amaotonovel Chapter 4644 Desperate Escape (6)
Chapter 4644 Desperate Escape (6)
Chapter 4644 A Desperate Escape (Sixteen)
Anatoly began to observe the surroundings of the room. It was a very empty cylindrical hall. The first thing he noticed was the torches on the wall. Unlike the torches they had found in the room earlier, these torches were larger and brighter, illuminating the entire room as if it were daytime.
“Something’s not right,” Anatoly said. “A flame of this size couldn’t possibly emit such a bright light.”
From the moment they entered the room, all their attention was drawn to the central mechanism. The room was quite large, and there were still several meters between their position and the walls, so they didn't really observe the things on the walls carefully.
Anatoly walked over and stared at the torch, but because the entire hall was very tall, even though the torch was fixed in the middle of the wall, it was still much taller than a person, and the flame could not be seen very clearly from below.
Anatoly stretched out his hand, felt it in mid-air for a moment, and then said, "The light and heat of this torch are not conserved. Could it be electric?"
Lucifer walked over and looked up. He examined it for a moment, then said, "I don't know if it's electric, but it's definitely not an ordinary flame. It's very similar to the torches used to light up the palaces of Hell; it only needs a small flame to emit a very bright light."
Anatoly gently patted the wall in front of him: "There must be electrical wires inside the wall. Unfortunately, the wall can't be broken."
As he spoke, he walked along the wall to the back of the mechanism. Behind the mechanism was a door, which was unlocked, meaning that this level was designed to be skipped, regardless of whether one donated blood or not.
After circling the wall without finding anything, Anatoli looked up again. The mechanism on the other side of the scales connected to the ceiling, but it was also surrounded by a metal cover, so he couldn't see the details inside or deduce its purpose from the mechanical structure.
The entire scene was designed like a flawless turtle shell. The first few levels didn't provide any useful items, and now they had nothing but a chained iron bar and a crowbar, making brute force seem completely ineffective.
The barbed wire wasn't completely enclosed, but neither a crowbar nor a steel rod was long enough to reach what was inside. Furthermore, the barbed wire was likely electrified; even a slight touch could cause serious injury.
Lucifer followed Anatoly, but soon stopped because he was exhausted again. The truth is, humans shouldn't have wings; he was essentially carrying a heavy load all the time, which significantly reduced his mobility.
Anatoly still wasn't going to give up, so he turned around counter-clockwise again. But this time, he hadn't gone far before he discovered a problem—several floor tiles on the left side of the machine were slightly sunken.
Anatoly wasn't entirely sure whether he hadn't noticed it before or if the problem had appeared suddenly. He thought the latter was more likely, because Lucifer was very heavy, almost the weight of two people. Perhaps the already problematic floor tiles had caved in after he stepped on them.
Anatoly walked over and scratched at a paving stone with his fingertip, finding some sand on it. He then looked at the surrounding paving stones; each one fit perfectly, except for a few loose ones in this area.
Anatoly pressed the bricks down one by one until a long, dented mark stretched to the seam between the machine and the ground. Anatoly realized: someone had pried the bricks off.
This isn't entirely impossible. The bricks are indeed joined very tightly, but the entire machine is made of metal, so it couldn't possibly be a single piece of stone; there must be seams. It's likely someone pried off the first brick along one of these seams, and then pried them off one by one.
Anatoly approached the first brick at the joint and indeed found that the gap was larger than the other bricks. However, due to the position of the torch, a dense shadow surrounded the machine, making such a small detail almost impossible to notice.
Anatoly held the iron rod in his hand, but did not pry at the joint, as this could cause an electric shock. He inserted the iron rod into the gap between the first and second bricks, and then used a crowbar to forcefully hammer it down. After hammering it in, he slowly pried it out.
It didn't take much effort to pry it open, since it had already been dug out before. Anatoly successfully removed the brick and, upon closer inspection, found that, just as he had suspected, the person who had dug it out had used the exact same method as him, and there was another vertical mark on the side of the brick.
Meanwhile, in the soil below, there was a deep hole, about the same diameter as the iron rod. This was likely caused by the other party repeatedly hammering the iron rod down while prying up the bricks.
Anatoly's expression gradually darkened.
"Hiss..." Lucifer walked over and took a look, then gasped, "That's incredible strength! How did they do that?"
“Alright. Once we’ve finished what we need to do here, we’ll leave,” Schiller said.
"What's going on here?" Bruce asked, still puzzled. "Didn't we say we weren't going to play this level anymore?"
“If you choose a short reason, I don’t need to explain all this to you, and we can naturally leave. But now that you know, we can’t just walk away; of course, we have to do something.”
Bruce looked at Schiller, a bad feeling creeping into his heart. When Schiller took out a disposable needle, Bruce pursed his lips and asked, "You want blood drawn?"
“I remember telling you before. This instance doesn’t completely limit my abilities. Even when I’m not in good condition, I can still use superhuman strength.”
