Chapter 4669: Desperate Escape (48)

"Right, they said it was execution, but they didn't say it would definitely result in death," Shiler said. "This is a narrative trick."

"Don't forget, none of the previous levels had puzzles that were certain death, nor did they do any last-place elimination. Why, by the lantern level, did they suddenly want to eliminate the last group?"

"Oh, I understand," Bruce reacted quickly again. "The so-called elimination of the last group was a smokescreen; it was actually just to block the last group outside to play the cultist plot."

The plot faced by the last group might have been that something went wrong with the execution mechanism, or the mole did something, letting the two people in the last group go, while also letting these two people accidentally enter the cultist den to do a single-line mission.

This wasn't without punishment either. First, if the game were really played, the group captured the most times would probably have already sacrificed quite a few parts and suffered very heavy injuries. Second, those cultists weren't necessarily easy to deal with; one would either have to break through with force or solve puzzles, and the last group likely wouldn't be able to clear the level either, only being able to play some extra plot.

If that group cleared the level, they could return here through a certain passage to give hints to the existing players, letting them not do the fake level's mission, but go back to correct the mechanism and find the real clearance route.

Of course, if they failed, then the group of Bruce and Shiler might have to make some sacrifices to clear the level via the cultist route.

"This is actually a bit interesting," Shiler evaluated. "Normally speaking, playing to this point, the lagging group has basically lost the ability to act, and this kind of single-line mission can give those who can't clear the level a bit of game experience. The game designer really wants good reviews."

Shiler believed that this design wasn't entirely to enrich the level content, but mainly to reduce the frustration of the lagging group.

In this kind of high-difficulty dungeon, there would definitely be many people who suffered pain and couldn't clear the level. In this situation, these groups would definitely feel the game was too hard and boring.

The way to resolve this frustration was to give these lagging groups a sense of existence. Either let them find extra clearance routes, or let them make sacrifices to fulfill others, so at least their deaths wouldn't be meaningless, which could also be considered giving them some psychological comfort, reducing the probability of them going out and leaving bad reviews.

However, these players now were clearly representatives of "the process is all wrong, but the result is all right."

The three draws in the lantern room meant no one was eliminated, so the side mission probably couldn't be triggered at all, because no one was left behind to play the cultist plot.

But Anatoly used the mechanism to slap the lantern, causing the organizers to face disaster and flee in all directions. Stark crashed into the skylight level, blocking Batman and the others outside, so they had to go find the cultist den.

Normally, one couldn't enter there without going through the plot animation, but it just so happened that the lantern was flipped, and the staff passage was exposed. Everyone went around inside, and Batman also entered the cultist den through the staff passage, found clues, and came back to remind them.

If one had to say, the biggest contributor to the entire process being able to go in such a crooked direction was the Agent. It was he who sabotaged the game, giving Anatoly the chance to break the lantern, thereby opening the staff passage; it was also he who held off the staff passage, causing the organizers to flee in all directions, thereby crashing into the level and blocking the group outside. Don't worry about whether the program ran correctly or not, just say whether it ran or not.

Of course, the fact that this bunch of people each had their own oddities was also an important reason. Anatoly acted, and the others followed up instantly. They also had amazing tacit understanding in other places, such as Bruce and Shiler not returning after clearing the level, and not a single person was anxious, nor did they intend to explore the mechanism at all.

Anyway, things returned to the right track in a strange way, and Shiler and Bruce still discerned the cultists' conspiracy and obtained the correct way to clear the level. Now the biggest problem was: how to crack it?

Now it was known that the second-to-last level and the last level were actually the same level, the real final level, which was the level to crack the cultists' fake level and find the correct path.

The difficulty of this level would definitely not be small, and even the clearance method might determine the plot ending. So how could one crack the fake level and find the correct path to survival?

"We have to first find out which places the cultists changed," Bruce said. "Now the iron chain is running downward; if the exit is above, then this is one of the most important changes. The original iron chain might have been upward, and the blades shouldn't exist, because that's too bloody and violent."

"I think we should think about what the clearance method originally designed by the company was. It should be similar to their original style, perhaps requiring someone to sacrifice, but not mandatory, with both scheming and cooperation among players."

"Does the baffle on the skylight exist?" Bruce asked and answered himself. "I think it should exist; after all, it belongs to a large-scale project, and they couldn't have pulled off such a trick. That is to say, originally only hands could reach out, but what is the point of reaching out to grab the iron chain?"

"Could it be to let the person at the very bottom step on hands to climb up?" Shiler proposed a possibility, but quickly denied it himself. "This is a bit too simple. If it were Anatoly, he could climb up himself without anyone grabbing the iron chain. If you encounter a rope-climbing expert, this kind of cooperation is meaningless."

"If you want cooperation to be meaningful, then grabbing the chain is a mandatory link. But what kind of thing requires so many people to grab the chain together?" Bruce frowned and thought, and soon his movements stopped, and he spat out a word, "Electricity."

"The human body has high resistance and can be used to share the current. And the reason it's an iron chain, not a hemp rope, might be for conductivity."

