"No way, I didn't expect you to have this skill." Stark looked up and down at Greed with some surprise, "How did you precisely find the center of gravity for these bricks? Just by feel?"
"It's my talent." Greed looked at the monitor and said, "Their images aren't so dark; they have night-vision effects." Thus, Stark was able to see the process of Arrogant stacking bricks clearly, and he naturally noticed that the force on each brick was right.
"This is talent, that is talent. This copy seems to be opened by your family." Scarecrow couldn't help but complain, "Oh, wait, it is opened by your family. But you can't be so biased towards yourself, right?"
Greed, however, seemed to have foreseen something, saying, "Do you think the other me has an advantage? I can only tell you, where there is gain, there must be loss. It's crazy if he becomes the first to pass."
"I can't see any chance he won't win the championship." Mephisto said, arms crossed, "In fact, they're currently the fastest, about to reach the scales there. They're the first group, after all."
"Soon they won't be." Greed looked at Arrogant's expression and said.
"The difficulty of this level is really a bit low, right?" Joker muttered discontentedly, "You can pass just by acrobatics, there's no technical content at all. Really should electrify the ladder."
"But the next stage is a big move." Scarecrow rubbed his hands together excitedly, "How will they choose? Give blood or not, trust the people behind them or not?"
"They've arrived, they've arrived." Mephisto pointed at the screen and said, "Shiller and that Batman have arrived. Will they choose to give blood?"
Then everything that happened next exceeded everyone's expectations, leaving them speechless. Never seen such a thing before, Stark was the first to issue a soul-questioning call: "What are they doing???"
Everyone looked at Greed in unison. Greed coughed twice and said, "What did I say? Even if there's an advantage, they'll quickly ruin it. The bad thing about madness is you can't control when you'll go mad."
"Hey, hey, hey!" Stark almost jumped up, "What! What! Don't pry the floor tiles! My machine!!!"
"Hiss..." Greed also took a breath. He hurriedly adjusted the panel data, but unfortunately, the power peak soared too high to be suppressed temporarily, still allowing Arrogant to pry off the floor tiles.
"Agent! Agent!!!" Greed shouted, "I knew this would happen, Agent, hurry up!!"
The agent walked over looking speechless. Greed pointed to the nearby equipment box, "Quickly, clean it up, the next group is coming!"
After Bruce and Arrogant's group left, a fully armed figure appeared in the stage. It was an agent in full protective gear, pushing a tool-filled cart directly out from the maintenance passage, adjusted his mask and goggles, and began cleaning.
The agent looked at the blood all over the place and the messy floor tiles, and couldn't help but let out a deep sigh. Greed really knows how to make him work. If you want to say it's a crime scene cleaner, then fine, but these two are simply inexplicable, leaving a mess for him to clean.
But there was no choice, the job was accepted, and he was here. The agent could only pick up the mop and begin cleaning.
First sprinkle special cleaning agents on the ground, then mop, and then scrape with a water blade. Quite a bit of blood had seeped into the brick seams, which certainly couldn't be wiped away, and time was short, so he could only cover it with original filler materials.
The most troublesome thing was the pried-off bricks. The agent looked at those bricks, and his cursing echoed throughout the monitoring room.
"How can this be put back?! That damned Arrogant even scraped off all the filler on top, and amidst going mad, didn't forget to play the damn bricklayer!"
He stuffed the bricks back, but lacking adhesive material, they'd sink slightly when stepped on. With no choice, he could only use filler material to fill all the gaps, trying to squeeze all bricks together so as not to overly sag when stepping lightly.
Struggling to wipe off the blood and put back the bricks, Greed shouted again, "Wait, check if there are any marks left, can't let them leave marks!"
The agent had no choice but to check the room meticulously again. Before he could finish, Greed shouted again, "Room two, Charles and them left markings, hurry and grind it off!"
The agent could only grab his tools and head into the maintenance passage. He was about to go out when Greed shouted, "Wait a moment, they haven't left yet!"
The agent waited a while in the passage, and after confirming the people outside had left, hurried out. Then found Erik and Charles had used iron rods to carve their names on the bricks, and even wrote "Just visited."
"Can you show some manners?!" The agent took out a grinder from the toolbox, turned it on and started grinding. Luckily, the two had been pressed for time and carved without depth; just grinding off the brick surface layer was enough.
But grinding off wasn't enough; the brick's surface texture was completely different from the others. The agent had to first fake some textures, then spray some water on it to age it. Just after finishing, he heard movement at the passageway and hurriedly pulled the cart back into the maintenance passage.
"Quick, quick, quick, someone is marking in room three too." Greed said with the walkie-talkie, "Quick, erase it!"
The agent went through the passage to room three to deal with the marks. Meanwhile, the people in the monitoring room started watching the situation in the room full of spikes.
"Wait, if your other self can't control the strength, then the lever... okay, they've skipped the level." Mephisto sighed.
