mtl008 Chapter 4668 Desperate Escape (4)
Chapter 4668 Desperate Escape (4)
Chapter 4668 A Desperate Escape (Forty)
There's an old saying: "Baseness is the passport of the base, nobility is the epitaph of the noble." But this saying is basically limited to individual cases. Once it comes to collective organizations, the situation is probably completely reversed.
The essence of unity is altruism. The more unconditionally altruistic a person is, the easier it is for them to unite with others in a group. Conversely, the more selfish a person is, the more difficult it is for them to integrate into a group. And a group composed of selfish people is also difficult to unite.
Good people organize themselves into an alliance; bad people organize themselves into a gang. Alliances are always solid and reliable, while gangs are basically easily destroyed. It is precisely because bad people lack the altruism to unite them that the saying "when disaster strikes, everyone flies away" is fully demonstrated.
The designer group organized by Greed is a perfect example. You can't expect someone like the Joker or Mephisto to sacrifice themselves to save their comrades in a critical moment. In fact, even Greed wouldn't save his colleagues.
They're all scourges in the multiverse; everyone knows who they are. Saying that each one's death is one less problem is a bit too much like superheroism. But the multiverse is indeed better off without them, so there's really no need to save them.
Seeing that the passage was open, Greed took three steps at a time and climbed up the circle to the platform. He reached out to push the door on the ground, which made a clanging sound, but he couldn't open it.
But it turned out that after Bruce went inside, he didn't forget to trick the organizers. He used the iron bar and chain he got from Schiller to lock the door from the inside.
As the saying goes, there's always someone stronger. As a member of the gang, how could Bruce not understand his colleagues' thoughts? If he could let these villains get away, he wouldn't be the number one menace in the multiverse.
Greed was so angry that he pounded on the door. But that brief delay allowed Loki to see through his escape plan. Loki jumped up from the other side of the circle, crept up behind Greed, and then headbutted him, knocking him to the ground.
"Ouch!!!" Greed let out a scream, landing squarely on the glass panel above the cubicle. His head slammed against the floor with a thud. Luckily, the mask was a plot device that was forcibly attached to his face and wouldn't come off, but blood still streamed down his forehead.
But there wasn't a single good person in that cubicle. Batman noticed a darkness above him and saw Greed falling onto the floor above his cubicle. He immediately beckoned to Superman, making him kneel down, while Batman stepped on his shoulder, grabbed the iron rod still attached to his collarbone, and shoved it upwards through the opening of the mechanical arm.
"Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!!!"
A greedy scream echoed through the room. His side was pierced, and blood gushed out instantly. His survival instinct kicked in, and he rolled sharply to the side, which clearly saved his life. Because the iron rod had barely been pulled out when another stab struck. If he hadn't dodged, he would have been killed instantly.
Greed struggled to his feet, panting, but managed to sit up. He pressed his hand to the wound on his side, then turned back: "You ruthless Batman! What happened to not killing?!"
But as luck would have it, this instance didn't have a program to limit Schiller's power. Greed had also kept a backup plan for himself, saying he would write it, but he hadn't actually done so. So when he was stabbed, he suddenly unleashed a burst of power and flipped directly down from above.
After landing, it rolled over, splattering even more blood, and he hissed in pain. But he didn't dare linger; once all these groups were released, he was truly going to die here today.
The immediate priority is to find an employee entrance and run in. There are two options: go back to the previous checkpoint or run to the next one. Both checkpoints have other employee entrances, and the doors should be unlocked.
But greed leaves him with no choice; he can only go whichever group is closest. Loki is already fiddling with the control panel, preparing to release the prisoners. Whichever group is released this time, being caught means certain death.
He clutched his wound and ran toward the nearest door, which happened to be the door leading to the gate before Bruce and Schiller.
In the previous level, they had ascended via an elevator through a cage, and now the cage was suspended at its highest point. Lowering it was clearly too late; Greed glanced at the height below, gritted his teeth, and jumped down.
"Well!!!!"
He took a pretty hard fall. When Bruce and Schiller cleared the room, there wasn't much water left; it had all been drained long ago. He landed hard on the ground. Greed felt like his internal organs weren't even his own anymore.
But he couldn't stop, because he heard the mechanism behind him had been activated. They hadn't considered that players could climb up, since there was nowhere to climb and even if they did, they wouldn't be able to stand. Therefore, they hadn't locked the control panel. Although the instructions to open the door were somewhat complex, Loki deciphered them quickly. He soon released another group of people: Harley and Pamela.
As soon as they came out, they found Thor beating up four people. They exchanged a glance, and Harley said, "Why are there four? Did one escape?"
They knew the hunter was the mole and had probably already left, which meant there should be five left. But there were only four in the room, meaning one had escaped. Would these two let him go?
Harley licked her lips, completely aroused. It was her turn!
Pamela had intended to look for clues around her, but after only a few steps, she saw blood on the ground. Greed had been too busy escaping to clean up the traces he left behind; a trail of bloody footprints pointed directly to the door he had fled through.
