The answer

What was this...?

Taking the ring from Huang Liang, Ye Lin examined it closely.

The ring was roughly the diameter of a human head and made of a transparent material. Phosphorescent powder inside gave off a faint glow even without power.

Rather than a ring, it looked more like a halo made from some kind of light strip.

The moment he saw it, he thought of the halos behind those gods' heads.

Was this supposed to go behind your head? Or around your neck?

"So you used this thing to imitate a 'god' and scare off that monster?"

Ye Lin shook the ring in his hand.

"Does that mean your first room had a mural too?"

Huang Liang hesitated, then nodded.

"Yes, but I wouldn't exactly say we scared it off. The monster suddenly stopped when it saw this thing."

"There was a mural in the first room, but we only noticed it later."

"Tell me everything, especially about the painting you saw."

Ye Lin set down the halo, his mind full of questions.

Imitating a god this way? Could this be what the system wanted them to find?

The answer seemed so absurd that He Zheng hurriedly grabbed the halo and turned it over to inspect it.

Huang Liang nodded.

"Here's what happened. When I woke up, I found myself lying in a hall with six other people around me."

"We had no information, so we only realized there was danger after the exam began. Someone suggested going outside to take a look, but we ran into a 'god' as soon as we entered a passage."

"That thing..."

"Wait!"

He Zheng suddenly interrupted.

"You only found out there was danger after it started? Nobody in your team explained the rules?"

Holding the halo, He Zheng stared at him in astonishment.

He had noticed that the two people behind Huang Liang looked like newcomers, but he had assumed their leader had died in the first round.

It had never occurred to him that everyone on Huang Liang's side was a newcomer.

Seeing He Zheng's surprise, Huang Liang froze too.

A leader? What leader? Nobody had explained the rules. They had even figured out how to use Wristwatch through trial and error.

"You mean you had someone?"

"Him."

Ye Lin pointed at He Zheng, an odd glint flashing in his eyes.

Judging by He Zheng's reaction, each team should have had a leader. The fact that Huang Liang's team had none was intriguing, but now wasn't the time to investigate.

"All right... I guess we were just unlucky."

Huang Liang gave a bitter smile and continued.

"When we encountered the god, three of us died immediately. We had no choice but to flee back to where we started and hide."

"Luckily, there were plenty of rooms. To stay alive, we hid while searching for a way to survive. Eventually, I found a painting in one of the rooms. It showed a man with a halo behind his head, carrying a case."

"He seemed to be handing something to the monsters at his feet, and they all looked afraid of him."

Huang Liang's eyes grew distant as he recalled it.

"Actually, I didn't realize the monster was afraid of the halo at the time. I thought I could put out the light and see whether that would interfere with its killing."

"But after I shot out the light, the light strip above fell down beside my feet. The monster could still see, but it suddenly stopped moving."

"It was luck, really. Once I realized what had happened, I took the light ring to find the others. We only escaped because of this thing. Later, we used it to scare off quite a few Species too."

"Then I noticed the Species kept moving in one direction, so I wondered whether there might be other people..."

Huang Liang finished with a long sigh. Behind him, the other two tightened their grips on their guns.

It sounded lucky in hindsight, but at the time, they had been on the verge of despair, unable to find the slightest hope of survival.

After listening, Ye Lin quickly pictured the mural Huang Liang had described.

A case... handing something over... a halo?

The painting Huang Liang had seen was completely different from theirs, especially...

While he was thinking, He Zheng abruptly stood and began searching the room anxiously.

"Ye Lin! Could these lights be what we're supposed to find? Didn't you hear him? They could scare off Species just by holding this thing!"

"Power! If we can find something to power them, we can use these lights to just...!"

"It won't work."

Ye Lin shook his head, putting an immediate end to that idea.

"Our task isn't complete. That means the halo isn't what the hint referred to. At most, there's some connection."

He Zheng looked disappointed and sat back down dejectedly.

He wanted desperately to find the answer.

Gesturing for Huang Liang to continue, Ye Lin asked again.

"Your task isn't complete either, right?"

"What god do you think the one in that painting was? And what's going on with the rotating rooms?"

