The Last Gentleman
Chapter 515: Maze Escape

The folding actors, almost all suffering from cartilage disease and fearing solitude,

found comfort and reassurance in being stacked together. The "collective concept" had already taken root in their essence, and living alone would make them anxious.

When the audience saw the group of folding actors with sewn-up eyes and happy expressions waving at them, even before the performance had begun, fear began to grow inside them.

As the construction of the human wall was completed, the host’s loud voice echoed throughout the venue, clearly audible to the audience divided into different sections of the maze.

"Since the next show involves many rules, we’ll need to use fifteen minutes of your break time to go over the program and its related rules.

We recommend that you remain seated and do not move around before the show starts, and certainly don’t touch the human wall out of curiosity. These fold members are very hospitable and would very much like to have new members join them.

This performance is presented by the Circus troupe, named ’Maze Escape.’

The specific rules are as follows:

1. "Moves" - All audience members will participate, and movement is required throughout. If you stay in one place for more than fifteen seconds, you will be considered to have automatically forfeited and will lose something more important than life itself.

If you actively participate, at least you will have a relatively good outcome.

2. "The Center is the Exit" - When an individual reaches the center of the maze, which is the stage of the venue, the program is considered complete, and you will gain absolute safety and just need to wait for the program to end.

Additionally, the total duration of the program is three hours, and even if individuals do not find the exit, as long as they can endure within the maze until the end of the three hours, they will safely return to their seats.

3. "Don’t touch the wall" - As I said before, don’t touch the walls whether now or after the program starts, or you might get pulled in. Of course, if you think you are strong enough and even want to tear through the wall to speed through, you can try that; we impose no restrictions on this aspect.

4. "Foot" - In various areas of the maze, ’severed feet’ will appear periodically, which move very quickly and will start running at high speed once someone gets close.

If an individual can turn in a severed foot they have captured after the program ends, they can receive an additional reward.

*Golden Foot, there is a special Golden Foot running at high speed between the maze areas, if it is captured and the performance completed, the highest reward from the Circus troupe will be granted,

and the individual may choose not to participate in the subsequent program viewing, get recruited directly into the Circus and receive additional training resources.

5. "Sisters" - During the escape, if you choose the wrong path three times in a row, you will definitely encounter the ’sisters with a missing head’ at the next intersection.

She will ask passersby for help, hoping they will continue along the wrong path to the edge of the maze to find the ’lost head.’

Individuals can choose not to help and leave directly, with no repercussions afterward.

If help is provided and the head is found, one of two situations will occur:

(1) If the sister’s head is recovered, you will receive the tool "whistle". If you encounter unavoidable danger during the subsequent escape, you can blow the whistle, and the sisters will penetrate the human wall to come to your aid and resolve the crisis.

*Ineffective against the special entity ’Tie Rabbit’.

(2) If the sister’s head is recovered, you will receive the tool ’Lucky Clover,’ which increases the probability of making the correct choice at subsequent intersections.

6. "Running Rabbit" - Individuals exploring the maze may encounter special troupe members wearing rabbit masks, either singly or as an acrobatic grafted collective.

Once spotted, they will be locked on, and the only thing you can do is run. They often have a poor sense of direction and can be completely thrown off at the maze intersections.

*If an audience member can kill a rabbit troupe member and wear its head cover, no further threats will follow for the remainder of the program, and they could even become a leading member of Circus numeral one after the program ends.

*When there are only fifteen minutes left in the program, a distinctly different ’Tie Rabbit’ will appear in the maze area. Its speed is superior to that of the ordinary rabbit troupe members, and it has an excellent sense of direction that makes it difficult to shake off."

When he had finished announcing,

William, located backstage, felt a surge of excitement upon hearing these rules, and he even felt a desire to participate, as dangerous as it sounded, it seemed intriguing.

Unfortunately, it was his turn to perform after the Circus’s act, so he really didn’t have the time.

However, William also noticed a concern and asked Catherine beside him.

"Tell me, by designing the acrobatic performance into a maze escape, it seems only a few could successfully escape, right?

What happens to most of the audience who are caught up or absorbed by the human wall? If they are executed directly, wouldn’t the total number of spectators drastically decrease? Can the subsequent Circus performances still go on?"

"Don’t worry, the performance prohibits directly killing the audience.

The captured audience should enjoy some special treatment not mentioned in the rules, and one would find that out soon enough! Anyway, they would surely lose a massive amount of "fear value".

If someone’s "phobia" were completely emptied, it would hardly make a difference whether they died or not. During the performance, a certain portion of the audience would inevitably be lost, leaving some spaces in the arena.

Generally, after the second major performance, the audience retention rate was between 60 and 80%. After all, most of the audience chosen for the official performance reached Open Source and showcased a fairly resilient mental state in my nightmares.

I’m going to watch the performance now, no more chat."

"Hmm."

[Show Starts]

The audience began to move through the human maze, with different groups experiencing a clear disparity in "luck",

One person encountered a broken leg right at the start and tried his best to catch up, yet although he failed to acquire a [Leg], by a stroke of luck he chose the correct four-way intersection, bringing him just a step away from the final exit.

Another person tried to appear sophisticated at the intersection, hesitating and then encountering not just one rabbit performer,

but a squad of rabbits donning colorful hoods. These rabbits assembled their bodies to construct a "human catapult", with the most robust red rabbit transforming into the projectile,

aiming and launching!

The rabbit, embracing his knees and turning into a muscular projectile, was fired at superfast speed,

targeting an audience member who suffered from "muscle contractions" and, given his physique, seemed comparable to the rabbit man, deciding it was better to chance it since he couldn’t escape.

He activated his illness to the fullest degree, contracting his muscles to achieve the hardness of a rock.

Crack~Crack~Crack!

The moment he touched the rabbit projectile, his tense muscles instantly shattered, and even his bones crumbled into debris.

The gap in strength was no small matter.

The colorful rabbit team immediately dragged this man into the [gap]in the human wall for ’processing’.

When the rabbits removed their hoods,

The audience member, whose body was catastrophically fractured and muscles dissolved, instantly understood why the disparity in strength was so vast.

The rabbits lacked a skull structure; their entire heads were chaotic amalgams of muscle and brain, with the basic facial features completely de-evolved and re-evolved into a kind of "muscle signal receiver".

Muscle nodules connected to tentacles covered the entire head, capable of clearly capturing any physical signal, swiftly locking onto physical targets and even preemptively decoding their bodily functions.

When dealing with non-physical life forms, the functionality of the muscle nodules was somewhat reduced.

"Mitochondrial Encephalomyopathy"

When the audience clearly saw such a facial structure, he suddenly felt his brain start to itch as if it too was about to grow similar nodules,

Death and muscles throughout his body began flowing toward his brain, a slow transformation initiating.

To accelerate the transformation,

The rabbit team stripped off their coats and started striking poses in front of the audience member, flexing their muscles ostentatiously.

They occasionally used pecs, biceps, and deltoids to strike the audience member’s body to produce a synergistic stimulus,

using this extreme muscular imagery and strategic touches to transfer the illness,

Crack~The other party’s skull began to fall apart, and the muscles mingled with the brain, showing signs of successful transformation when—

Pop!

The entire brain exploded, resulting in complete death.

The rabbit team sighed and began looking for their next target.