201: Chapter 201 Lord of the Flies

Accompanied by the static of a microphone, that weary voice, filled with deep despair, echoed slowly through the dimly lit metal corridor.

"I'm just an ordinary employee at SE.RA.PH, I originally just wanted to earn a steady paycheck here..."

"But, in January 2017, everything was destroyed."

Hearing the time reference "January 2017," PD froze in shock.

The audience in the livestream, who had been flooding the chat with various teasing comments, instantly fell silent, and an indescribable chill crawled up everyone's spine.

"January 2017? Isn't that the time when all of us players gathered all our Servants in the Temple of Time to fight against the Demon God King Goetia?!"

"My God... that means, while we were fighting bloody battles to save Human Order, this deep-sea oil rig base was simultaneously suffering from some unknown disaster?!"

The recording in the crystal continued, the man's voice trembling more and more, as if recalling some unspeakable horror.

"That day, the base was hit by an unknown attack. Communications were unilaterally and completely severed, and all external contact equipment was paralyzed."

"The supply ship docked at the pier was destroyed by fire, and the helicopter on the helipad was inexplicably wrecked."

"Immediately after, something even more terrifying happened. The various operating platforms on the perimeter of the oil field actually started disappearing into thin air! It was as if... they had been eaten by something!"

"Over a hundred surviving employees had no choice but to retreat and gather in the core Central Control Room."

Hearing this, PD swallowed hard.

With all escape routes cut off and over a hundred people trapped in a trench thousands of meters deep, this was essentially the classic opening of a locked-room horror movie!

"For the first month, things weren't too bad."

The man in the recording gave a bitter laugh, "There was plenty of stored food and recycled oxygen in the control room. Everyone comforted each other, believing that as long as we held on, Chaldea headquarters would eventually notice the anomaly and would definitely send someone to rescue us."

"However, as the days passed... nothing happened."

"There were no rescue ships, no submarines, not even a single encrypted message of reassurance."

"Slowly, panic began to spread among the crowd. Everyone even started to wonder, did Chaldea even know we were trapped here?"

hope is a seed capable of spawning countless malicious acts.

In a closed environment devoid of hope, the so-called bottom line of civilization is as fragile as a sheet of thin paper.

"I don't know when it started, but the employees split into two factions."

"We, the ordinary employees without connections, and those elite employees from Chaldea headquarters, began to view each other with hostility and huddled together for warmth."

"The initial unity was replaced by a struggle to compete for survival resources."

The man's voice gradually became frantic, even carrying a trace of a bloody, sorrowful wail.

"March... things completely spiraled out of control."

"SE.RA.PH Director Yasuda Hideyasu was accused of trumped-up charges and executed in public."

"Next was Deputy Director Almiro. Then, the logistics employee who accidentally lost the warehouse key, the doctor who used up the last of the antibiotics..."

"There was even a young man who, just for verbally contradicting the newly appointed leader, was stripped naked and thrown into the high-pressure seawater outside the control room, crushed into paste while still alive!"

"From then on, this place became hell!"

"The so-called struggles and executions began to escalate infinitely. Eating slightly more than one's share, accidentally spilling water from a cup onto the floor... all of these became reasons to be executed on the spot!"

Hearing this description, the entire livestream fell into a deathly silence.

"It's too dark... Old Thief Gu wrote this plot so depressingly!"

"Over a hundred people trapped in the deep sea, killing each other? This is even more hair-raising than being eaten by alien monsters!"

"Old Thief Gu's portrayal of the evil of human nature is incredibly sharp; it makes me feel cold all over."

The crystal floating in mid-air began to flicker violently, and the man's voice reached its final moments.

"April... I finally realized what the hell is going on in this cursed place."

"Time! The flow of time here is wrong! The difference between here and the outside world is a full hundred times!"

"Hahahaha... a hundred times! The hell we've experienced over these hundred days has only lasted one day in the outside world!"

