There's an old saying: "Despicable is the pass for the despicable, noble is the epitaph for the noble." But this saying generally only applies to individual situations. Once it involves collective organizations, the situation might be completely reversed.
The foundation of unity is altruism. The more unconditionally altruistic traits a person possesses, the easier it is to unite with others in a collective. Conversely, selfish people find it difficult to integrate into a group. And a group formed by selfish people is hard to unite.
When good people organize, it's called an alliance; when bad people gather, it's called a gang. An alliance is always solid and reliable, while a gang is usually scattered with one blow. This is because bad people fundamentally lack the altruism needed for unity, fully demonstrating the saying "When calamity is imminent, everyone flies their own way."
The greedy designers' gang is precisely like this. You can't expect the Joker or Mephisto to sacrifice themselves to save their companions in critical moments. In fact, even Greed would not rescue his colleagues.
They're all disasters in the Multiverse; everyone knows each other. Saying that one less means more like a Superhero is a bit too much. But the Multiverse is indeed better without them, making rescue unnecessary.
As soon as the passage opened, Greed took three steps in two and climbed onto the platform along the ring. He reached out to push the door on the ground, which made clanging sounds, but just wouldn't open.
It turned out that after Bruce went in, he hadn't forgotten to trap the organizers. He directly used the iron rod and chain he took from Shiller to lock the door from the inside.
As the saying goes, there's always someone stronger than the strongest. As a member of the gang, how could Bruce not understand the minds of his companions? If he could let these bad guys escape, he wouldn't be the Multiverse's number one plague.
Greed angrily slammed on the door panel. But this brief delay allowed Loki to see his intention to escape. Loki jumped up from the other side of the ring, tiptoeing behind Greed, then headbutted him and knocked him down.
"Ow!!!" Greed screamed as he fell onto the glass panel above the compartment. His head hit the ground with a bang. Luckily the mask was forcibly glued to his face as a plot item and couldn't be knocked off, but blood still flowed down his forehead.
But there was no good person in this compartment. Batman noticed a shadow overhead, just seeing Greed fall on top of his compartment. He immediately beckoned to Superman, signaling him to kneel down, while Batman stepped on his shoulder, grabbing the iron rod still fixed to his clavicle, and stabbed upwards following the mechanical arm's entrance.
"Ahhhh!!!"
Greed's screams echoed through the room. His side was directly pierced, and blood gushed out instantly. The instinct to survive made him roll sharply to one side, which clearly saved his life. Because the iron rod was just pulled out, swoosh again. If he hadn't dodged, he would definitely have been impaled.
Grudgingly he bent over, gasping for air, but still worked hard to prop himself up to sit kneeling. He pressed his wound on the side of his waist, looked back: Good for you, Batman, you really strike hard! What happened to no killing?!
But as luck would have it, there was no procedure restricting Shiller's power in this version earlier. Greed had left himself a hand, saying he would write it but actually didn't. So pierced by this, he suddenly erupted with a force, flipping directly from above.
After landing, he rolled a couple of times, spilling more blood, hurting so much that he gasped and groaned. But he didn't dare linger much longer; once these groups were released, he'd really be done for here today.
The urgent task now was to find an employee passage entrance to escape into, meaning there were two choices: one to go back to the previous level or rush to the next one. Both levels had other employee passages, and the doors should be unlocked.
But Greed actually had no choice; he could only go to whichever was closer. Because as he watched, Loki had already gone back to manipulate the control panel, preparing to release people. No matter which group comes out this time, getting caught is a sentence of death.
He clutched his wound and ran towards the nearest door to him, which happened to be the one leading to Bruce and Shiller's previous level.
The previous level was reached by taking an elevator in a cage now suspended at the highest point. Obviously, operating the mechanism to descend would take too long. Greed took a look at the height below, gritted his teeth, and jumped straight down.
"Ugh!!!!"
This fall didn't spare him lightly. When Bruce and Shiller cleared the level, there was hardly any water in the room, long since drained, leaving him to hit the ground solidly. Greed felt like his insides weren't his own anymore.
But he couldn't stop his steps, because he heard the mechanism behind him had already opened. The designers didn't consider that players could climb up here, as there was no place to really climb, and even if they did, they couldn't stand, so the operation panel wasn't locked either. Although the instructions to open the door were somewhat complicated, Loki deciphered them without taking much time. He quickly released another group, namely Harley and Pamela.
As soon as the two of them came out, they found Thor pressing four people and pummeling them. The two exchanged glances, Harley said: "Why four? Did someone escape?"
They knew the Hunter was the mole, probably already gone, so there should still be five left. But with only four in the room, it meant one had escaped. Could these two let him go?
Harley licked her lips, thoroughly excited. It's her turn now!
