mtl008 Chapter 4654 Desperate Escape (26)
Chapter 4654 Desperate Escape (26)
Chapter 4654 A Desperate Escape (Twenty-Six)
The moment Anatoly destroyed the mechanism, the ceiling stopped working. Everyone escaped unharmed—except for Stark, the mechanism's designer.
“I need to get it fixed,” Stark said. “It doesn’t look too badly damaged; a little fixing should do the trick…”
The others quickly grabbed him, even the clown joined in. Greed, while pulling him along, said, "Are you crazy? What if he hits you with a crowbar if you rush out now?!"
Stark waved his hand abruptly, about to say he could use his authority to design replicas, but then he suddenly remembered that this guy's teammate was Lucifer, who had the authority to design the entire universe. He immediately backed down.
“But we can’t just leave it unattended, can we?” Stark was still somewhat anxious.
"Leaving it alone doesn't seem like a bad idea." Mephisto looked around the rooms and said, "Now that all the secret passages in all the rooms are open, we can just crawl under the steel needles, enter the secret passages, and step on the ceiling to get through, right?"
“You make it sound so easy,” Stark said, frowning. “The mechanism doesn’t work normally. How can you guarantee there won’t be any problems later? What if they’re halfway up and the ceiling suddenly collapses, piercing them with steel needles, and they come out of the instance to complain? What if when they’re stepping on the ceiling, the tilted mechanism below can’t hold up and suddenly collapses, leaving them unable to climb out because they’re not tall enough?”
"In the current situation, apart from those with good mechanical engineering skills, no one has noticed that the mechanism is malfunctioning. They can't see it, they can't touch it, and they have no evidence to suggest that it's broken. But what if the broken mechanism affects their subsequent actions, or even sends them out of the instance? That would prove that the mechanism is indeed malfunctioning. Wouldn't we be making a fool of ourselves in the multiverse?"
Mephisto then realized that he didn't really understand mechanical engineering, so he said, "So this stuck, immobile state can't be maintained?"
“Who can guarantee it will last?” Stark said. “Right now, they’re all exhausted, there’s no next move, and they haven’t even touched the ceiling, so they’re just maintaining a balance for now. But if someone steps on it, who knows if they can hold on!”
“We should be able to hold out,” Greed said. “I know Anatoly; he won’t make a move unless he’s absolutely certain. But you’re right, if something goes wrong and they get hold of something, we don’t know how many points we’ll have to pay. Especially Loki, Batman, and Harley; those three will definitely try to rip us off. We can’t let them get away with it.”
"Agent!" Greed shouted, "Can you go and take a look at the machine?"
A short while later, the detective brought a ladder to the center of the room. He waved at the camera and said, "Turn off the power first."
The scarecrow had already gone to pull the switch. After a while, once it was confirmed that there was no danger, the detective put the ladder up, inspected the crooked mechanism, shook his head and said, "I don't understand this thing, let the professionals handle it."
Not long after, Stark arrived. He climbed up and took a look, took the tools from the agent, and dismantled the outer shell, revealing the true nature of the mechanism inside—just as Anatoly had predicted, it was a very simple lever mechanism, the kind that you could tell at a glance was used to support something. There was indeed a latch at the top that would automatically lock once it was raised to a certain height.
But now, the upper part of the metal rod was bent beyond recognition, and the lever was sticking out of its seat. Stark glanced at it and said with some surprise, "Hey, it actually held up?"
He climbed higher on the ladder and reached out to grab one end of the lever propped against the ceiling, finding it more sturdy than he had imagined. Since it was also secured at the bottom, there was virtually no risk of it falling, forming a very stable triangle. The materials they used were also extremely strong, unlikely to break, and could easily support the weight of several people.
Stark was still a bit uneasy, so he decided to reinforce it with two more metal rods, and just go with the flow, considering it a success. He took another step up the ladder, his head almost touching the ceiling.
“Be careful,” the agent said.
"Ha, when I was building a giant mech that's three stories tall, you were probably still doing nothing." Stark's tone was barbed. "If you don't understand, stand back, officer, go get your ticket."
Before he could finish speaking, some sand suddenly fell from the gap between the metal rod and the ceiling. Stark instinctively looked up. With a clang, an iron spike was embedded straight into the top of his forehead.
"Ah ah ah ah ah!!!!"
Stark tumbled straight off the chair. Luckily, they weren't on the instance's voice channel, so their screams wouldn't be heard. Even so, the others in the monitoring room could still hear it. Harley said, somewhat puzzled, "I feel like there's someone down there? Move away, I'll widen the hole a bit more..."
"Tony, run, run!" Greed shouted into the walkie-talkie.
Stark took a hard fall, and even in his armor, he couldn't get up immediately. The agent grabbed him and dragged him into the staff entrance.
"Ladder! Ladder!!!"
The detective simply didn't have time to bring the ladder, so he kicked it into the corner of the room, hoping Harley's limited visibility would prevent her from seeing it. But Harley upstairs kept shouting, "Is someone really there? I saw a shadow moving around! Is anyone there? Is anyone there?!"
"This is troublesome," Greed grinned. "We were so focused on guarding against Pride and Batman that we forgot about Harley Quinn!"
