Moments later, the illumination power was restarted, and light returned to the checkpoint. The organizers' corpses were dragged one after another to the central energy room, but they didn't stay here for long because the situation was already very clear.
The entire game is a deadly escape organized by the company for viewing pleasure. But the wealthy elites weren't satisfied with simply sitting in the stands; they wanted to personally experience the thrill of being above others' lives. The company initially disagreed, but a wealthy elite codenamed "Weasel" was privately preparing for a larger-scale party.
To avoid being implicated, the company reluctantly agreed to the elites personally entering the game and even invited "Weasel" to participate. However, among the other five wealthy elites also participating, they planted their own staff, prepared to tamper in the lantern stage to prevent the reckless "Weasel" from making more dangerous moves.
Yet, another mysterious force came to disrupt the scene. Most players speculated that the gun-carrying hunters might be agents sent by the FBI or other law enforcers; they had long discovered the company's conspiracy and were using this direct entry opportunity to meddle and gather criminal evidence against the company.
However, due to the players being somewhat dangerous, this agent didn't reveal themselves to the players directly. But the players acted in a surprisingly coordinated manner, placing the dead elite corpses in the central energy control room. Here, there's a temperature control device that ensures the freshness of the corpses, allowing officials to investigate the murder as soon as they take over.
Currently, the agent should have escaped, seeking help from law enforcement agencies. But the company remained eager and watchful. For fear of the company sending security personnel to hunt them down, the players didn't dare stay long in the employee passage; instead, they returned to the checkpoint, planning to see what challenges remained in the remaining stages.
The passage to the next stage was still an elevator, which could take different groups of players to different rooms. However, this time, among the players, there was an extra person. Leading the way onto the elevator was Stark, who entered the room of Anatoli's group, forcing everyone else to delay their entry.
So much so, when the last group, Batman and Superman's group, arrived, the elevator was already closed. They couldn't proceed to the next stage.
"This isn't bad either," Superman said. "Your body really can't endure intense exercise anymore."
Superman supported Batman into a cubicle in the lantern room to sit down. He said, "We'll stay here. If they dare send security over, I'm not without fighting capability."
Batman nodded, knowing he was at the end of his strength; attempting intense activities would be suicide. However, though his body was immobile, his mind was still active.
"There were likely three insiders last game," he said. "One from the company, one was the agent. But the one who set the lantern on fire shouldn't be any of these; it should be an insider from a third party force."
"This is really a hidden threat," Superman marveled. "But who could the third party be?"
Though he had brief interaction with some players, it wasn't long enough for deep exchanges, and Batman couldn't gather much. But he speculated, judging from the insider's actions, it seemed they didn't want anyone to survive, including organizers, players and possibly himself. Otherwise, they wouldn't have set the fire at that moment.
Superman thought about it, recalling how the lantern was ignited before it toppled. In such a cramped space, the fire burned fiercely, and the odds of survival for those inside were very low. You could say, if not for the lantern being overturned, this fire could have truly been the deadly move, burning at least one of the organizers to death, if not more.
"This proves that the perpetrator wasn't a stakeholder, nor did they seek any gains. Either they are purely a madman like Joker, or they pursued some non-material interests. I'm more inclined towards the latter."
"Non-material interests?" Superman thought about it and said, "Could it be a religious sacrifice?"
Superman is from Central Continent; heresy there is relatively rampant. He often hears horror stories about small towns, where sometimes a heretic sacrifices an entire town.
"If that's the case, then they must have a base, and it's probably within the checkpoint," Batman thought aloud. "They couldn't and wouldn't need to build their own employee passages; they must be using the company's. And to facilitate movement, the base wouldn't be too far from the convergence of employee passages. I suspect it's above or below the central energy room."
"So are we looking for the hidden now?" Superman readied himself and said, "But we should. Even if we can't clear the stage, if we find the hidden, we might write a guide to it afterward. Batman, will you give this game a good review?"
After resting for a while, Batman stood up and said, "Yes. Considering the specially arranged part for venting anger by killing wealthy elites, I could increase the score to 7.5 points. It's a fairly decent chapter."
The duo headed to the previous stage, seeking below to find if there's a hidden room of heretics.
On the other side, the five groups that had reached the checkpoint room via the elevator were surprised to find that it was still considered a cooperative stage. Since now, five groups plus one organizer were situated in rooms at different heights in a narrow vertical passage.
If one were to compare it, it's somewhat similar to that in the film "The Platform": players were located on different floors, while the central part of the room featured a hollow shaft. But here's the difference: there weren't elevators constantly distributing food up and down, and the shaft was enclosed in a semi-transparent resin material. Except for an opening which allows an arm to reach out, all other places were inaccessible.