Faced with three questions in succession, Huang Liang thought for a moment before answering.

"Right... The question asks us to identify where the 'gods' actually came from. I tried all kinds of answers, but none seemed to work."

"The answer isn't a laboratory or genetic modification..."

"As for that painting..."

Huang Liang shook his head.

"I don't know what god it was, but it looked a little like something from Ancient Egypt. Of course, it might not have been. There wasn't anything distinctive about his clothes. They were just very close-fitting."

Using a bullet to scratch the picture into the floor, Huang Liang tried to reproduce every detail he had seen. He truly hadn't recognized the figure and didn't even think it was necessarily a god.

As a special operative of the Security Bureau, he had undergone professional training and systematically studied the cultures and histories of various countries.

"I discovered the rooms could move later."

"After we left the starting room, we noticed the passage behind us moving to the right. It was just... almost imperceptible."

One minute later.

Silence filled the laboratory. Nobody spoke, and the oppressive atmosphere made it difficult to breathe.

He Zheng leaned despondently against the wall, propped on his gun. Huang Liang checked his ammunition, while Ye Lin looked down at the picture on the floor, lost in thoughts nobody could guess.

The situation was worse than expected.

After both sides compared their information, they hadn't found any answers. Instead, they had even more questions.

Imitating a "god" with a light strip didn't work, and the god in the laboratory was a fake too.

If either had been correct, at least someone would have completed the exam. That also meant all of Hu Jia's earlier reasoning was wrong. The "god" they had awakened was merely a stronger monster.

Of course, they had had no choice at the time. Without awakening her, Rotten Crab would have killed them.

Under the crushing pressure, one young man couldn't help standing up, his voice frantic.

"Seriously! Are we just going to sit here doing nothing?"

"We have fourteen minutes left! If we don't find the answer in fourteen minutes, we're all going to die!"

Slinging his gun across his chest, Zhao Cheng began breathing faster and faster.

"I don't want to wait anymore! If nothing else works, let's get some more light rings and head outside to look for clues!"

As soon as Zhao Cheng finished, He Zheng suddenly rose too and looked at Ye Lin.

"Ye Lin, the kid's right. We'll die if we stay here!"

"Do you think we might need to kill a god? Maybe what we need is inside its corpse!"

Under the relentless pressure, his nerves were like a bowstring stretched taut, ready to snap at any moment.

He Zheng couldn't bear the torment any longer. Having said his piece, he prepared to leave.

Rather than wait here to die, he would take a gamble his own way.

The atmosphere abruptly changed. Everyone instinctively turned toward Ye Lin. Even Huang Liang hoped he would say something.

All the pressure fell on Ye Lin, but he showed no reaction. He merely looked up to one side, as though searching for something.

"Give me a little time... Let me think again, just one more..."

Boom!

Suddenly, a violent crash rang out from outside.

Inside the sealed laboratory, everyone's expression changed. Huang Liang hurriedly raised his gun and aimed toward the sound.

Hearing the overlapping shrieks beyond the door, Hu Jia shrank back in terror, instinctively trying to hide in a corner.

"They're here! They've come for us!"

The shrieks sounded like death knells. The closest were already just outside the door. Although the laboratory's alloy door was thick enough, the Species had found them, and those "gods" could follow at any moment.

"Ye Lin! We can't stay here! We have to go now!"

He Zheng shouted and tore open the ventilation duct overhead.

Staying here would leave them trapped like rats. Worse, the Species could crawl into the ventilation ducts too. Once attacked from both sides, they would be devoured in seconds!

The instant He Zheng stepped onto a table, a string of cold system notifications sounded.

Ding!

Experimental subject codenamed [Shiva] has awakened!

Experimental subject codenamed [Destruction Angel] has awakened!

...

Experimental subject codenamed [Omnipotent] has awakened!

Warning! Difficulty has changed due to the awakening of multiple experimental subjects!

All second-round exam questions have been replaced with: eliminate every Species in the base and survive pursuit by the experimental subjects!

Points awarded for this round: 60!

When the announcements ended, everyone froze, staring at the dense stream of awakening notifications on Wristwatch.

