Suspended above the Altar was an eye the size of a fist, long and slightly curved, bearing a nine-tenths resemblance to the mark on the Walker's Amulet.
Just one glance was enough to confirm it was Leman's Eye.
Cursed Gold...
Perhaps it should be called the Cursed Eye.
The Leman's Eye on the Altar also discovered Wu Chang. Malice, undisguised, radiated from its pupil, conveying a Signal without making any sound.
What are you looking at?
Wu Chang was completely unaffected by the provocation. He walked up to the Altar in a few steps, looked at Leman's Eye, and excitedly rubbed his hands together.
Old Man, no, respected Knight Commander Old Anderson, you really dropped a massive pile of gold coins this time.
Leman's Eye sensed Wu Chang's thoughts, purple light flickering in its pupil. The next moment, Wu Chang felt an inexplicable chill, his head swam, and he took half a step back.
He looked up at Leman's Eye and saw that the giant pupil was filled with confusion and bewilderment.
It seemed unable to comprehend why the Minnow before it possessed such a strong Will, capable of resisting its Attack.
Wu Chang shook his head and continued to approach Leman's Eye.
With every step he took closer, the madness and malice in Leman's Eye intensified, and it unleashed a stronger assault on him.
From the edge of the Altar to standing near Leman's Eye, he took a total of ten steps.
The force of Leman's Eye's Attack shifted from an initial chill to a fierce punch aimed at his head.
He was still two meters away from Leman's Eye; if things continued like this, even his Will of over thirty points wouldn't be enough to endure it.
Leman's Eye also sensed Wu Chang approaching his limit. It had already adopted the posture of a victor, its "What are you looking at?" Gaze spamming Wu Chang like a virus pop-up.
Wu Chang felt a warm current surge from his nostrils. Wiping it with the back of his hand, he saw blood.
He casually wiped the blood on his clothes, grinned at Leman's Eye, revealing a set of neat white teeth.
"You think you can win the resurrection match before that guy with just your little self? Never taken an elbow, have you?"
Immediately after, under Leman's Eye's terrified Gaze, Wu Chang instantly closed the two-meter distance, his elbow striking out like a knife, slamming hard into the center of the pupil.
"Man!"
Statuses like Blindness, Stun, Bleeding, Weakness, and Poison flashed in succession, making Leman's Eye look like it had keratitis. Its pupil instantly became swollen and bloodshot, tears streaming out.
"What about it!" Wu Chang, now holding the upper hand, uttered the standard reply he had been holding back.
Wu Chang's Inspiration Value was too high; the various Negative Status effects lasted for a full two minutes before beginning to fade.
After taking the elbow, the malice in Leman's Eye subsided, and its gaze instantly cleared considerably.
Wu Chang thought it had given up resisting and reached out his hand, but Leman's Eye immediately resumed its Attack posture.
He pulled his hand back and showed his elbow, and Leman's Eye's gaze cleared up again.
This repeated two or three times. Wu Chang frowned, drew a Demon-Breaking Crossbow Bolt with his left hand, adopted the Mamba Iron Elbow stance with his right, and said in a displeased tone:
"Don't force me to use something stronger than a toast."
After a moment, Leman's Eye seemed to accept its fate. It stopped resisting and closed its eyes.
As Wu Chang took Leman's Eye, the Moonlight Sanatorium, and even the entire White Stone Town, began to shake violently.
The severe earthquake lasted for ten minutes. During that time, houses in White Stone Town collapsed, fissures appeared everywhere, and the town descended into chaos.
Believers who had converted to the Tranquility Sect gathered in an open space, praying for salvation from their Lord, but the sturdy stone Divine Statue cracked and shattered before their eyes.
It was clearly a Doomsday scene.
The dark clouds obscuring the moon above White Stone Town also dispersed without anyone noticing.
Dawn was approaching.
The Moonlight Sanatorium Instance was extremely perilous; one wrong step meant eternal damnation.
However, among the Players concerned about this Instance, Wu Chang, who was inside, was among the most relaxed.
If anyone was under the most pressure, Old Gao in the Red Temple would certainly rank high.
As the digits on the stopwatch changed, the activation time for the Moonlight Sanatorium Instance reached two hours and thirty minutes.
For Old Gao, who was responsible for Wanghai City, those two hours felt as long as two centuries.
He dared not shift his Gaze for a moment, afraid that if he blinked, the Instance Portal would shatter, and the Moonlight Sanatorium would completely spiral Out of Control.
He didn't just avoid looking away; he tried to minimize movement when breathing or speaking, fearing he might inadvertently startle the Newcomer inside the Instance, causing disaster to arrive even slightly sooner.
"Old Gao, what's the Situation?" Lei Huo wasn't as cautious as Old Gao and shouted as soon as he entered the Temple.
"The Situation is temporarily stable. According to big data analysis, our Newcomer friend has a 65% chance of holding out for 4 hours."
Old Gao rubbed his face, forcing himself to relax mentally. Even as a Veteran, he couldn't withstand such mental attrition; he needed to clear his head.
"What about the outside?"
Lei Huo replied, "Defense and evacuation work in the Level One Area is basically complete. Evacuation and sheltering in the Level Two and Three Areas are proceeding in an orderly fashion. If that unlucky Newcomer can really hold out for 4 hours, perhaps even the majority of the Level Three Area can be evacuated."