On the monitoring screen, Arrogant had directly pulled down the lever that was supposed to open the secret passage by the ceiling. Originally, this lever made with a deadlock requiring sudden immense power to pull away. But alas, besides the ceiling coming down, Shiller also possessed sudden immense power. He just pulled the lever down.
The lever that makes the ceiling fall is under the platform. If you don't pull it, the ceiling won't fall. They were the first to arrive, and the ceiling was still very high, allowing them to walk directly into the secret passage.
After they went inside, they didn't need to bother with the lever anymore, just wait for the ceiling to slowly descend to a level where they could step on it, and then they could pass through.
"A complete design flaw," Joker commented. "More importantly, if you don't restrict that Madman's strength, they'll be able to skip all the strength-required challenges."
"They've already reached that point, so just let them skip," Mephisto replied. "Anyway, they'll waste their time hurting each other and won't be able to take first place, stealing your dear Batman's spot. Rest assured."
Joker merely puckered his lips, staying silent. However, compared to what was about to happen, the situation with Arrogant and Bruce could hardly be considered a design flaw. Because the real major accident was yet to come.
At that time, they were cheering in front of Loki, who was stuck and unable to move in the secret passage.
"Yes, that's right, this is exactly what we want to see!" Scarecrow punched the air vigorously. "Hurry and step on it, green eyes, don't disappoint us!"
Joker obviously got excited again, starting to speak with an exaggerated tone: "If you step on it, you can even feel the convulsions of your brother being crushed to death. Such a thrilling moment doesn't occur often in your life, does it, Nordic God? Hahahahaha!"
While they were eagerly anticipating what was to come, the surveillance suddenly zoomed into the previous room. Inside were Anatoli and Lucifer.
"Hiss..." Greed inhaled sharply. "Agent, how do they know the bricks were... Oh! No! No no no!"
Greed and Stark screamed almost simultaneously because Anatoli began digging the earth underneath the floor tiles.
After digging a hole, using bricks to separate the crowbar and machine, then placing another brick under the crowbar, he began prying the machine aggressively.
"Wait! Wait!!!" Stark shouted, "You can't pry it like that, it's a very delicate setup, you'll damage it!"
As the machine emitted a teeth-gritting creaking sound and the whole setup was pried askew, the protective cover encircling the mechanical arm fell with a "bang." Anatoli glanced at the structure and instantly understood it was supporting something.
So he slightly adjusted his angle and continued prying. Simply prying was not satisfying enough; he started using the removed floor tiles as a shield in front of him, pushing the already inclined setup with Lucifer.
This time it was beyond measure, the entire machine slowly tilted to a 45-degree angle. The edge of the protective cover just wedged against the mechanical arm, pushing it upwards, tightly locking it in place, unable to move.
Suddenly, everyone in the needle-ceiling room felt a sudden lightening of pressure on their shoulders.
You should know, Harley and Pamela were already kneeling under the pressure, drenched in sweat, hands on the exit button. Thor and Loki were panting heavily, while Charles collapsed the moment the ceiling stopped pressing down. Batman and Superman were not doing well either; Batman's vision blackened from excessive blood loss and he leaned directly against the pillar, while Superman hurriedly reached out to grab him.
One could say, except for Arrogant and Bruce who skipped the challenge, other teams were barely holding on, almost on the verge of total collapse.
Anatoli stood in the room, listening intently. Though he couldn't hear voices, he could feel subtle vibrations cease. He revealed an understanding look, smiled smugly.
"Looks like we played the Savior again," Anatoli said to Lucifer. "Let's go, see what the next stage looks like."
Everyone in the surveillance room looked displeased.
"I think you might want to postpone considering letting him into Hell," Mephisto said, rubbing his hands, quite tactfully. "My palace is pretty nice, no urgent need to relocate at the moment. What do you think?"
"This is simply chaotic play!" Scarecrow shouted discontentedly. "Don't they know they can't just wreck the game scene?! Can't they show some public spirit!"
"I should be the one saying that!" Stark roared, "I put a lot of effort into setting up that mechanism! It was supposed to be a perfect design, we were so close to achieving the goal!"
"Where did that guy come from?" Joker frowned at Greed. "I've never heard of this character before."
"You only need to know, recently most Batmans in the Multiverse were digging three feet to find him," Greed delivered a fatal blow. "I don't know how strong he is, I only know, people in Arkham Asylum don't get such treatment."
Joker instantly became furious, jumping on the spot. "Batman digging three feet to find him?! A damn... damn..."
Joker mulled over for a while but couldn't find a suitable adjective. In this regard, he valued martial morality, focusing on precise attacks. But considering his observations just now, Joker found Anatoli very hard to assess.
You say he's reckless, but he actually did precise calculations; You say he lacks artistry, but he has his philosophic theories and articulates them well; You say he defies rules, but he's not doing it for personal gain; You say he's cunning and treacherous, yet he genuinely succeeds.
"Damn Soviet," Stark could only comment, "They seem like they were born to counter me."
"They really are," Greed shrugged.