Chapter 2820

No wonder he saw a figure standing in the window of another hotel when he first arrived at the hotel; that must have been his current self.

But this figure later disappeared and never appeared again. What would happen if he kept standing here?

Schiller heard a sound coming from the bathroom.

He turned his head and stared at the bathroom for a while, then finally stepped over. He pushed open the bathroom door; the toilet was intact and looked like it had been repaired. The sound was coming from the bathtub drain.

Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle...

Schiller remembered that when he first arrived in the room, he discovered that the bathtub drain was not very clear. Now, that sound was even more intense, as if something was breathing underneath.

Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle...

Schiller felt his head hurting more and more, and his vision began to turn black. He desperately covered his ears and ran toward the outside of the bathroom door. The sound chased him for a while until he returned to the living room, where it finally became quiet.

There didn't seem to be any hallucinatory monsters in the room, and the toilet was fine, as if this were just the most ordinary hotel.

That wasn't the case. Schiller leaned against the door and gasped for a while. He felt himself becoming weaker and weaker. In the dark, a thought reminded him that he didn't have much time left.

"Where exactly am I???"

When Schiller stood up, he tilted onto the coffee table, knocking it over. The things on it scattered all over the floor. The mineral water bottle fell to the ground, the water spilled out, and soaked the carpet.

Countless bubbles rose in the water.

Schiller seemed to have suddenly realized something. He began to try hard to concentrate. Countless images flashed through his mind. He used his last bit of strength to rush to the window.

He pulled open the window, and outside the window were bone stairs spreading upward.

Schiller took out the small knife from his pocket and struck the support at the very bottom hard.

Crash!

The bone shattered at the sound, and the entire bone staircase collapsed along with it. The moment Schiller looked up, he saw two figures suddenly stand up on the roof opposite, and then he completely lost consciousness.

When he woke up again, Schiller suddenly spat out two mouthfuls of water, lay on the ground, and coughed violently. Through his hazy vision, he saw the faces of Jeremiah and Cobblepot.

Lying not far away was Gordon, who was soaked through.

Schiller struggled to turn over. By the dim moonlight, he saw clearly that in front of him was a straight water stain, and at the end of the water stain was a huge swimming pool.

At this moment, the moonlight shone on the surface of the pool, a breeze blew, and the water rippled. The light on the water surface wove into a large silver-white net, constantly floating and swaying...

Gordon next to him coughed hard, spitting out all the water he had choked on. He said in a hoarse voice, "I told you earlier, this thing is extremely dangerous..."

Schiller lay flat on the roof, looking at the moon without saying a word.

Is Wei En Manor the real Wei En Manor? Is the metal real metal? Is Nyarlathotep the real Nyarlathotep?

If they are all fake, Schiller looked at the wound on his right shoulder, then where did this come from?

Suddenly, he reached out and touched his coat pocket. There was a small knife there. Schiller took the knife out, but discovered that this was not the ordinary small knife in Jerome's hand at all, but the vibranium small knife he had used to pry the screw earlier.

It was still stained with his own blood.

So, is the swimming pool just like Room 1905, both containing a monster that can create hallucinations?

No, I'm afraid it's not that simple.

Schiller's gaze suddenly turned to Gordon. He crawled up from the ground and walked toward Gordon. Before Cobblepot and Jeremiah could react, Schiller directly stabbed the knife into Gordon's head.

Schiller forcibly pried open Gordon's skull, took out a piece of silver-gray metal from his head, threw it hard on the ground, and cursed.

When he turned his eyes to glare at Jeremiah and Cobblepot, both of them shivered in unison.

At the cost of almost drowning, the swimming pool showed him a bad ending.

"Hand over your metal." Schiller gripped the knife, clutched the wound on his shoulder, and panted, but stared fixedly at Jeremiah and Cobblepot, saying, "Your loophole-ridden plan won't succeed. I won't let Nyarlathotep have another chance to mock me."

The black manager's smile was a silent mockery, indicating the worst ending—everything as usual, but they would never be able to get rid of the entanglement of the evil god.

Gordon, whose head had been cut open, was not dead yet, but his words shook Jeremiah and Cobblepot. The police commissioner sighed helplessly and said, "Give it to him. We didn't succeed in the end. The city returned to its usual 'peaceful' state, but the evil god found every one of us."

Jeremiah and Cobblepot hesitated, but Schiller clearly didn't intend to wait for them to hesitate. Cobblepot didn't react at all, but Schiller had already rushed in front of him and stabbed his calf with the knife. But what flowed out was not blood, but wine-red liquid reflecting metallic light.

"Ah!!!!"

Cobblepot let out a scream. The pool water Schiller was carrying fell onto him and dripped into his eyes. Cobblepot stiffened, as if he had seen some incredible scene.

He suddenly turned and pushed Schiller away. Schiller discovered that his strength had increased quite a bit, as if he had activated a self-protection instinct, but it wasn't because of the knife wound he had inflicted.

A few seconds later, Cobblepot went limp, his pupils dilated, and he stammered, "Fish... Fish is... the Red Queen..."

Schiller immediately remembered that the Red Queen was also an avatar of Nyarlathotep. It seemed that what Cobblepot encountered in the end was her.

He turned his head and asked Gordon, "Who was the Outer God that found you?"

"A baron." Gordon replied.

