At this moment, the six guests had long forgotten about the Countess and the audience. Now, all their attention was focused on the room full of food and the zombies. They kept gnawing, tearing, and chewing on the food on the plates, striving to find the keys hidden within the food as quickly as possible. And after searching for the keys, they immediately spat out all the food in their mouths. Because if anyone accidentally swallowed these foods, they would immediately vomit violently, wishing to vomit out their entire digestive system.
While the Challenge Team and the Hunting Team searched for keys in the food, they also employed different tactics when unlocking the doors. The Challenge Team tried to unlock a door every time they found a key. The Hunting Team, on the other hand, only attempted to unlock the door after finding multiple keys. Of course, the different unlocking strategies of the two teams also reflected their different mindsets at the moment. Since the Hunting Team had to open twenty-seven fewer locks, coupled with their extraordinary luck, they quickly found seven keys and successfully opened two locks. This made the Challenge Team more impatient as the pressure increased. Thus, they would immediately try to unlock the door whenever they found a key. Because they also enjoyed the favor of luck, at least it could help them catch up with the Hunting Team in terms of the number of locks they had successfully opened.
However, impatience is a taboo in a challenge. The Challenge Team, due to the pressure caused by their impatience, became increasingly chaotic during the challenge. They often overturned plates of food in their haste, making it impossible for them to pick up the food. Thus, they could only lie on the ground and gnaw on the food that had fallen on the ground, searching for the keys amidst the mess. In doing so, their hands, legs, and mouths were inevitably scratched by the fragments of cutlery mixed in the food. But even so, they had no energy to care about these bleeding wounds and continued to search for the keys in the food with determination.
Haoyun, who was trapped in consciousness, was also extremely anxious. From his perspective, although Arya and the others were eating food made from the bodies of the assisting combatants, it was clear that Arya and the others were gradually falling behind in terms of speed and efficiency in finding the keys, compared to Baihu and the others. If this continued, they would definitely lose in this challenge.
So, regardless of whether Arya could hear him or not, Haoyun clenched his fists and encouraged, "Arya! Don't give up, keep eating!"
At the same time, Haoyun kept reminding himself to stay awake. Because although the food in front of him was made from nauseating ingredients, Haoyun had to admit that the taste and texture of the food were undoubtedly the best he had ever tasted. Moreover, after tasting the deliciousness of these foods, there was a faint desire to indulge in them. Haoyun was well aware that once he was conquered by this desire, he might completely succumb to becoming a bloodthirsty devil due to the loss of guilt.
"Damn it! These foods are all made from the bodies of the assisting combatants! I must not be tempted by the taste of these foods, I must not have the thought of enjoying these foods!" Haoyun forcibly interrupted his own thoughts again, reminding himself that he must not succumb.
"Click!"
"Great! Another lock opened!" Fortunately, the cheers from the Hunting Team promptly pulled Haoyun's consciousness out of his complex thoughts. However, Haoyun was not happy about it because the bad news was that after this lock was opened, it meant that the Hunting Team had opened forty-seven locks already! They only needed to open thirty-four more locks to bring about another failure for the Challenge Team!
"Bravo! Another one opened!" Fortunately, at this time, Mei, who had succeeded in opening another lock, responded immediately, stabilizing the anxious emotions of the Challenge Team members and Haoyun. Now, the Challenge Team only needed to open the remaining fifty-four locks to have a chance to escape from this room!
"The Hunting Team is still ahead of us by twenty locks. If this continues, we will probably lose the battlefield confrontation!" The Challenge Team was not happy about Mei opening another lock. Because now, they not only lagged far behind the Hunting Team in terms of the number of locks opened, but the blood gauge behind their room had also been consumed by more than half. This meant that they were getting closer to failure from two directions, and the situation was still not optimistic.
"Hmph, don't struggle anymore! You cannot surpass us. In my opinion, you might as well surrender! After all, whether you succeed or fail doesn't matter, but if these zombies are starved, it will be bad!" said the hot-tempered Miss.
Seeing that their leading advantage was still expanding, she walked up to the fence in the middle of the two rooms, pretending to be concerned while raising a piece of ham and taking a big bite. Of course, the ham here was not the traditional ham, and as for what it was made of, one could only imagine.
"Hmph! You better take care of yourself first! Oh, by the way! Eat less ham! That stuff has too much fat, look at how fat you've become! Why is it that although we both eat a lot, but Jiamer has all her meat grown where it should be, while you can only eat into a solid airport? Hey! The gap between people is too big, isn't it?!" Arya's mouth was indeed inherited from Haoyun. As long as she started talking, she was like a god descending to the mortal realm, dominating the conversation.
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"You—" The hot-tempered Miss's ability to retort was naturally not as good as Arya's. This made her retreat under Arya's continuous verbal attack, unable to counterattack. So, in anger and shame, she threw both hams in her hands at Arya's face across the barrier.
Ah Yun naturally wouldn't be easily hit by two hams. He swiftly dodged to the side, effortlessly evading the attacks from the fiery-tempered Miss. The two hams, softened by stewing, smashed into the table's edge, instantly falling apart. However, coincidentally, as one of the hams split open against the table's edge, a small section of a key revealed itself.
