underwater mountain range began slowly "rising."

Countless tentacles thicker than mountains, covered in pale suction cups and twisted sarcomas, rose from the pitch black seabed silt, like a tentacle nation awakening.

And at the center of those countless tentacles, a Terror exists whose head alone was larger than dozens of cities, Randomly pieced togethered from countless writhing eyes, dripping slimy sharp tongues, and indescribable lumps, slowly rose its "throne" from the bottomless Abyss Rift.

Its form surpassed all known biological categories.

Merely witnessing its existence was the deepest sin.

"[System Notification: You have disturbed the guardian of the third layer of the Abyss—Rotting Lord · Kraken!]"

One of Kraken's eyes slowly locked onto the dust-like Insignificant Abyss.

Its countless mouths simultaneously issueed a Soul-penetrating, endlessly furious roar:

"So... loud...!!!"