"By then, we are confident we can reduce casualties to half, or even one-fifth, of the Sakura Island incident. However..."
Saying this, Lei Huo paused.
"Ran into trouble?" Old Gao asked with a frown.
Lei Huo spat, disdainfully saying, "Some people don't want us to get through this crisis easily. The Rats hiding in the shadows couldn't hold back."
"We've already tracked down those spreading rumors through the Network Cable, and a few who infiltrated the Shelter to cause trouble have been apprehended and are awaiting interrogation."
As the number of Abyss Game Players increased, all Veterans could feel that the Real World they inhabited was undergoing a drastic change.
Especially in the last two years, strange occurrences have been frequent worldwide, with a succession of once-in-a-century natural disasters and major accidents, and Instance loss of control has become increasingly common.
Although countries have held no fewer than a hundred meetings, and the concept of a shared future for Humanity has been repeated until it's worn out, when any one country truly encounters a problem, the first reaction of other Allies is never to offer assistance.
Treating the unlucky party as a test subject, allowing the problem to ferment, thereby obtaining sufficient data, aligns better with the interests of others.
If the problem isn't big enough, certain Allies wouldn't mind helping it grow larger.
Sometimes, they don't even need Allies; some local Factions will take action themselves.
The B-Class Instance failure on Sakura Island a while ago was not initially uncontrollable. The White Tower and Sakura Island's local Factions played a significant role in allowing it to escalate to over thirty thousand Deaths and missing persons.
Old Gao rubbed his forehead; he truly had no energy left to deal with those Rats.
"They are all just Cannon Fodder. What useful information can you get from interrogating them? After interrogation, throw the salvageable trash into high-difficulty Instances for scouting; the non-salvageable ones should be Directly kill."
Lei Huo sat next to Old Gao and said irritably, "When we sealed the Instance entrance earlier, it attracted the attention of other Factions. Combined with our actions in Wanghai City, many people outside have already guessed that something went wrong in the Instance."
"Some meddlesome Bastard used Abyss permissions, discovered that our Instance Passage wasn't open, and then deduced that the Player currently inside the Instance entered via a Trial Passage."
Old Gao increased the pressure of his rubbing and asked, "And then?"
Lei Huo replied, "And then we became the funniest joke in the Abyss Game this year, or perhaps in recent years."
"All the Players in the Desolate Realm are watching us. The topic of the Moonlight Sanatorium Instance on the Forum has shot to the top of the Popularity rankings; the other nine on the Instance Popularity list combined can't compare to it."
"The Bureau is under immense pressure right now. When our Newcomer friend can no longer hold on, that pressure will fall onto us."
Old Gao was speechless for a moment, slowly managing to squeeze out a curse: "Damn it!"
Leng Shan, who had heard the entire conversation between the two, interjected, "There's no need to be so pessimistic. I have a feeling that the guy in the Instance might actually make it out alive."
Lei Huo pursed his lips. "Then you are far too optimistic."
Leng Shan asked, "A New Player using an Instance on the Verge of Losing Control as a Trial Instance—don't you find that overly abnormal? At least in my memory, I don't recall hearing about such a matching method."
Lei Huo immediately retorted, "My guess is that the White Tower and Sakura Island are up to something. They tasted success recently and are rumored to have started contacting those Players who worship Evil Gods, attempting to deliberately cause Instances to spiral Out of Control."
Leng Shan hesitated for a moment before saying, "I trust my intuition more. The guy in the Instance is problematic. If he can emerge alive, perhaps he won't destabilize the Instance and could even bring back a lot of Intelligence."
Old Gao exhaled heavily. "Forget bringing back Intelligence; if he can last four hours, I'll be thanking the heavens. If he can last eight hours, then he's achieved boundless merit, and I'll personally build him a Temple and cast a Golden Body for him."
Lei Huo asked, "And if he comes out alive?"
"Then I'll eat this Portal..."
Old Gao hadn't finished speaking when the pollution level of the Moonlight Sanatorium on the monitoring instrument plummeted rapidly, instantly dropping from On the Verge of Losing Control to Low Danger.
If the pollution level dropped a little more, it would be close to the safety line.
Lei Huo rubbed his eyes in disbelief and shouted, "Holy crap, what kind of Situation is this? Is the instrument broken?"
Leng Shan maintained his absolute calm, though shocked, he did not lose composure, and quickly began analyzing.
"Such a drastic reduction in pollution level means the Player inside the Instance has completed at least one Main Quest and finished a crucial plot point. If this state is maintained until they clear the Instance, the Instance Completion Rate will not be lower than 75%."
"You mean, that Newcomer is Breaking the Game?" The happiness came too suddenly, causing Old Gao's brain to temporarily shut down.
He could no longer distinguish which was more surprising: Wanghai City being saved from danger, or the Newcomer Player Breaking the Game in an Instance on the Verge of Losing Control.
"If there are no accidents, yes."
Old Gao subconsciously asked, "What if there is an accident?"
Before Leng Shan could answer, the pollution level on the instrument, which had been approaching the safety range, suddenly surged, rushing toward the Out of Control line.
Lei Huo stared blankly at the screen, then slapped Old Gao across the face.
"I don't know what happens if the Instance has an accident, but I do know that if you don't shut your crow's mouth, you're about to have an accident yourself."