Pamela originally intended to look for clues around but had only walked a few steps when she saw blood on the ground. Greed was so focused on escaping that he left traces unhandled, a trail of bloody footprints leading straight to the door he escaped from.
Pamela and Harley gave chase. Reaching the entrance of the passage, Harley looked up at the cage, without intending to lower it, directly used her hand to hang on the edge of the passage, then jumped down to skillfully reduce the height; after jumping down, she rolled to dissipate the force. When Pamela jumped down, Harley caught her, and neither was injured.
However, both saw a large puddle of blood on the ground. Pamela grimaced: "Who did this? Didn't see Thor holding any weapons."
"With this amount of blood, it must be a deep penetrating wound."
"Shouldn't an open wound bleed more?"
"But the blood is spurting, which isn't typical of just an open wound. It seems more like the chest or abdominal cavity was pierced, causing blood to be squeezed out while escaping." Harley thought for a moment, "It doesn't seem like it was Thor and Loki."
At this moment, in the employee passage just a wall away from them, Greed was trying hard to steady his breathing. Don't ask why he wasn't running anymore; he just couldn't run any longer.
Batman was ruthless and precise, nearly stabbing right through his kidney. Now there was massive internal bleeding, and it was clear he was not far from death. He was considering whether to directly use his privileges to conjure a corpse here, letting this organizer die right here, and he would escape himself.
"I'm not like that lazy Arrogant," Greed gritted his teeth. He was dedicated. Since he chose to play the role, he would play it to the end. He wouldn't die so easily here today!
But he really couldn't run anymore. Greed could only very slowly take off his coat. He had to clench his teeth and not make a sound because, as the designer of the level, he knew the places outside the game room were very crudely designed. This employee passage wasn't very soundproof; if he made a sound, those two outside would definitely catch him, and he'd be in big trouble then.
Greed wrapped the blood-soaked coat around his waist, gritting his teeth tightly, and let out a muffled groan. Various colored lines waved before his eyes. Harley's voice resonated in his ears.
"Look up there. Why are there so many scratches on this circular disk?" Harley pointed at the circular disk above. It was originally not very visible, but after the disk was opened, the firelight from upstairs illuminated it clearly. Harley squinted, looking somewhat ambiguous.
Pamela lifted her up again to let her get a closer look. After coming down, Harley touched her chin and said, "I'm guessing the player in this room found a way to jam the cage."
"Jammed it?"
"Exactly. When they ascended in the lift, they turned the disk back. The pulley system got stuck, preventing the cage from ascending, causing the friction marks on the disk."
"But ultimately six groups of players arrived, which proves someone solved the jammed cage situation." Harley immediately looked around and said, "There are employee passages around here, and they're not far, otherwise, it couldn't have gathered people so quickly."
"You mean the employees arrived quickly?" Pamela asked.
"Exactly. The room is definitely not far from where they drop employees. Otherwise, getting here and fixing the mechanism would take a long time for six groups to gather. But in reality, we didn't wait long, which proves it's not far."
"So what does this indicate?"
"It indicates their employee passage design is probably a straight line between two points." Harley snapped her fingers, "They aren't like normal buildings, connecting multiple rooms with straight passages like a maze, but rather directly connecting countless endpoints from a starting point."
"Thinking about it, it's a bit like a sea urchin?"
"Exactly. The central position where employees gather and the employee passage is like a sea urchin. One center, countless spikes, with the end of the spikes connecting to the game rooms."
"Why design it this way?"
"Cutting corners." Harley shrugged, "Normally, we wouldn't take the employee passage. Observing the designer, it's estimated they just designed randomly where we can't see. Although this building method is unscientific and wasteful, it allows employees to move quickly, saving time."
"I get it, it's not the company's will in the plot, but rather those Dojo Administrators being lazy. I'll give them a bad review once I get out."
"Hiss..." Greed took a sharp breath.
Pamela and Harley immediately turned their heads. Greed quickly covered his mouth, but it was too late. These two were very sensitive, especially Harley, who could be quite alert once excited. She immediately walked to the wall where Greed was located.
Harley gently pressed her ear to the wall. Greed held his breath, and the entire room became silent. Pamela asked, "Did you hear anything?"
"Not yet." Harley said, "But perhaps we can find a way to open it. Could there be a door or something?"
"Even if there is, I'm afraid only the organizer can control it, possibly using something like a remote control." Pamela shook her head, clearly not having any ideas.
Harley also had no clues, so she wandered around the room to see if there were any other clues. As she looked, she noticed several floor tiles were different from usual, especially the ones soaked in water, with gaps too large to ignore. She used a crowbar to pry them open and discovered Andrew's hiding place.
However, Harley didn't immediately investigate the plot clues. Instead, she cheered, "Great, it indeed can be pried open!"
She directly grabbed the crowbar and walked toward the side wall, swinging it fiercely while shouting excitedly, "Here's Johnny!"