Pamela and Harry chased after them. Reaching the entrance to the passage, Harry glanced at the cage but didn't bother lowering it. Instead, she hooked her hand over the edge of the passage before jumping down, effectively reducing her height and then rolling to absorb the impact. Harry caught Pamela as she jumped, and neither of them were injured.
However, they both noticed a large pool of blood on the ground. Pamela grinned, "Who did this? Didn't I see Thor had a weapon?"
"This amount of bleeding suggests a very deep penetrating wound."
Shouldn't open wounds bleed more?
“But the blood is spurting out, which doesn’t seem like an open wound. It’s more like the chest or abdomen was pierced, and the wound was squeezed during the escape,” Harley thought for a moment and said. “It doesn’t seem like Thor and Loki did it.”
Meanwhile, in the employee corridor separated from them by a wall, Greed was struggling to control his breathing. Don't ask him why he stopped running; he simply couldn't run anymore.
Batman's attack was ruthless and precise, nearly piercing his kidney. Now, with massive internal bleeding, he was on the verge of death. He was considering using his access to create a corpse, leaving the organizer dead on the spot so he could escape.
"I'm not that lazy bum, Arrogant," Greed gritted his teeth; he was very dedicated. Having chosen to play the role, he'd see it through to the end. He wouldn't die so easily here today!
But he was too exhausted to run anymore. Greed could only slowly take off his coat. He had to grit his teeth and keep quiet, because as the level designer, he knew that all the areas outside the game rooms were poorly designed. The staff corridor wasn't very soundproof, and if he made a sound, those two unlucky guys outside would definitely catch him, and he'd be in big trouble.
Greed wrapped the blood-stained coat around his waist, gritted his teeth, and tightened it, letting out a muffled groan. Various colored lines flickered before his eyes. Harley's voice rang in his ears.
“Look up here, why does this disc have so many scratches?” Harley said, pointing to the disc above. It shouldn’t have been very clear before, but with the disc open, the firelight from upstairs illuminated the area. Harley squinted, her expression somewhat ambiguous.
Pamela lifted her up again, letting her get a closer look. After they were down, Harley stroked her chin and said, "I guess the players in this room managed to jam the cage."
"Is it stuck?"
"That's right. When the elevator was going up, they turned the disc back. The pulley system got stuck, and the cage couldn't go up, so it rubbed against the disc and left marks."
“But in the end, all six groups of players arrived, which proves that someone solved the problem of the cage being stuck.” Harley immediately looked around and then said, “There are staff passages around here, and they’re not far away, otherwise it would have been impossible for everyone to arrive so quickly.”
"Do you mean the staff arrived quickly enough?" Pamela asked.
“That’s right. This room must not be far from where they deployed their employees. Otherwise, after rushing here, fixing the mechanism, and waiting for all six groups to arrive, it would take a long time. But we didn’t actually wait long at all, which proves that it’s not far.”
So what does this prove?
“This suggests that their employee access design is based on the principle that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” Harley snapped her fingers. “Instead of using straight passageways to connect multiple rooms like in a maze, they use a single starting point to connect countless ending points.”
"Let me think...it looks a bit like a sea urchin?"
"That's right. The central area where the employees gather, and the employee passageways, are like a sea urchin. A center, countless spikes, and the ends of the spikes connect to the game rooms."
Why was it designed this way?
“They cut corners,” Harley shrugged. “Normally, we wouldn’t use the employee entrance. Judging from the designer’s observation, they probably just sloppily designed it in places we can’t see. And although this construction method is not very scientific and wastes materials, it’s quick for employees to walk through, saving time.”
"I understand now. It's not the company's will in the plot, but those Battle Realm administrators who are slacking off. They'll give bad reviews as soon as they leave."
"Hiss..." Greed gasped.
Pamela and Harley turned around abruptly. Greed quickly covered his mouth, but it was too late. Their senses were incredibly sharp, especially Harley's; she'd gotten quite excited and was now on a roll. She immediately walked to the wall where Greed had been standing.
Harley pressed her ear gently against the wall. Greed held her breath, and the room fell silent for a moment. Pamela asked, "Did you hear anything?"
“Not yet,” Harley said, “but maybe we can figure out a way to open this place up. Is there a door or something?”
“Even if there is one, it’s probably only the organizers who can control it, and they might be using something like a remote control.” Pamela shook her head, clearly unable to come up with a solution.
Harley was also stumped, so she wandered around the room looking for clues. She noticed that some of the floor tiles looked different than usual, especially after being soaked in water; the gaps between them were unusually large. She pried them open with a crowbar and discovered Andrew's hiding place.
However, Harley didn't immediately investigate the plot clues. Instead, she cheered, "Great! We can definitely pry it open!"
She grabbed the crowbar, walked to the side wall, swung it down hard, and shouted in a high-pitched, excited voice, "Here's Johnny!"
(End of this chapter)