Chapter 2256: Space Prison
Reaching out to grab the key, Xu Huo raised it slightly. "Thanks!"
"No need." The tall man suddenly thrust his arm into the maze's green hedge wall and pulled out a key from inside. He flashed the number on it. "109. Come chat sometime if you're free."
Xu Huo smiled but didn't say much, continuing to follow the crowd.
After turning down the first corridor, the maze's space began to open up. This space prison was vastly different from the typical concept of a maze. Inside were interconnected courtyards arranged in a grid, with a single walkway stretching from one end to the other. Identical doors stood every few meters, none bearing a house number. The rooms behind the doors were shrouded in a gray, hazy substance, making it impossible to see inside.
It didn't look like real architecture—more like a visual illusion.
Of course, since the game was called "Space Prison," the maze was inevitably filled with partitioned small spaces, some on the ground, others suspended in the air.
"This path... how come it goes up and then down as we walk?" the female player couldn't help but look back.
When they first entered this corridor, the path was flat. Halfway through, it suddenly slanted upward. At the same time, the surrounding buildings shifted in height and arrangement. But just as she thought the path was leading them higher into the air, the next moment, the ground dropped away beneath their feet, and the path began sloping downward.
Now, looking back, she could no longer see the other end of the corridor. The undulating spatial structures blocked the view and completely scattered the initially crowded crowd.
"What do you think would happen if we hid in a room at night?" the female player asked, noticing some players who had found keys trying to open doors.
"Most likely, they won't open," Xu Huo replied, glancing at the key number in the other player's hand. "Even if they do, it's best not to go in."
"The number of rooms for the wardens matches the number of wardens, while the number of rooms for the prisoners is double the number of prisoners. So half the rooms in the space prison are empty. Those rooms are probably reserved for the wardens. Don't open the wrong door during the day."
"Space prison..." The female player frowned. "I wonder what other traps there are. I haven't undergone Super Evolution, so all the rooms here feel the same to me—no difference. Without house numbers, how are we supposed to find the prisoners' rooms?"
Xu Huo watched a player trying to open a door without success. "The best way is to remember which rooms have people in them."
"Maybe once someone moves in during the day, the house numbers will appear," the female player said optimistically.
"That's possible too." Xu Huo reminded her, "Better go find your key first."
The two continued deeper into the maze.
Their goal wasn't just to find the other side's warden keys, but mainly to figure out the distribution of everyone else. Of course, they weren't the only ones thinking this way—quite a few "prisoners" who had already found keys were following them at a distance.
The "Space Prison" game wasn't too difficult. To put it bluntly, it was entirely a killing ground designed for the wardens.
During the day, wardens could move freely and open any room. Although killing came with risks, there was no rule saying wardens couldn't cooperate. So meeting the daily quota of three kills wasn't hard. They just needed to be careful not to open the wrong door.
In comparison, the prisoners' chances of losing the game were far too high. Their only way to win was to obtain a warden's key during the day. But since they couldn't go out during the day, they had to rely on the wardens to voluntarily open their room doors for them to have a chance to win.
Two hundred prisoners had flooded in, but there were only five wardens. Even counting those who had entered the game earlier, the number of wardens was still far too few.
Of course, prisoner kills counted toward the instance's progress. To clear it quickly, wardens would open as many doors as possible—reward proportional to risk.
But prisoners could also attack each other during yard time, which also counted toward the instance. Did that mean even if someone lost in the one-third game, they could still clear it and leave?
So what was the point of this game?
Losing memory alone wasn't too severe for a player.
After walking a bit further, they encountered a third warden—none of the ones from outside the maze.
The warden showed no intention of teaming up with them but kindly warned them not to open the wrong door during the day, as doing so could be fatal.
The female player wanted to ask more, but the "warden" had already left.
"I hate people who leave you hanging. If you're going to say half of it, why not finish?"
"For the wardens, as long as they avoid the wrong doors, they can dodge the traps in the space prison. I'm guessing it's mostly related to Space Power. Not opening the wrong door is enough." After saying this, Xu Huo glanced at the "prisoners" following behind and lowered his voice. "Let's split up."
The female player caught on and nodded before turning into a side path.
The "prisoners" following them were all trying to show off their numbers, making it easier for the "wardens" to find them. But if the "wardens" clustered together, that wasn't good for them either. Without item traits, everyone was limited to basic stamina and experience. One against many was a losing battle. So if the "wardens" grouped up, the "prisoners" would have to consider reducing their numbers.
There were only two ways to reduce the number of "wardens": one was to steal their keys at night and make them lose the game, and the other was to kill them during the day when they came to open the doors.
But the number of "wardens" was already too small. If it shrank further, the vast majority of people would probably just lose the game.
Avoiding the players who had started fighting ahead, Xu Huo changed direction.
"Brother, where are you heading?" After a while, a player who had been following him spoke up. "The deeper you go, the more chaotic the space gets. I doubt anyone will come this way."
Indeed, the corridors, walls on both sides, doors, and courtyards were all identical. Occasionally, there would be an open area with fountains or ponds as decoration. The entire space prison exuded a silence cut off from all life. Often, after turning a corner, the sounds from the corridor behind would fade away.
But it was a very stable spatial venue, filled with Space Power everywhere yet almost risk-free.
Ignoring the person behind him, Xu Huo continued forward. As the spatial disarray increased, fewer and fewer players followed him. The space prison seemed to undergo some changes here—the Space Power suddenly became chaotic, with clear fluctuations in intensity.
This was different from the uniform distribution before, and it didn't resemble the disorder of "Cube Space." It felt more like a combination.
After observing for a while, he stepped back a bit and then tried to nudge a distant Space Ray.
He used only a small movement, but the moment the ray was touched, all the spaces connected by the corridor ahead trembled, like wind chimes vibrating one after another. Yet the spatial structure within remained stable. As it rippled and rotated, diamond-shaped cross-sections appeared, and these diamonds combined into geometric forms, arranged within a certain spatial range. (Chapter End)