Sharp-eyed Ah Yun immediately noticed this half of a key and, holding it up, taunted the fiery-tempered girl, saying, "Hey! How come there's still a key here? My, aren't you too kind? Beating people up and still finding ways to give them keys? Well, since you insist, I guess I'll just have to accept it graciously!"
"That's our key! Give it back to me!" Seeing a key hidden within the ham she threw at Ah Yun, the fiery-tempered girl immediately became furious and protested to the Countess on the platform, accusing Ah Yun of secretly taking her key. The Countess just shrugged, indicating that the rules didn't prohibit teams from obtaining each other's keys or using them to unlock their own doors. So, Ah Yun hadn't violated any game rules, leaving the fiery-tempered girl with no choice but to accept it.
"Oh my! Thank you for the key!" After hearing the Countess's explanation, Ah Yun brightened up and said, then hurriedly ran to their team's door to try it. However, to his slight disappointment, the key didn't successfully open the lock on their door.
"Ah! It's no use, what a pity." Seeing the key fail to open the door, Ah Yun regretfully tossed it aside. The fiery-tempered girl, seeing that the key didn't help Ah Yun open the lock, breathed a sigh of relief, then returned to the table, continuing her search for keys.
As the "Last Supper" progressed, the intact food in both rooms dwindled. Similarly, the number of unlocked door locks increased. Meanwhile, on the other side, under the relentless assault of the zombie reinforcements, the blood gauges behind the rooms had all dropped below the red line.
After intense feasting, the members of both the Challenge Team and the Hunt Team were covered in food juices and residues, with the rooms strewn with destroyed food. This lack of respect for food seemed to agitate the zombie reinforcements even more. After all, those foods were made from their bodies! So, seeing their bodies trampled upon again made them angrier. They wished to rush into the rooms immediately and tear apart these disrespectful people.
"Hehehe! Just three more keys, and you'll become the zombies' dinner! Ugh—bleh—ugh—!" White Tiger gasped heavily, then took a vicious bite out of the cheese-baked beef heart he held, before retching violently again. It was evident that the beef heart he was eating wasn't real.
While White Tiger mocked himself, the Challenge Team finally managed to open three more locks. However, they couldn't rejoice because the gap between them and the Hunt Team was still significant. With the blood gauges hovering at critical levels and the gaps between the barrier gates and the walls widening due to the zombie attacks, the gates seemed on the verge of being smashed open by the zombies at any moment.
"It's okay, until the last moment, we still have hope! Who knows, maybe we'll be the ultimate winners!" Seeing the remaining fifteen locks yet to be opened, Ah Yun and Jia gradually showed despair in their eyes, while Unlucky Uncle, as the spiritual leader of the Unlucky Immortal Troupe, continued to encourage them loudly not to give up.
The final sprint of this round of challenges had begun. Due to the huge difference in the number of locks needing to be opened between the Challenge Team and the Hunt Team, the Challenge Team had long abandoned any qualms about the remaining food. They no longer cared whether the food in front of them belonged to the zombie reinforcements; they just saw it as life-saving sustenance and became more decisive in tearing it apart.
"Cough cough cough! You guys need to step up your game! The blood gauge behind the back door has dropped to ten percent! Either you become the reinforcements' meal together, or you make the other team their meal and complete the challenge first! Cough cough cough!" Seeing that there wasn't much time left in this round of challenges, the Countess excitedly danced and sang on the floating platform, attempting to disturb the emotions of the six guests in this way.
"I've opened another lock! I've opened another lock!" Just as the Countess finished speaking, Jia excitedly cheered again.
With Jia using the key thrown by Ah Yun to successfully open another lock, the Challenge Team had successfully opened a total of 106 locks. This left them with only the final two locks! Thanks to the Challenge Team's extraordinary luck at the last moment, combined with the Hunt Team's frequent missteps, the Challenge Team finally managed to tie the number of unopened locks with the Hunt Team at the last moment. Thus, both sides finally stood on the same starting line.
"Well done, Jia! Just two more locks left! Come on, let's charge!" Apart from staring blankly, Haoyun and the others, who had no other way to contribute, were also mentally cheering for Ah Yun and the others.
"Click!" Just as Haoyun's team and Ah Yun's team cheered for catching up to the Hunt Team in the remaining lock count, a highly discordant sound suddenly echoed from the other transparent room. Then, everyone saw Little Tiger forcefully raise both fists, grimacing as he spat out a large chunk of chewed-up braised pork elbow. It turned out that Little Tiger had successfully found another key from the braised pork elbow just now and used it to unlock another lock. Now, all the Hunt Team needed to do was to find the last correct key. They could then not only unlock their own front door but also release all the zombies from Room 3 into the Challenge Team's room!
The atmosphere that had just heated up in the Challenge Team was instantly extinguished. Once again enveloped in a cold and anxious atmosphere, the Challenge Team couldn't afford to slack off anymore. They quickly threw themselves back into the tense work of searching for the final two keys. At this moment, there wasn't much food left for both teams. However, the difference was that the Challenge Team still needed to find two keys from these foods, while the Hunt Team only needed to find the last correct key. Time was running out for the Challenge Team now!