Erik took a deep breath above the water, dived back under again, and shoved the cage hard in one direction. There was a click, and the door opened. Charles slowly swam out, his movements strong, his posture steady. Together, the two of them surfaced.
"Your swimming is honestly incredible," Erik couldn't help saying with a sigh. "If anyone else had played this stage, they'd probably have been in a panic, but I could keep coming up for air."
Charles waved it off. "Good thing this stage wasn't custom-made, or he would've had to design twenty-eight directions. Otherwise, there'd be no way to make me suffocate."
Erik and Charles's group had no flashy tricks at all. They simply used the standard answer. It was just that Charles's absurd breath-holding ability turned the later underwater struggle into a complete joke. He was someone who could hold his breath for more than ten minutes. Even if Erik went up for air after every shove, three shoves would only take four or five minutes at most. Though both of them were being electrocuted, one was the king of holding his breath and the other could surface frequently, so neither of them actually found it that unpleasant.
After they swam up to the surface, they saw the cage slowly rising, and it soon reached their position. Charles stepped onto it first, then Erik. As they waited for the cage to rise, they started discussing the plot again.
"I'm guessing the next stage will be another group stage. Whoever gets there late might suffer," Charles said. "We solved this through the standard procedure, so I'm afraid we can't compare to those people taking shortcuts. I wonder what else they'll make us do."
"I can't see any possibility for shortcuts," Erik said, shaking his head. Despite having