Shiler also reacted: "So this level originally had electricity on the iron chain. The person at the bottom could climb onto the iron chain, but couldn't withstand the electric shock; the others couldn't climb onto the iron chain, but could share the current. In this way, it would require enough people to hold the iron chain for the person at the bottom to go up, to open the escape passage, and let everyone climb up."

"Exactly, it's the classic game of good and evil—will the people above intentionally let go and let the person on the chain be electrocuted, and will the people below save others after climbing up. But no matter how you choose, there is no mandatory sacrifice; at worst, you just don't clear the level."

"If that's the case, there's no need to move the iron chain," Shiler said. "The winch actually doesn't need to exist, just like the blades. If that thing was added later, it's actually possible to find a way to destroy it."

"But the two of us can't go back now," Bruce said. "Why is it like this? Could it be that after choosing the cultist level, there's no way to clear the level via the normal level anymore?"

"That might be the case. After all, we didn't obtain the cultist clues in the normal way. Under normal circumstances, the speed might be much faster, and even the last group of people might end up at the bottom level. Instead of like now, where we've both fallen into the trap, and the clearance clues only just arrived."

"Then do we need to complete this level?" Bruce looked at the guillotine again. "It seems that completing the flesh sacrifice is the only way now."

"No need," Shiler said. "Haven't the previous lessons made you give up on being Batman?"

Bruce was slightly startled, but Shiler had already returned to the chair and sat down, saying: "We just need to wait here for someone to save us."

No sooner had he finished speaking than Anatoly in the skylight level stood up and said: "Based on my understanding of A-Zhi, 36 minutes is his limit for going crazy, plus solving the puzzle, it won't exceed 50 minutes. And it's already been an hour; he must be trapped."

Lucifer was full of doubt and said: "36 minutes? How come it's so precise?"

"Don't ask, I don't want to talk about it," Anatoly said. "That wasn't a pleasant experience."

"Then I have to hear about it," Lucifer laughed immediately.

"Let's do the real work first, I'll tell you when we get back," Anatoly glanced at the skylight and said loudly to the others: "When the key fell, I already observed the pattern of the rebound. Normally, as long as I throw an object of a certain mass in a certain direction at a specified time and position, the blades and the skylight walls will help me reflect it exactly into the gaps of other levels. We can use this method to pass objects."

The others were basically full of question marks. No, is this right? Wasn't it psychological warfare? How did it change to math and physics?

"So how should we throw it?" Thor asked.

"Don't know, I'm bad at math," Anatoly said. "But I think you should be able to calculate it; the movement of the blades has a pattern, this shouldn't be hard."

Some people were still expressing their doubts, while others had already started thinking about feasibility. The former were basically people who were bad at math and physics, while the latter had a certain foundation in mechanics.

Although it sounded a bit whimsical, it wasn't completely impossible in reality. Because they had seen the situation of the key bouncing around before, if it could just happen to bounce in, maybe it really could pass objects down.

But the problem was, what was the point of passing objects? The liberal arts students started discussing this question. Anatoly quickly announced the answer: "Find a way to jam the winch below. The people on the second floor should be able to do it."

The second floor happened to be Harley and Pamela. Directly below the gap where they extended their arms was the winch below. As mentioned before, the winch wasn't fixed to the bottom floor, but on the side of the bottom floor's ceiling, which was the side of the second floor's floor, and it happened to be not far from the opening.

"I'll throw this thing down," Anatoly shook the iron rod with the iron chain in front of the hole, "and cooperate with the one on your body, it should be able to be lowered to the winch and jam the mechanism."

Loki on the third floor estimated the distance for them and nodded: "Indeed, two iron chains plus the iron rod are definitely enough. However..."

He looked at Harley, clearly somewhat unable to bear it, because if it required two to complete, let alone whether that one could be thrown down, the one on Harley's body definitely had to be removed.

And Harley had already started breaking her collarbone. Pamela wanted to stop her, but she couldn't hold down Harley, who was excited, and she was also afraid of enlarging the wound during the struggle, so she could only shout while not daring to look.

Harley didn't care about that; the process of pulling the collarbone ring was similar to Shiler's, focusing on "long pain is worse than short pain," and she snapped it off with a crack. The excessive secretion of adrenaline and dopamine didn't even make her feel much pain, and she soon shouted excitedly: "Okay, okay, it's fine, let's start!"

The science student group naturally didn't drop the ball either. Eric, Loki, and Pamela calculated a possible action route, but because the variables were too large, they still felt it wasn't very reliable.

Sure enough, Anatoly's throw failed. However, the rebound method of the first two steps was similar to what they calculated, which proved that estimating the trajectory through calculation was possible, it just required more precise execution and more rigor.

Then it was Eric's turn below Anatoly to remove the collarbone ring. Eric was also a truly ruthless person; without a word, he broke his collarbone. Charles just had a cold expression but didn't say much.

He also made progress this time, having already bounced near Harley's hole. Harley originally wanted to reach out and grab it, but was pulled back by Pamela with quick eyes and hands; otherwise, she would have lost that arm.

And now, the only ones left with iron rods were Loki's group; they were the last hope. ===== CHAPTER 4670 =====