As the Countess finished speaking, the venue immediately plunged into darkness. However, moments later, the stage was once again illuminated by lights descending from above. Following the beams, the audience noticed a large rectangular transparent box on stage. The box was divided into two equally sized square rooms by a row of transparent bars in the middle. On one side of each room, there was a transparent corridor with corners. At the ends of these two corridors, there was a straight transparent corridor leading to a metal door.
Amidst the audience's renewed excitement, the Challenge Team and the Hunting Team appeared in the two transparent rooms respectively. This time, however, both teams' support members had disappeared, leaving only six challenge guests.
Upon realizing they were once again trapped in cages, Haoyun had a bad feeling. Since entering the Fragrant Nebula, being locked in a cage always signaled trouble ahead. Haoyun couldn't help but speculate wildly, "The Last Supper, the Last Supper. Could it be that the Countess wants us to duel here, and only after cannibalizing each other can we ultimately win this challenge? Yes! With the Countess's twisted mind, there's nothing too extreme for her to imagine!"
Upon hearing Haoyun's wild guesses, Dream Jia and Dao Lao immediately responded with "graceful" language, advising Haoyun quite "kindly" that if he didn't shut his crow mouth soon, they would tear it apart together!
"Ah—! Dear audience friends, sorry to keep you waiting. After two intense battles, I bet everyone's feeling a bit hungry now, right?" After waiting for the audience's enthusiastic response to the reappearance of the two teams, the Countess reappeared, elegantly tasting a small piece of strawberry cake as she inquired.
"Hungry! Very hungry!" The audience responded in unison.
The Countess gestured towards the guests trapped in cages, "Hmm, it's not just me and the audience who are hungry, I'm sure the guests who have been fighting on the field for a while must be hungry too, right?"
With a rumble of hunger from her stomach, the Countess awkwardly rubbed her belly, then quickly took two bites of the floating strawberry cake, eliciting a wave of good-natured laughter from the audience.
"Since everyone is hungry, the production team certainly can't let you watch the show on an empty stomach! So, the production team has specially prepared a hearty dinner for the live audience! This dinner is provided by the only designated sponsor of 'Fate and Challenge'—FKU Friendship. FKU Fast Food, sharing delicious moments with you!" After smoothly advertising for the sponsor, the Countess clapped her hands randomly. Then, to the astonishment of the audience, each audience member suddenly held a large package of food with the FKU logo, filling the entire venue with the tantalizing aroma of fried fish.
After finishing the cake floating beside her, the Countess sat back at the table with satisfaction. By this time, the table on the floating platform was filled with various FKU foods. Seeing the table full of delicacies, the Countess grinned like an awkward child, rubbing her hands together, unsure of where to start.
Finally, the Countess chose a crispy and hot fried fish, saying generously as she ate, "Come, everyone, please enjoy the food provided by FKU! Don't worry, we have plenty here! If one serving isn't enough, feel free to order more!"
Watching the audience devouring the hot fried fish with one hand while holding a cold drink with the other, the six guests, who were equally hungry, couldn't help but salivate, forgetting about maintaining their composure.
"Oh my God! Look at my memory! After all this time, how could I forget about our six esteemed guests?" Suddenly realizing that the six guests were still trapped in the transparent rooms, the Countess slapped her forehead in mock annoyance.
Then, with a pretend sense of urgency, the Countess hastily swallowed the food in her mouth and took a big sip of a refreshing drink, belching contentedly before saying, "Ah—! Oh my goodness! FKU is so delicious! It's so good that I almost forgot about the upcoming challenge! Ahem, ahem!"
"Clap, clap, clap!"
As the Countess clapped three times, a large Western-style dining table, big enough to accommodate at least twenty people, and several racks for food appeared in the transparent rooms. Following that, silver dinner plates appeared one by one in the rooms. Although these floating plates were tightly covered, the irresistible aroma of the food seeped out, driving everyone crazy with anticipation.
"Wow! It smells so good! I wonder what's in the plates. I think I can smell grilled ribs!" Watching a plate float past him and automatically land on the rack, Ayun couldn't help but swallow his saliva. If he didn't know that these delicious foods were related to the upcoming challenge, Ayun would definitely have lifted the lid and enjoyed a sumptuous meal.
"Oh dear! Guests, please be patient. Let me first introduce the rules of this challenge before you indulge in these worldly delights. Ahem, ahem!" With a smile, the Countess gestured gracefully and forcibly moved the pot of savory soup, emitting a strong meaty aroma, back onto the table from Xiao Hu's hand.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"As the name suggests, 'The Last Supper' is indeed about enjoying good food! However, enjoying food is just one necessary part of this challenge. Besides enjoying these delicacies, you all need to find the keys hidden in the food. If the Challenge Team can find all the keys in the food, they will get the opportunity to open the door ahead. Then, you just need to find the key that can open the door to the corridor from the keys found, and you can leave here smoothly, completing this challenge!" the Countess explained.