"What do you want to do?"
“I know Anatoly. Faced with this situation, he will definitely want to solve this puzzle completely. No matter how difficult it is, he will not give up. And I must help him.”
"The way is to hurt yourself?" Bruce looked at him and said, "Then we might as well play the game according to the rules, so we can get through this level safely."
“That’s why I said your environment has affected you more profoundly than I imagined.” Schiller turned to look into Bruce’s eyes. “Even though you’re no longer Batman, you’re still an American, and a Gothamite. You’re used to expending all your energy to survive, used to focusing only on getting through the next night safely.”
“He who does not plan for the future will have trouble in the present,” Schiller continued. “When there are too many troubles in the present, one becomes accustomed to not planning for the future. This is the problem of the whole of America, and it is always so clearly reflected in every American.”
"As you said, we can donate blood, perfectly complete the game, and it seems we can avoid more serious consequences. But you can't let yourself slide towards 'accepting an acceptable outcome.' Because that's how people are gradually turned into walking corpses."
"By the time the endless exploitation of the rules has left nothing but bones, it will be too late to break the rules and resist. Because by then you will have no strength left. If you are not vigilant enough, that is not your fault, Bruce. The mark that this country's character has left on you is never so easily erased."
Bruce's Adam's apple bobbed, and he looked at Schiller with slightly moist eyes, saying, "But you said that if I don't ask for the specific reasons, we can leave."
“Between you and Anatoly, I have to make a choice.” Schiller’s tone turned somber. “If I help him, I have to hurt myself, and I know that will make you sad. But if I don’t help him, he will probably get hurt too. It’s a very difficult choice for me. So I’ve decided to do it a better way.”
"Let me decide?" Bruce's tone was laced with anger. "But you didn't tell me anything! You should have told me beforehand!"
Schiller shook his head: “This isn’t something I do by telling you. I just want to know if you’re willing to delve into the deeper reasons behind this, or if you’re just going to treat it as an ordinary game and let it pass.”
“You know I’d naturally want to investigate,” Bruce said, stepping forward. “I’m a thoughtful person, full of curiosity, and I’m good at exploring anything in this world. And you’re my professor; I’m used to pondering the questions you raise. You can’t use my respect for my teacher to set traps!”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Schiller said. “You decided to stay and hear my thoughts because you had doubts about my decision not to make any sacrifices. This shows that you subconsciously believe I’m the kind of person who would be willing to sacrifice. As a teacher, I can’t let my students down.”
Bruce seemed to break down instantly. He gritted his teeth and said, "I...I..."
"What's wrong with you?" Schiller suddenly asked with a mocking sneer.
Bruce clenched his fists tightly. Schiller stepped forward, narrowed his eyes slightly, and stared into Bruce's blue eyes, saying, "You planned for you to be the one to sacrifice yourself, didn't you?"
Schiller took two steps back and then laughed: "All these years have passed, Bruce, and you haven't improved at all. I mean you're not alert enough, that you still don't realize just how easily I can see through you."
"You think you can donate blood entirely on your own, so you don't support my decision to skip the level and instead want to fight for the chance to stay. I'm just compromising with you. Bruce, every time you try to become a savior like Batman again, I stop you. Why do you think I won't this time?"
With that, Schiller reached his arm into the wooden exit. Bruce took a step forward, but Schiller's voice rang out coldly again: "If I were you, I wouldn't move. You know you got this all by yourself."
“I was just making the right choice, the one that’s best for us.” Bruce raised his voice, but he immediately realized he couldn’t fall into a self-justification trap, so he started attacking others. “You clearly wanted to hurt yourself, but you were afraid your doctor would blame you, so you set up a verbal trap to shift the blame onto me!”
Schiller turned to look at him and said casually, "So, how do you plan to retaliate, Bruce?"
After saying that, he turned his head back, inserted the disposable needle into the tubing, and aimed at the vein in his arm.
The next second, Bruce rushed over, snatched the disposable needle from the tube, and threw it into the trap along the perforated wire mesh. It was never taken out again.
“You can’t do that, Schiller. Don’t even think about it.”
To everyone's surprise, Schiller wasn't angry at all. He simply smiled at Bruce again and reached out to touch his collarbone.
“I told you, if I were you, I wouldn’t move. Bruce, you’ll never listen to me properly.”
As soon as she finished speaking, her pale fingers, like a sharp knife, plunged deeply into the wound on her collarbone. One second, just one second.
The moment Bruce lunged forward, his collarbone snapped. He was then sent flying like he was being hit by a train, his forehead slamming into the ground. Through his blurred vision, filled with blood, he saw Schiller tilt his head slightly, grab the chain, and violently rip the ring off his collarbone. Amidst the splattering blood, he slowly straightened up, holding the severed iron bar.
A raging fire ignited in Bruce's eyes as he lay on the ground. Every moment he tried to become Batman again, Schiller had stopped him, he thought, but he had also taught Schiller a lesson—and this time would be no exception.