"Batman, I'm going to push the cage now. Can you stand firm?" Superman looked a bit worried, or rather very anxious, constantly adjusting his angle, seemingly trying to find a way to push without making Batman hit the cage bars.
Batman stood with his feet apart, leaning on the cage's diagonal. He crossed his arms, looked at Superman, and said, "Trust in my balancing skills."
Superman clearly had little faith. When he reached out to touch the bars, he didn't feel the electricity at first, too busy watching Batman's reaction, and then got shocked, yelping from the delayed sensation, yet he refused to let go.
"Clark, Clark!" Batman called out to him several times before he snapped out of it. Batman said with some resignation, "Don't do that, Clark, we need to make one strong push."
"How can you ask me to harm you all at once? That's too inhumane!" Superman was obviously a bit angry, not at Batman, but at the checkpoint designer, clearly holding onto a long-standing grudge.
Superman was never short of courage, always able to bring any evil to justice. But the evil talent required to harm others is even greater than the talent for justice. Superman not only lacked such talent but also had an instinctive aversion and rejection.
His arms began to tremble, but he gritted his teeth and said nothing, knowing Batman needed to rely on him now, as his reliance, he couldn't show weakness, just as Batman always did.
In his heart, he repeated countless times: this is just to pass the level, not my intention, Batman won't be truly harmed. Superman seemed to reluctantly convince himself, reluctant because his action of pushing the cage was slow like in a slow-motion shot.
He grabbed the lower middle part of the cage's bars with both hands, pushing bit by bit in one direction. It was more like lifting the cage rather than pushing it, though aided by the chains' power, it was mostly his own strength.
This made it visibly uncomfortable for him as the cage was continuously electrified. Each shock caused his muscles to twitch all over his body, making him constantly shake, with abnormal redness appearing on his skin.
"That's enough, Clark." Batman shouted, "Don't do this! Stop now. You only need to push once!"
Superman seemed to have tuned out his shouting, much like many times he didn't follow Batman's orders, simply using a burst of brute force to push forward. Unfortunately, the speed was too slow, completely contrary to the exhaustion method's intention.
Batman looked down at the water which was almost over the lower support board now. If this continued, it would be better to follow the normal process. It seemed that's the only option.
Batman continued spreading his legs wider, even if his feet touched the bars, he didn't mind. He stretched his arms, grabbed the farthest two bars, combining his waist and horse stance, suddenly exerting force and swinging like on a swing.
Indeed, this mechanism could also be driven by the person inside the cage, that's the interesting part. When the water hadn't risen, the person inside could use the exhaustion method like swinging on a swing. This way, one person wouldn't be shocked at all.
And that's the method Thor employed. He directly had Loki stand on one side, and he entered the cage, closed the door, and began swinging. Loki was speechless.
It wasn't that he didn't stop him, he simply couldn't stop him. Every time he tried, Thor just held him down. Here, he couldn't use his deceit spells, and persuasion had no effect, truly helpless.
Loki got so infuriated later, he wished he could see Thor being shocked and screaming. Yet, no matter whether Thor had been injured too much to feel it, or was just holding on without a sound, he swung inside the cage like he didn't get shocked at all.
Instead, it made Loki increasingly uncomfortable. He turned around to the wall, not wanting Thor to see his tears. But Thor suddenly yelped loudly, Loki instinctively turned to look, and Thor yelped again, then smiled at him.
"You like watching me like this, don't you? Every time your tricks succeed, and I yell and jump in traps, you clap with joy." Thor said with a smile, but you could see his arm trembling a bit, "Even though this trap wasn't set by you, you could laugh rather than cry."
Loki stood there dumbfounded. He didn't know what to say or how to react, only unable to control his tears.
"You're done, Thor," Loki said while wiping his tears, "When we go back, I'll tell Frigga and Odin what you did. You're finished..."
"No matter what, I've made you laugh more times than I've made you cry." Thor continued swinging, "Both Frigga and Odin know this, so they won't do anything. You might want to consider if Frigga finds out you almost got skewered by steel needles..."
"You can't tell her," Loki said, raising his voice, "When we went out, Frigga said you have to listen to me. I said you can't tell, so you can't tell!"
Thor suddenly exerted more force, the cage slammed into the left wall. With a "click," the door opened directly. Thor was a bit dazed when he fell out, and Loki was also stunned. Then, the cage's chains slowly tightened, and the entire cage began to ascend.
Thor touched the cage bars to ensure there was no electricity, then waved at Loki, saying, "Come on, we must have got it right."
