Chapter 8: Puzzle
"Move faster, the Iron Mountain Lion is very fast and it won't take much time before he finds us," the old man spoke as he accelerated his steps.
Although the slaves were afraid of falling into the traps of the labyrinth, their fear of the lion made them forget this. They could deal with some traps, but once the lion found them, his death was certain.
Arthur ran with all his speed, watching where he put his feet, the trap he fell into made him realize that he should not lower his defenses in this place, although he was just a weak child, he could keep up with the movements of other slaves.
Friction!
"Be careful, something is coming" Joan looked at the ground below him and found the rock on which his foot was located had sunk a little into the ground, through their previous experience they realized that they had done some kind of trap, everyone began to check their surroundings, waiting for the trap to activate, but after standing for about a full minute nothing happened.
"Let's move, it seems that there is nothing here, and don't relax your defense, we don't know what awaits us," the Yujin shark spoke, looking at Joan with cautious glances, he agreed with Joan's plan to stay together but he doesn't trust any of them, and if anyone does something suspicious, he will eliminate him directly.
As soon as Juan lifted his foot off the rock, several rock walls fell from the sky and surrounded them. The speed of the walls falling was so great that none of them could make any movement.
BOOM!
The Yujin shark punched the wall with its giant fist, but the wall was very hard and did not show any scratches on it.
"Fuck these walls are so hard we can't break them, we're stuck," the old man sighs and there is a resigned look in his face.
HSSSSS!
"What is this sound?" After Arthur heard the strange sound he began to look around with wary eyes. Suddenly he glimpsed several small holes that appeared under the stone walls, after observing the holes for some time a few small green heads appeared from them.
"Pay attention, there are poisonous snakes surrounding us," Arthur shouted in a panicked voice, because he saw dozens of snakes coming out of those holes.
Amid the panic that surrounded the slaves, Arthur could see a set of shallow holes in the walls whose shapes resembled geometric shapes, the shapes were triangles, squares, and some were a circle, but no matter how Arthur searched the walls around him, he could not find anything he could cram into those small holes.
The more time passed, the more snakes surrounded them, suddenly they found themselves trapped by hundreds of poisonous expressions and could do nothing but defend themselves.
"Fu.. you, Joan, if you hadn't done that damn trap we would be on our way to look for the exit now" the Yujin shark grabbed Joan and strangled him hard while yelling at him, his eyes were blood red and his expression was full of madness.
"Stop it, motherfuckers, this fight of yours only hastens our death," the old man spoke while running over some snakes with his foot, his blows were fast and powerful, with one blow to the head he kills any snake he targets.
While all the slaves were fighting madly and arguing, Arthur kept thinking of a way out of here, from what he deduced there is some kind of puzzle that if he could solve it he would get out of this room, he was thinking deeply while watching the old man kill snakes, he glimpsed something strange, one of the snakes the old man killed had a swollen belly.
Arthur stepped forward and took that snake while dodging the other snakes, pulled the knife he took from Rick out of his pocket and stuffed it into the snake's belly, tore its belly while blood flew on his face, inserted his hand into the snake's guts and began to search for what was inside, to extract a piece of cylindrical-shaped rock.
All the slaves noticed him doing this and they were surprised at what he was doing, but when he extracted the stone fragment, a vague idea appeared in all their minds.
Suddenly everyone started killing snakes and they were looking for any one of them that had a strange belly shape, the Yujin shark was holding snakes with his hands and dividing them into two parts, the number of snakes was very much, even after they killed hundreds of them, the number of snakes did not decrease anything, but the important thing is that they collected all the puzzle pieces, Arthur put all the pieces in place, and then waited for what would happen.
But after a few minutes nothing changed. The more they waited, the more angry the slaves became. They had one hour to finish the maze, and they had spent more than 20 minutes in just this room.
Arthur kept looking at the pieces in front of him and there was a look of contemplation. Arthur is the only educated person among these people so he is the only person who can solve the puzzle.
"Hurry up, you idiot, what are you waiting for," the slaves around Arthur began to shout, they were tired of killing snakes, the sardine-headed Yujin even stung several times.
Calmly and calmly Arthur reached out and touched one of the stone blocks, and then pushed it very hard until it all went into the wall, after which he heard a slight sound of rock friction.
"We were finally freed,"One of the walls went up, giving them room to make their way.
After they left the trap, Arthur noticed that the stung Yujin began to walk with stumbling steps, although Yujin are 10 times stronger than normal humans, but they will also suffer if exposed to a large amount of poison.
After walking in the maze for several minutes, they find themselves in front of a closed road, and there is a square-shaped piece of rock next to them.
BOOM!
A loud sound made them turn back, that's when they found that the road behind them was blocked by a giant boulder.
"What now?" the slaves began to complain angrily, then they all turned around and looked at Arthur, he had solved the puzzle in the previous trap, so they had a great hope that he would free them this time too, amid their urgent glances Arthur went to the wall in front of him, after searching it thoroughly he found a small card in which he wrote in small print.
When Arthur read it, a strange expression appeared on his face, and he remained motionless in place for some time.
"Let me see what this is," the old man came forward and pushed Arthur away and picked up the paper, when he began to read it too, the same surprised expression appeared on him.
What was written in the paper was:
"The door will only open if you make a sacrifice at the altar next to you, you have 3 minutes to put the sacrifice" the old man looked at Arthur next to him, he thought about killing him here and now but changed his mind, the old man looked around with looks full of thought and then suddenly without warning jumped towards the snake-bitten Yujin.
With a powerful blow he stuck his finger into the Yujin heart, the old man's movements were quick and sudden which made the other slaves surprised at what had happened.
Everyone took a fighting pose and there were angry looks on their faces, there was one thought going through their minds, Does it make sense that the old man is the traitor among them.
"What about those stupid looks of yours, I have now helped you get past this trap," the old man said as he carried the Yujin corpse and placed it on top of the square rock.
"What do you mean by this, what kind of help you gave us to kill one of us," the Yujin shark said, he killed one of his own kind in front of him, although he does not like the other person, he did not like this.
When the old man heard the words of the Yujin, he took the card and threw it to him. Talking to them is useless so he had better show them the rules in order to end the argument.
When the Yujin shark read what was written in the card, he sighed and looked at the Yujin above the altar with sad glances, the choice made by the old man was the best possible choice, because that Yujin had only some time left of his life, because of the spread of snake venom in his body.
The stone wall opened and the slaves completed their way،
They have only 25 minutes left before the end of their time.
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