"Baron Samedi." Schiller added, "The god of death in Voodoo, one of the avatars of Nyarlathotep."

Schiller crawled up from the ground, didn't care about the trembling Cobblepot, grabbed Jeremiah directly, and shoved his head into the swimming pool.

Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle...

So the gurgling sound made by the bathtub was the sound of a person exhaling. Reaching the step of being unable to help but exhale basically meant they were already close to drowning. Next would be choking on water, and then drowning.

Discovering that Jeremiah had exhaled all his air, Schiller pulled him up. Jeremiah also became pale.

"Who did you see?"

"A man covered in pitch black, from his skin to his lips, everything was black, only his eyes had a little light."

"The Haunter of the Dark, bringing dark decrees to witches and cultists, is also one of the avatars of Nyarlathotep."

Jeremiah spat out two mouthfuls of water and sat by the swimming pool. He looked at Cobblepot and said, "Give him the metal. This plan is meaningless to Nyarlathotep; it can't deal with an Outer God at all."

Cobblepot opened his mouth, but in the end, he cut open the muscle on his leg and let all the wine-red metal flow out.

Suddenly, Peter sent a message.

"Doctor, the hotel is starting to change, but I am now... my god, what is that????"

Schiller immediately realized that the hotel where Peter was located was indeed in the future.

If their ending was that the plan succeeded, but they failed to truly contact Nyarlathotep, then the ending was that everything returned to peace, but this peace was only superficial, and they would all be found by avatars of the Outer God.

What he encountered was the Black Pharaoh, what Gordon encountered was Baron Samedi, what Cobblepot encountered was the Red Queen, and what Jeremiah encountered was the Haunter of the Dark.

This meant that although they did indeed restore peace to Cat Getan according to the plan, they also suffered the permanent curse of Nyarlathotep. These avatars would entangle them until the end of time and space.

And the situation in Peter's hotel was exactly the same as this future, and it was the same as the future Schiller saw in the swimming pool—it seemed like peace had been restored, but in fact, it was eerie everywhere, yet he couldn't grasp any useful clues, forever living in the fear of horror.

Now, Schiller had collected the metal in advance, which meant they had abandoned the plan to go to the ancient city, and the future had been changed. But it was difficult to detect what the future had become just through Peter's encounter.

Should he enter the swimming pool again?

Just as Schiller reached his hand into the pool, he discovered something wrong. The water in the pool no longer had normal buoyancy. If he went down this time, he would sink directly to the bottom. He might only be able to stay in it for a dozen seconds.

And after entering the water, he would be completely trapped in the illusion and must have someone pull him up. He would be unable to escape on his own.

Should he take a gamble and see what this ending is like?

Just as Schiller thought of this, Peter sent him a bunch of photos. Schiller took a look, and they were actually photos Peter took of the monsters appearing in the future hotel.

As soon as this monster appeared, Schiller knew this was another bad ending, because the monster's body surface flashed with a metallic luster, exactly the same as the luster of amber gold. This meant the pool containing amber gold under the ancient city had gone out of control, and it was even possible that it had polluted all of Cat Getan.

If Schiller guessed correctly, this ending might be that in order to deal with Nyarlathotep, they had no choice but to let the amber gold spread through the sewers across Cat Getan. Gothamites indeed had antibodies, but no matter how strong the antibodies were, they couldn't withstand this dosage, so they all turned into monsters similar to the Court of Owls' Talons.

This might be another deception by Nyarlathotep, letting them think there was a chance to deal with him, but in reality, everything was just like the first ending, just a cunning hoax.

Nyarlathotep's pleasure was watching people in pain and despair, so he wouldn't kill people directly, but would use this method to deceive, giving hope and then ending hope.

Schiller had to admit that the moment the black manager smiled at him, he felt an indescribable horror and despair.

Clearly there were no monsters, clearly everything was so serene and peaceful, clearly that looked like just an ordinary person, clearly the smile was friendly just right, but it just made people feel deep despair.

He looked at the swimming pool again. Knowing that the water in the reckless faction's pool was actually amber gold, he knew that this thing capable of producing hallucinations was not created by the four great families at all.

In other words, this swimming pool capable of seeing the ending also belonged to Nyarlathotep.

Of the thirty-six stratagems, attacking the heart is the best. Nyarlathotep seemed determined that no matter how they looked, they would never find a good ending.

Schiller suddenly thought that this might be exactly his purpose.

Martha also disappeared in the swimming pool. Perhaps she also discovered that this pool could see different futures. She tried over and over again, but could never find a future where she could be saved.

Drowning is very painful for humans, and it can be called one of the most painful ways to die.

But just for that sliver of hope, which they didn't even know was a hoax, humans were willing to throw themselves into the mountain of knives and sea of fire thousands and thousands of times.

When they exhausted their limited lives in infinite pain, personally wove a rope to hang themselves, and even when swallowing their last breath, they were still hoping for the arrival of light, yet understood that they would rot in darkness forever—the pain and despair that burst out were the supreme satisfaction and enjoyment for Nyarlathotep.

This is really much more exciting than that pile of shit, Schiller thought. Very well, this is my reward after working conscientiously to play with shit.

Schiller took out a red candle with only half left, lit the candle, and silently recited the name of the manipulator in his heart.

After a moment of stiffness, Schiller slowly stood up, looked at the rippling water surface, and only revealed a gentle smile.