However, since the enclosed material is semi-transparent, the silhouettes of groups above and below are vaguely visible, and one can extend a hand through the opening to greet others.
The center of the shaft had a chain hanging down, just enough to grab onto with an arm fully extended through the opening. Looking upward through the opening, there was a winch, meaning that the chain was moved up and down by the winch, resembling a vertical bicycle chain.
In the room of the checkpoint, there's a door that requires a key. It seems that the key needs to be obtained from the middle of the atrium, but how exactly to get it remains unclear.
As soon as he entered the room, Stark knew he was in big trouble. This checkpoint is the most unique of all because it has six levels, with a significant vertical drop. The important mechanism for controlling the chains is on the lowest level, so the employee passage entrance and maintenance room are also on the lower level. But since he was the first to run into the checkpoint, he's now on the top level. Without the proper access, there's no way to go down.
He wiped his face vigorously, just as he leaned towards the small opening below, he saw a pair of blue eyes staring hard at him from the opening at the lower level. Stark gasped, took a few steps back. It was that damned Soviet!
He swallowed, initially wanting to leave it at that, but couldn't explain why the organizer died for no reason. This doesn't make sense in the plot, and if he gets negatively rated, "Greed" won't let him off easily.
But thinking of the contents of this checkpoint, Stark's face showed bitterness. This checkpoint was designed by him, you could say it's the most dangerous among all the checkpoints. Truly, this was reaping what he had sown.
Soon, a rumbling noise came from the top of the atrium, the airflow and vibrations brought by the rotating mechanism were particularly horrid, the chains began to move down slowly. Accompanying the arrival of shadows were blades spinning madly like a meat grinder.
Approximately at every meter interval, blades parallel to the ground were hung on the chains. The blades spun crazily, and undoubtedly, anything near would be sliced into fragments. The whole atrium now seemed like a vertical meat warehouse, the hums of countless blades overlapping, inducing fear.
Those sharp-eyed quickly noticed through the small hole that keys were hung in the middle of the blades. Meaning, they need to take the keys from the gap between the blades.
The speed of the chain is not fast, but the intervals between the blades are too small. A meter of space is not enough to extend an arm and retract it. If it doesn't retract in time, this arm is gone.
The key issue is, losing an arm might be bearable, but losing an arm means losing the key as well. They observed for a while and found that there are a total of six keys hung on the chains, not a single extra.
This means, if someone's hand shakes, their arm gets chopped, and they drop the key, then it's destined they can't leave, and it would affect others too.
Two people have four arms, and if they went all out to mess things up with these four arms, at least four keys could be thrown away. Then among these six groups, only two groups would be able to get out.
Up until now, everyone hasn't quite figured out how to play. Because the gap between the blades is clearly reachable, but not retrievable, it appears to be a dead-end.
But soon, a wavering voice came from the top level, "Someone must drop a key for the person on the bottom level to get out. He can slow down the chain speed in the next checkpoint."
Anatoli raised an eyebrow. Because the atrium was sealed off, they couldn't stick their heads out, and the observation window was too small, preventing them from looking out. From this angle, the upper levels couldn't see the lower level's situation.
"The ones at the bottom," he called out, "is it completely closed there?"
"I don't have a hinge here," Bruce called out, "Just an empty atrium."
Shiller and Bruce were at the bottom level. Their situation differed from the others: the atrium didn't pierce through their floor, only a hole was opened in the ceiling. The chain didn't extend down, only on the ceiling side did a mechanism continuously swallow and spew chains with blades, but most of the atrium was voided. They couldn't reach the mechanism above at all from here.
If anything fell from above, it would ultimately land where they are. Because the entire atrium was mostly sealed off, even if things bounced off from the blades, they would be bounced back by the resin material and certainly fall to the bottom.
"Why is it specifically us?" Bruce said in exasperation, "I'm most annoyed by this sitting idle situation."
His arm was still hanging around his neck, evidently without any improvement. He scratched his head with his one functioning hand and said, "Actually, if I were up there, I could send my arm out. Since it's already non-functional, might as well use it to exchange for a key."
"Is the Batman disease kicking in again?" Shiller asked.
Bruce shook his head and said, "In a situation where someone must sacrifice, you can only make use of waste materials."
"But did you forget? There's a host on the top level," Shiller said, "Wouldn't it be best for him to be the sacrifice?"
"He wouldn't sacrifice for shit!" Bruce snorted, "People like him are rotten to the core, wouldn't sacrifice a bit."
"Whether he sacrifices or not, it's not up to him," Shiller smiled and said.