When Thor dragged Loki to the top of the cage, Loki was still stunned. It wasn't until the disc above opened, revealing an exit, and the cage started rising like an elevator to the vicinity of the disc that he realized: Thor's luck was unbelievably good. The disc had eight positions, and you had to swing in three directions to open it. Thor swung a total of four times, and except for the first, he guessed them all correctly. What kind of crazy luck is that?
"Do you know what the most important quality for a battlefield commander is?" Thor said, shaking his hair. "It's not wisdom, nor courage, but luck. If my luck wasn't good, I'd be dead by now."
Loki had nothing to say to that. Wasn't he aware of how good Thor's luck was? All of Asgard knew the World Tree favored him, always turning misfortunes into blessings, dangers into opportunities. Even when thrown onto Earth, he managed to make a bunch of rowdy friends. Although he faced many difficulties, he was rarely in true peril, all thanks to his luck.
"Our luck isn't great," Pamela said, shaking her head. "We've swung in all directions, but haven't got the right answer. The water is about to touch you. Why don't you come down first?"
"What if I come down and the mechanism stops?" Harley said. "We should probably overestimate the malice of the level designer and not take risks."
Pamela had no choice but to keep shaking the cage. Their luck was really awful. The three positions weren't in a sequence; they had to be pushed precisely. It was about getting those exact three positions, no deviation allowed.
Normally, a person in the cage would push cautiously with every move, otherwise, they'd get shocked for nothing. They wouldn't get shocked at all, pushing however they wanted, recklessly hitting different spots, which resulted in a slow solve.
Fortunately, Pamela became more cautious, starting to push according to the room's angles. The room's cross and diagonals conveniently formed eight directions, which she tried one by one. With a click, the cage door opened, and the entire cage began to slowly ascend.
Pamela touched the cage to make sure there was no electricity and went in, shouting to Harley, "Get up here—"
"No, I'm not getting up. From this angle, I might see more." Harley said, "Did you forget the figure we saw through that little gap? We didn't see it clearly last time, so I must catch their mistake this time."
As the cage slowly rose, Harley dangled underneath. Logically, it wasn't much different from the normal standing perspective, but she performed a stunt: wrapping her legs around the cage bars, releasing her hands, and letting her body fall, hanging upside down under the cage. This way, she could look from below upwards.
And indeed, she spotted something.
As the cage rose like an elevator, it would pass over the floor of the upper level. Although one could see the floor level's structure passing by, the surrounding tunnel was all encased, so looking from above, one couldn't see the specific structure. Only by Harley's alternative approach, looking from below, did she discover a gap where the disc's fixed position blocked the tunnel, matching the floor layer's side structure, allowing a glimpse inside from below upward.
Coincidentally, there was a bit of a flicker inside that gap. Harley didn't shout this time; she just held her breath and, during the cage's slow ascent, quietly peered through the gap.
One, two, three, four, five, six...
Harley gently covered her mouth. Once the cage fully rose, she jumped down from above and whispered to Pamela, "I just saw a passage, and there were people walking through it. Six people."
Pamela's hair stood on end. She said, "Are you sure you didn't see it wrong?"
"Absolutely not. I not only saw shadows, but I saw the people. They walked along the passage, as if they were going upwards..."
Harley was also a bit nervous because that sight was somewhat terrifying. Don't be fooled by her being a lunatic, she never played horror scenarios. Besides, unlike others who fear jump scares more, Harley, due to her more imaginative and active thinking, feared psychological horror scenes more. That earlier scene could definitely be called psychological horror.
At this moment, Pamela raised a key question: "Do you think seeing them is part of the storyline?"
Harley shook her head and said, "That opening doesn't look specially designed; it seems more like an unfinished bordering. The shape is a bit odd, and it's not clear. Plus, if it were specially designed, it wouldn't require such a weird posture to see, right? If you ask me, besides me, maybe only Dick could have pulled it off. Batman would struggle; his thigh muscles are too strong."
Pamela pondered, "If it's not a deliberately designed peeking scene, then the Dojo Administrator might have overlooked it when designing the level. It should be considered an unintended reveal."
"What do you think those five people are doing?"
"They couldn't be cleaners or repairmen, for one, they're not carrying tools, and for another, what needs five people to fix? It's not necessary to capture a fugitive either, right?"
"That's hard to say, what if the fugitive is Batman?"
"Doesn't matter, let's head to the next level first. This crucial information will come in handy."