"Are you sure?" Raven asked skeptically.
"Again."
Huai Shi repeated, "Again."
After a long while, as if Raven understood something, she smiled.
She said, "Okay."
The Event Branch point fell, and darkness swooped in.
Huai Shi opened his eyes, smelled the dry dust, and felt the scorching wind blow in from outside. The instructor was issuing orders from the passenger seat, "Kill them all, leave none alive."
Huai Shi nodded and said, "Okay."
Then he raised his gun, aimed at the driver's seat, and pulled the trigger.
In the roar, sparks erupted from the muzzle.
The driver was dead, a mess of guts smeared on the shattered window as the car suddenly twisted and rolled.
Huai Shi felt the rush of wind beside him. In the violent rolling, it seemed a group of people pounced on him, and he was quickly pinned to the ground by his teammates.
The rear door of the vehicle opened.
An expressionless instructor walked in and looked down at him.
"Unqualified."
He said, then pulled the trigger.
BANG!
Huai Shi's head exploded.
He opened his eyes, breathing heavily, drenched in sweat.
Quickly, he picked up the warm water from the table and downed it in one go. "Again!"
"Okay," Raven nodded, and darkness enveloped them once more.
"Kill them, all of them, leave no one alive."
He heard the instructor's voice and immediately laughed, pulling a dagger from his boot and nimbly slicing across the throat of the teammate to his right. Fresh blood spurted out, staining the dust motes floating in the air crimson.
Time seemed to freeze.
In that instant, Huai Shi drew his gun and fired the pistol rapidly, aiming at teammates in front, behind, and to his sides. He continuously pulled the trigger, and clumps of brain matter exploded.
But soon, he was gunned down again.
"You need some strategy," Raven said. "Theoretically, you could annihilate them unscathed, but I need to remind you, you're reading Red Gloves' record, which means what happens and what each person will do are all from his subjective judgment, understand?"
"Not really."
"No matter, you will understand soon enough," Raven averted her gaze. "Again?"
"Yes!"
Huai Shi opened his eyes again, shifting slightly in the vehicle as the instructor issued commands. He slowly rotated his neck, checking the equipment on his body.
A military knife, a pistol, an automatic rifle, a bulletproof vest, a walkie-talkie, a few magazines tucked into the quick-response vest, and an Iron Grenade.
Weighing the hefty object in his hand, Huai Shi met the gaze of his teammates with a smile and quietly pulled the pin with his little finger.
A silent countdown.
Three, two, one.
In that instant, he leaped forward, crashing into the rear door of the vehicle. He tumbled embarrassingly out of the speeding car and onto the ground, where he was pricked by thorns and bushes along the roadside, his hands throbbing with pain.
But soon, he heard the boom behind him.
The transport vehicle on the road shook violently and leapt dozens of centimeters into the air as if from nowhere. Then, the iron box of the vehicle swelled as if inflated, spewing blood-red fire from its shattered openings.
It quickly twisted and deformed in the burning flames and rolled to a halt.
Huai Shi got up from the ground, panting heavily under the scorching sun. But soon, he saw it: in the burning wreckage, the twisted iron door suddenly emitted a sharp noise as a foot kicked it open.
From the co-driver's seat, the icy-faced instructor walked out slowly, his cold gaze lingering on Huai Shi's astonished expression. Despite looking like an ordinary person and showing no traces of Source Fluctuation or Stigma, he had survived the violent explosion, not even a hair out of place.
"So that's what it means? Everything that happens and what each person will do is just Red Gloves' subjective judgment, right?"
Huai Shi couldn't help but laugh, mocking that Red Gloves fellow, "What kind of psychological trauma do you have regarding your instructor?"
Otherwise, how could that clearly normal instructor survive unscathed from a grenade explosion?
Did this guy really think his instructor was some invincible, steel-hardened titan?
"I didn't expect it, 7794."
The instructor looked at him indifferently, slowly rotating his neck, his fingers lightly tapping on the whip handle strapped at his waist, making a sound that caused Huai Shi to tense up suddenly.
TAP, TAP, TAP...
That sound of fingers tapping on the whip was a symbol of punishment and torture.
One torture, two severe injuries, and then there would be no third time.
Having seen countless companions whipped to death on the training ground, Huai Shi could actually feel Red Gloves' residual despair and fear. His will to resist began to crumble rapidly.
The instructor stepped forward, looking down at his trembling opponent. He reached out and pressed on his head.
Twist.
CRACK!
Huai Shi's neck broke.
BANG!
Huai Shi opened his eyes in anger and slammed his fist on the table. "Coward!"
He was unsure if he was cursing Red Gloves or himself. After all, through the memories of countless training sessions, he had come to deeply understand the instructor's cruelty and ruthlessness.
"It seems you've come to realize the limitations of a subjective recorder, haven't you?" Raven smiled enigmatically. "People who can't extricate their perspective from their own fear and confusion can't act as absolute objective recorders of everything. But that's the beauty of recorded experiences; it gives you the potential to surpass the person being recorded."
"How do I do that?" asked Huai Shi.
"It's simple," said Raven. "Just blow everything up. No matter what happens, no matter what's in your way, just take care of them all in your own way, and you'll be fine.
Even the hardest arcade game can be bruteforced; one-credit clearance is but the very basics. On the contrary, speedrunning and flawless victories are the real pursuit—"
She paused for a moment, her smile sly. "How about it? If it feels too hard, do you need a cheat code? With the Book of Fate, you could easily make yourself as omnipotent as a god."
"No, thanks."
After resting for a while and feeling his energy had mostly recovered, Huai Shi massaged his slightly aching forehead, ready to begin again. But then he saw Raven offering him a cigarette.
"Since you're so spirited, I'll gift you a blue bottle for free."