"What do you think she was thinking?" Mephisto said helplessly. "The mechanism has stopped, but she still won't run away. She just keeps poking around with that iron rod. I don't think even if that Soviet guy hadn't broken the mechanism, these guys wouldn't have let the secret room get away with it."
“Harley is clearly a bit too excited,” Greed said. “Some people like to confide in others when they’re excited, while others are just overly curious. Harley is clearly the latter. But it’s still impressive that she has the strength to drive the iron rod in.”
"Take a look at her strength stats," Scarecrow finally snapped. "This is clearly a case of her muscle limitations being unleashed due to an attack. There are crazy people every year, but this year there seem to be more than usual. Why are they all coming here to go crazy?"
Greed pulled up the panel and glanced at it, then raised an eyebrow. Sure enough, as Scarecrow had said, Harley's strength stats were a bit abnormal. Not as exaggerated as Pride, but still significantly higher.
The principle is probably similar to that of arrogance. The onset of the illness after mental euphoria leads to the release of muscle restrictions, thus granting superhuman strength, enabling the iron rod to be driven directly into the joint.
It's safe to say that if Stark had been just an inch taller, the iron rod would have pierced his forehead. Stark, clearly still shaken, ran back, constantly rubbing his forehead.
“You should be secretly happy,” Greed said. “Luckily, that thing wasn’t long enough, or you would have been the first designer to be defeated by a player.”
Greed slightly adjusted Harley's strength stats, but not by much; it's still higher than before, so it's a balance adjustment. She earned her power through her own skill, so naturally she earned it through her own skill. Other players who want it can try going berserk first. After all, it's something anyone can do.
"What do we do now?" Stark asked, looking very troubled.
“Aren’t the devices in these rooms connected?” the agent said. “Just go to another room and hold the mechanism up.”
"That's the only way. It's better than them climbing up the ceiling and it collapsing halfway down." Greed waved his hand.
So the agents took the buckets and returned to the room where the scales were located. There were three rooms where the scales were located. In theory, if their blood donation plan succeeded, all three scales would be lifted up together, perfectly supporting the ceilings of each team. It was a stable structure designed by Stark; even an elephant could jump around on it without any problem.
However, the plan is not yet complete. Apart from the broken balance scale, the scales in the other two rooms haven't been lifted up, so the latches aren't locked. All the rooms are being held together by that one broken scale, and it's entirely possible that they will collapse under its weight.
So now, the agent took a ladder, went up to the top of the protective shield, and poured water onto the side of the balance with the basin. This forced the blood supply to replenish the missing blood, lifted the balance up, and locked the latches to complete the supporting structure.
Although only two rooms were completed correctly, and one corner was still missing, the broken one was supported fairly sturdily and could be used to some extent. At least it won't collapse immediately after it's finished.
After the water was poured out, the balance was indeed lifted and locked. One of the latches made a very slight vibration when it clicked into place. However, the remaining teams still noticed it.
“Sure enough, someone was manually controlling it.” Harley said, squinting as she gripped the pliers. “The sudden stop earlier was abnormal; someone must have broken the mechanism. It looks like it can’t be fixed now, so we’ll just have to make do and get through this. But we were worried the broken mechanism wouldn’t hold, so we simply lifted the other mechanisms as well.”
“It seems our earlier guess was correct,” Pamela said. “There must be more than one room with the scales.”
“This leads to another thing,” Harley’s mind worked faster than ever before, “that is, there are more people playing the game than we think. Because only then would the level designers worry about not being able to support the weight.”
"So how many teams will there be? Four teams? Five teams?"
“I think there will be at least five teams,” Harley said. “The upper room is a pentagon and the lower room is a triangle, so that the supporting structure is stable.”
This idea was somewhat abstract, but Pamela could still visualize it. They knew that the Needle Room they were currently in was above the Balance Room. When they passed through the Balance Room earlier, they had paused briefly in the corridor; it was probably an elevator that had brought them up. However, since the door closed as soon as they entered, there was no way to verify this.
However, after discovering the structure of the steel needle room, it can be determined that the balance room must be at the bottom; otherwise, the supporting structure could not be completed. Therefore, to separate the teams, there are three balance rooms, located at the three vertices of the triangle. The five teams each have their own steel needle room, forming a pentagon. With the pentagon on top and the triangle at the bottom, this constitutes a complete mechanism structure.
“I must say, the person who designed this mechanism is an engineering master,” Harley said. “Although the structure is not complicated, it involves the operation of the elevator, and the three-to-five control also requires the use of mechanical structures for conversion. Moreover, the fact that he did not use a very complicated transmission structure to hide the mechanical structure shows that the whole structure is very simple. This is true ingenuity without artifice.”
Stark nearly jumped up in the monitoring room: "Oh my God, look at this clever lady, how discerning she is! I can even forgive her for almost stabbing me in the forehead with a steel needle!"
The clown and the scarecrow both sighed and turned their heads away, looking like they couldn't stand him anymore.
“To be honest, I think this psychological trap is quite Joker-esque,” Batman said, trying to make conversation. “It’s a bit like the difficult questions he gave me before.”
"Shut up, all of you!" the Joker yelled. "I told you Batman is the smartest man in the world! Let's hear Batman's wisdom!!!"