The Instance Opens: Raging Waves

In the secretary's office at the Great Xia people's First Instance Technology Research Institute.

Zhao Jianyu was sorting through documents.

As the director's secretary, her duties were actually quite complicated.

She had to promptly enter and record every new instance announced on the dome each day in the system.

This was to prepare for the instance research that followed.

Just then, Zhao Jianyu noticed a startling piece of information on the dome.

[Purgatory-level instance Raging Waves about to open...]

"A Purgatory-level instance? Raging Waves?"

"One person finished creating a Purgatory-level instance?"

Zhao Jianyu couldn't help shivering. Lately, Director Ding Chang had told her to keep an eye on Lin Ye, so she knew the instance's name inside out.

She could hardly believe that Lin Ye's ten-thousand-person instance had actually passed review and even received a Purgatory-level difficulty rating.

In Zhao Jianyu's experience over the years, the Firmament's difficulty ratings could be too low, but never too high.

The few Hell-level instances on Azure Star remained unconquered to this day, let alone this Purgatory-level instance.

She suddenly remembered what Lin Ye had told her before.

"If any of our fellow Xia people happen to be randomly selected by the Firmament... I hope they'll surrender of their own accord and leave the instance."

Only now did Zhao Jianyu realize that Lin Ye's words had been neither a joke nor an expression of arrogance.

They had been a genuine warning.

One could well imagine how dangerous an instance rated Purgatory-level would be. Lv0 challengers would most likely be wiped out on the spot!

Zhao Jianyu hurriedly called the communications department for the Great Xia people's settlements.

"Hello! This is Zhao Jianyu from the First Research Institute."

"Please send an electronic message to everyone living in the Great Xia people's settlements. If they're selected for the Raging Waves instance, they shouldn't harbor any illusions. They should surrender and leave the instance immediately."

After that call, Zhao Jianyu immediately reported the matter to her director, Ding Chang.

Ding Chang's response was to have everyone at the institute assemble at work immediately, then broadcast the Raging Waves instance live in the conference room.

Everyone was to watch the first livestream of the Raging Waves instance together.

Zhao Jianyu let out a long breath and immediately sent a notice to every staff member at the institute.

She understood perfectly why it was necessary for the entire institute to watch.

For a Purgatory-level instance, and one created by a member of the Xia people at that, no amount of attention was too much!

"This Lin Ye..."

"Could he really be a one-in-ten-thousand instance-designing genius, just as Teacher Ding Chang said?"

Zhao Jianyu murmured to herself.

[Welcome to the Purgatory-level instance: Raging Waves!]

[Instance loaded...]

[Deploying challengers to the Virtual Battlefield. Challengers deployed: 10000/10000...]

As the Firmament's notification sounded,

Itō Hidetaka and the other 9,999 challengers had been deployed into the instance.

As countless mosaics shifted, the world before Itō Hidetaka underwent an earth-shaking transformation.

When he opened his eyes again, he found that he had been transported to an enormous military camp.

It was a military camp by the sea, and with a glance into the distance, he could

Looking around, he saw a dense, dark mass of people.

Complaints rose and fell all around him.

"My god, I must have had eight lifetimes' worth of rotten luck to get picked for an instance like this."

"Mama, somebody save me."

"A ten-thousand-person instance?! Is this for real?"

"We're done for, done for. We're really done for this time."

It was Itō Hidetaka's first time entering an instance on this scale. Looking at the teeming mass of people, he, too, felt dizzy and short of breath.

Amid the panic, the Firmament's notification text appeared before everyone's eyes once more.

[Welcome, challengers, to the instance designed by Mr. Lin Ye: Raging Waves!]

[This instance has a complex design and a high difficulty level, so the Firmament will provide all challengers with a detailed introduction to your mission.]

At the same time, a massive virtual image appeared directly above the military camp.

Clearly, the virtual image showed a blue planet.

[What you see on the screen at this moment is the map for this instance: Earth Online.]

"That's the map? I've never seen an instance map like this."

"Why does it look so much like our Azure Star? Did Lin Ye bring a real-world setting into the instance?"

"Look closely, everyone. This planet only looks like Azure Star; it's actually different. There's clearly more land on this planet."

"If the instance map is as big as the real world, wouldn't that mean the instance and reality have already become one?!"

"..."

Everyone began discussing it. They really had never seen or heard of anything like it.

As the Firmament continued its introduction, the virtual image changed in real time.

The view steadily zoomed in on the blue planet.

A territory highlighted in yellow appeared in everyone's view. It was an island floating in an ocean, looking very small within Earth Online as a whole.

[This is your base of operations, challengers: Dongying. It has a total area of 378,000 square kilometers and consists of four large islands...]

Immediately afterward, a bright red dot was marked on the island.

[And this is where you all spawn: the Hiroshima Kure Naval Arsenal in Dongying.]

That preliminary introduction alone scared some challengers senseless.

The largest maps in previous instances had generally been less than a tenth the size of Eastern Ocean Island.

The Hell-level instance Blood-Stained Marne River had a map covering only 50,000 square kilometers.

Yet now, an island of 378,000 square kilometers was merely the challengers' base of operations.

And that island was no more than a grain of millet in the vast sea of the entire map, pitifully small.

Just how enormous was this instance map?!

It truly had brought the scale of Azure Star in the real world into the instance.

It was even larger than Azure Star.

The challengers were in an uproar, and the instance's bullet comments were boiling over too.

[This... this is the scale of a Purgatory-level instance? My god! It must be a hundred million times bigger than Blood-Stained Marne River, the hardest one before this.]

[That's outrageous, absolutely outrageous!]

[How did one person complete something on this scale in a single day? There must be an organization backing Lin Ye.]

[Now this is interesting. I see Itō Hidetaka is actually among the challengers this time. Could this be considered a kind of revenge on Lin Ye's part?]

Bullet comments were bullet comments, after all. Beyond their shock, most were now eager to watch the spectacle unfold, the bigger the better.

They all wanted to see just how terrifying a Purgatory-level instance really was.