With that, the Countess pointed to the end of the corridor connected to the transparent room where the Challenge Team was. Then, above the metal door at the end of that corridor, a neon sign with the words "Exit" appeared again. Moreover, circles of locks appeared on the door leading from the room to the corridor outside.
"You should still remember what I said before the challenge started, that the failures you encountered in the challenge would bring unfavorable consequences to the following challenges. Now, all the consequences are concentrated here! These locks are one of the unfavorable factors! According to the statistics of the program team, the Challenge Team has accumulated one hundred and eight failure points due to various failures in the previous two challenges. So here, you need to find one hundred and eight correct keys to open the door with one hundred and eight locks. Of course, there are far more than one hundred and eight keys hidden in these foods. So, you need to find all the correct keys among— um— I don't know how many keys there are. I hope you can escape from this cage successfully before disaster strikes! Ahem, ahem!" the Countess continued.
"Disaster? What disaster? And you said that finding one hundred and eight keys is just one of the unfavorable factors. So, what are the other unfavorable factors?" Uncle Mold asked with a furrowed brow.
"Unfavorable factor number two is, of course, the Hunting Team, who are watching you like a hawk! Because they won't let you escape from here easily. So they will try every means to cause trouble to keep you here. There are also many keys hidden in their food. They can also open the door to their room with the correct keys. Once the Hunting Team successfully opens the door to their room, disaster will strike!" the Countess stood on the metal platform, floating above the transparent room where the Hunting Team of three was, nervously explaining.
"As for the disaster— of course, it's the third and final unfavorable factor of this challenge! Ahem, ahem!" she continued, then clapped her hands.
Then, everyone saw the transparent wall at the back of the rooms where both sides of the guests were connected, immediately turning into a row of transparent gate doors. And on the other side of this row of gate doors, another rectangular transparent room connected to both the Challenge Team and the Hunting Team appeared. At the end of this room, there was an open door. However, since it was pitch black inside the door, no one could see where the door led.
After this additional room appeared, the Countess continued, "As you can see, the rooms where you both are located are connected to the third room behind. There are one hundred and eight locks on the gate doors between the Hunting Team and Room Three. And the number of locks on the gate doors between the Challenge Team and Room Three is the same as the number of locks on the main door leading to the corridor exit on the Hunting Team's side, which is eighty-one."
"From this point, you should be able to guess that the number of locks on the main door of the Hunting Team's room is exactly the total number of points they got from failures in the previous two challenges. And the reason for swapping the number of locks between the two sides is to give them an additional punishment based on their performance in the previous two challenges."
"That is to say, for every lock the Challenge Team successfully opens on their main door, a lock on the Hunting Team's back door will also be opened. Conversely, the same applies to the Hunting Team. The difference is that the Challenge Team needs to open more locks due to the points they accumulated, in order to simultaneously open their own main door and the back door of the Hunting Team's room, while the Hunting Team relatively easily opens both doors at the same time."
After munching on several large pieces of crispy fries, the Countess continued, "Of course, both teams can also open the game setting of opening each other's back doors while opening their own main doors, which is related to the 'disaster' of this challenge! Now, let's welcome the 'disaster' of this challenge!"
With that, the Countess pointed with a fry in her hand to the open door in Room Three. Then, from the darkness inside the door, came a series of low growls full of resentment: "Uh— aah! My body, give me back my body!"
Then, accompanied by lifeless howls, zombies with mutilated bodies staggered in from the dark outside the door, one by one. Some of these zombies had no heads, some were missing arms and legs, some had their chests torn open and their organs completely emptied, and some had all the muscles on their bodies cut off. Some zombies even had their entire faces dug out, leaving only deep bloody holes on their heads, making them look extremely terrifying.
These zombies looked extremely angry, so much so that as soon as they entered the room, they quickly but staggeringly moved to the gate doors separating the Challenge Team and the Hunting Team. They reached out their arms over the barriers, intending to drag the six guests over and tear them into pieces on the spot, making the whole scene terrifying.
Upon seeing the appearance of these zombies, Jiamei couldn't help but step back, half covering her mouth and exclaimed, "Heavens! It's, it's them!"
Ayun and Uncle Mold, after seeing the appearance of these zombies, not only retreated in fear but also questioned the Countess, "Didn't you say they were all fine?! How, how did they end up like this?!"
"I didn't say anything wrong, did I? They're indeed all fine! If you don't believe me, see for yourselves, won't you? And, didn't I mention that you might see these auxiliary fighters who failed in the challenge again? Look, aren't they lively and kicking once more?" The Countess replied innocently, as if misunderstood by everyone.
"These auxiliary fighters are all alive, and they're quite conscious! It's just that, uh—, as you can see, because they experienced failure in the challenge, they must endure some necessary punishment. So, uh—, these eliminated auxiliary fighters are a bit angry now and want to vent their anger on you! Ahem, ahem!" The Countess casually explained, as if the fact that these auxiliary fighters turned into zombies had nothing to do with her.