"Chaldea can't possibly save us! Even if they wanted to, it's already too late!"

The man in the recording broke down in tears, followed by a heartbreaking, miserable laugh.

"I've had enough. I don't want to struggle to survive like a stray dog in this madhouse anymore."

"I'm going to smoke. Right in front of that damn leader, I'm going to openly violate that 'No Smoking' ban."

"I hope for a quick end..."

"Bang!"

At the end of the recording, there was a dull, terrifying thud of a heavy object crushing a skull.

Accompanied by the background sound of the man intentionally seeking death and being beaten to death by a hammer, the golden crystal completely exhausted its energy, turning into countless specks of light that dissipated in mid-air.

In the dimly lit corridor, only a deathly silence remained.

PD stood where he was, his hands clenched tightly into fists, his breathing becoming heavy.

An indescribable sense of oppression and fury churned wildly in his chest.

Gawain was also silent. This knight, who was always as upright as the blazing sun, now had uncontrollable rage burning in his azure eyes.

"We need to hurry."

PD gritted his teeth, breaking the suffocating silence, "We must find out what happened here as soon as possible! Even if it has turned into hell, I will dig out the truth!"

"Having guts is a good thing, but running around like a headless fly in this maze will only make you die faster."

Meltryllis spoke coldly from the side, pointing at the map.

"Look carefully at where we are now."

"We are currently at the 'hair' position of this body, which is the outermost area of the oil field."

"If we continue down the current descending path, the maze route will branch into two main directions: one leading to the 'chest' of this body, and the other to the 'legs'."

As Meltryllis spoke, she zoomed in on the map.

"Among them, the chest corresponds to the core of the oil field base — [ Central Control Room ]."

"And the legs correspond to the [ Dock and Helipad ]."

Hearing this, PD's brain raced, and he immediately made a decision.

"The desperate recording just now clearly stated that the ships on the perimeter were destroyed by fire, and the helicopters were wrecked."

"So going to the helipad at the legs is completely meaningless!"

PD's gaze was locked firmly on the central area of the map.

"We're going straight to the chest! To that Central Control Room where the brutal massacre took place!"

"If there are any living survivors in this oil field, whether they have turned into demons or lunatics, they must be gathered there!"

Meltryllis slightly raised her chin, revealing a smile of approval.

"Your judgment is barely passing. Now, hurry up and keep up, fragile Master."

The three of them set off immediately, walking quickly along the dark passage covered in flesh and blood tissues towards the depths of the maze. With their goal clearly defined, PD didn't even bother clearing out the wandering monsters along the way, focused solely on reaching the Central Control Room as quickly as possible.

However.

Just as they passed through a long corridor and were about to step onto the giant elevator platform leading to the lower level.

A piece of harp music, incredibly melodious and ethereal, yet filled with endless sorrow and grief, slowly drifted from the shadows ahead.

The sound of the harp seemed to pierce directly through a person's soul, making anyone who heard it want to shed tears involuntarily.

"This harp music..."

Gawain stopped abruptly, his eyes, which had been full of rage, turned into sheer astonishment and disbelief the moment he heard the music.

He strode forward, staring intensely at the elevator platform shrouded in a faint light.

"Is that you?!" Gawain shouted in a deep voice.

The harp music stopped abruptly.

Accompanied by a long, faint sigh.

A slender figure with flaming red hair, eyes closed, and clad in light silver armor, holding a strange harp, slowly walked out from the shadows.

That handsome face, always bearing an unshakable expression of sorrow, was all too familiar to every player who had cleared the Sixth Singularity!

"I am truly... so sad..."

The red-haired knight's fingers gently brushed across the strings, emitting a heartbreaking wail.

Although his eyes were closed, that peerless aura of a top-tier Servant was locked firmly onto the three of them—PD and the others.

It was none other than one of the members of the Knights of the Round Table, the Knight of Lamentation — Sir Tristan!