An invisible terror engulfed them like a tsunami.

He Zheng, who had intended to fight his way out, began trembling all over, his face deathly pale.

Eight announcements, eight gods! Including An Ke and the two they had encountered, that made eleven "gods" in total!

Only then did he realize that the Goddess of War hadn't come after them because she had gone to the dormancy area.

"So this is the difficulty for fourteen people...?"

"Eleven gods hunting us?"

"Fuck! Why not just kill us outright?"

He Zheng laughed in furious disbelief and slammed his fist into the wall.

They were dead. They were all dead!

Never mind surviving pursuit by eleven gods. Eliminating every Species in the base alone was beyond human capability.

Sixty points was a generous reward, but to him, the system was simply toying with them.

Bang!

Bang! Bang!

Violent impacts suddenly rang out.

The Species battered the door frantically, their sharp claws scraping against the metal with an ear-piercing screech.

The entire room shook under the pounding.

Everyone was horrified. Zhang Tie instinctively rushed toward the door, intending to brace it with his body.

But seeing what he was doing, Wang Yuanyang couldn't help cursing at him.

"What the hell are you bracing it for? Even if you can hold off the Species, can you stop those monsters? Just wait to die! All of us!"

Faced with his surrender to despair, the others who had rushed forward with Zhang Tie abruptly froze.

Wang Yuanyang's words were ugly, but they were true.

In their despair, some even covered their faces and began crying.

Yet unlike the despairing crowd, Huang Liang had no intention of giving up.

"Everyone, don't lose heart! However small our hope is, we still have a chance until the very last moment!"

"Fight our way out! I'll do everything I can to protect you. If we die, we die together!"

The group raised their heads and looked at Huang Liang, whose determined gaze seemed to say he would never give up, no matter what.

For a moment, everyone stared blankly. They couldn't understand how Huang Liang could still have any fighting spirit at a time like this.

But perhaps because someone had stepped forward, or perhaps because Huang Liang's words had some effect, several people stood up. Their only choice was to follow him out.

Nobody wanted to die, even if their chances of survival were infinitely close to zero.

"Ye Lin, what are you standing around for? Come on!"

They prepared to leave.

Huang Liang grabbed Ye Lin's arm, intending to take him along.

But Ye Lin, who had remained silent all this time, suddenly shook off his hand and stood up, his eyes fixed on the water droplets overhead.

The droplets on the ceiling were tiny, like beads of condensation formed by cold air.

They fell sporadically, shattering without a sound.

"Does anyone else think the water seems to be falling a little slowly...?"

Everyone stared in astonishment. Zhao Cheng, who had never dealt with him before, even let out a furious, incredulous laugh.

"Have you gone crazy? At a time like this, you're still worrying about water?"

"If you're too scared to go outside, stay here and wait to die!"

Ignoring him, Ye Lin's mind raced.

He had been watching for a long time. Even back when he left the second basement level, he had noticed water dripping from overhead now and then.

But at the time, he could not see the drops in the darkness. He could only hear them, and he had paid them no mind.

"Slow?"

Huang Liang froze, though he had no idea what Ye Lin had figured out.

Yet when he instinctively followed Ye Lin's gaze, he too sensed something was wrong. The drops really were falling a little slower, but the difference was almost impossible to discern with the naked eye. It was only a feeling.

"It does seem a little...?"

Huang Liang answered uncertainly. The next second, he saw Ye Lin grab the hose swaying back and forth overhead.

"It doesn't just seem that way. It really is...!"

"0.03, maybe 0.04... I counted ten times and timed it ten times with Wristwatch!"

"It's not just the falling speed that's wrong. The swaying speed is wrong too!"

Ye Lin spoke faster and faster, as though the clues were linking together in his mind, weaving into a vast net.

Sulfuric acid, the frozen door, the slowly rotating "room."

The pyramid-shaped underground base, the foul air, the ventilation ducts visible everywhere, equipped with an oxygen supply system.

He had been unable to connect them before, but when that drop of water fell, a nearly insane conjecture flashed through his mind.

I think... I know the answer!