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"Then I'll just believe you."
Zeus chose to trust his brother, but out of shock, he couldn't help but ask:
"But...is this poison so strong?"
Jiang Lu said slowly:
"If you are poisoned by me, even a god! I will kill you to show you!"
"Although this is a very domineering statement, I don't know why I feel it's a bit strange..." Zeus took a deep breath.
"Haha, it doesn't matter whether it's a black cat or a white cat. Any cat that can catch mice is a good cat."
"So, how do you plan to name this poison?" Zeus asked.
"Hmm..." Jiang Lu stroked his chin and fell into deep thought. After thinking for a while, he came up with a good idea: "Then let's use the first target and then use the allusion to name it."
"How to say?"
"This poison is called: Dalang, go to sleep."
Zeus thought for a while and felt it was inappropriate: "Is it too long? And it sounds a bit unclear."
"Then what did you call it?"
"Nyarlathotep and Iheuti each have a sound." Zeus thought for a while: "What about Neti's poison? It can also coincide with the way of poisoning."
"That sounds a bit vulgar..." Jiang Lu expressed reservations: "It feels like it would damage my manners."
"As if it weren't obscene in itself... and you have the manners to do it?" Zeus said angrily.
"Then let's do it." Jiang Lu waved his hand.
Naming is not something he is good at, otherwise he would not have come up with names like Huang Xiu'e and Zhu Jianye.
Anyway, as long as you can get by.
While the two were talking, they had arrived at a sleeping maze in a basin. The maze looked like a circle from above, with intricate roads and traces of the operation of many mechanisms.
In a palace in the center of the maze, many people who were chained were locked in iron cages, listless and unable to move for a long time.
They are obviously the imprisoned gods, who were deprived of their divine power by Nyarlathotep in some unknown way and turned into mortals.
As soon as he arrived here, Zeus just glanced around to make sure he was in the right place, then focused on the maze itself and said in surprise: "It looks... a bit like the Minotaur's Labyrinth."
"Really? I'm not sure." Jiang Lu didn't feel anything special. He just asked, "It's the maze where the Minotaur is imprisoned, right?"
"What tauren? That's my nephew after all."
Although Jiang Lu had never seen the Minotaur Labyrinth, he had heard about it.
To put it simply, King Minos of Crete did not send the promised sacrificial bull to Poseidon, the god of the sea.
The petty Poseidon possessed the bull and seduced Queen Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos. Soon after, the queen gave birth to a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a bull.
In order to hide this monster called the Minotaur, King Minos ordered Daedalus, the best craftsman on the island, to build a labyrinth to imprison him. This labyrinth was called the Labyrinth of the Minotaur.
Thinking of this, Jiang Lu couldn't help but sigh with some contempt: "Alas, Greece, alas, Poseidon..."
"What do you mean?"
"It's hard to say." Jiang Lu shook his head.
"But Poseidon is indeed a born." Zeus said happily.
"But can this be considered a maze?" Jiang Lu looked down at the entire sleeping maze: "It feels like just finding an escape room is more complicated than this."
"I don't know what this maze is like, but if it is similar to the Minotaur maze, it actually relies on a combination of mechanisms and divine power to achieve an effect that is called a ghost wall over there."
Zeus analyzed:
"The mechanism alone cannot contain so many gods, and it is difficult to do this with Iheuti's divine power alone, so I am almost certain that Nyarlathotep's divine power is attached to it."
"You understand so well." Jiang Lu guessed something: "Crete is all mortals, and at most they can only set up some traps. Combined with your understanding of the maze and the maintenance of your nephew, let me guess, the maze you are talking about The divine power in it is not yours, right?"
"It's mine."
Zeus did not hide anything and admitted frankly:
"Although he is possessed, the Minotaur has also inherited part of Poseidon's divine power, and the mechanism alone cannot contain him at all.
Poseidon hates his child and does not want to see him one day, but it is not convenient for him to exert divine power to suppress the labyrinth, so he can only ask me to help him.
The Minotaur was a kind child, but it was not his fault.
Obviously, Zeus had some affection for this Minotaur nephew, but according to the records in the myth, he had been killed in the labyrinth a long time ago. I don't know what Zeus thought about this matter, but at least he must have felt uncomfortable.
"Sorry, I won't call him Tauren again."
Jiang Lu patted Zeus's shoulder comfortingly.
"It doesn't matter, it's all over." Zeus said with relief.
"So." Jiang Lu brought the topic back: "How should we lure Nyarlathotep back through the layout of the labyrinth so that our Minotaur plan can proceed smoothly?"
"What the hell?" Zeus suspected that he heard wrongly.
"I'll tell you how to lure Nyarlathotep back."
"I'm not asking about the latter part."
"How to make the Minotaur Project go smoothly."
"Why is it called this plan?"
"Aren't we the Minotaur Nyarlathotep?"
Zeus looked at it carefully, and then said angrily: "I told you not to call him Minotaur. You just changed all the Minotaurs to his name, right?!"
Jiang Lu frowned when he heard this and said, "It really isn't enough to just replace keywords... It seems like we still have to consider the context."
"You're fucking artificial intelligence running the model, right?!"
"Okay, okay." Jiang Lu calmed Zeus's emotions and finally said seriously: "Let's talk about business."
"Can you please stop making it sound like I'm being unreasonable?"
Faced with Zeus's accusation, Jiang Lu simply chose not to listen.
In desperation, Zeus had to give up arguing with him and said: "It is very simple to lure Nyarlathotep back. There are two ways to make him sense the abnormalities in the labyrinth.
The first one is to enter the maze directly, then his divine power will sense our presence and rush back as soon as possible. However, I am not sure whether we can come out after entering. After all, we are just two losers now.
The second is to destroy the maze. The advantage of this is that we will not be trapped by the maze, but how to destroy it is a problem, because the stones building the maze will become extremely strong with the blessing of divine power, and it is also not something we can lose now. "
"Then just call Nodens over, right?" Jiang Lu said easily.
"It's inappropriate." Zeus shook his head: "It sounds okay, but with Nodens's powerful divine power, Nyarlathotep will be able to recognize him immediately. If he directly turns his spear and heads towards the dreamland, What about the abyss?”
"What does the Dreamland have to do with us? Isn't our purpose to save these gods?" Jiang Lu didn't care.
"Uh..." Zeus continued, "It's possible that he has other plans against Nodens and will take these gods as hostages."
"Some necessary sacrifices are inevitable, right?"
Jiang Lu and Nodens are completely at two extremes. One is crazy and mentally consumed, while the other is completely inconsolable:
"We have worked so hard to save them, and we have a clear conscience. They should also be considerate of us."
"But what Nodens said is that you must see Nyarlathotep before summoning him. If it was just as simple as rescuing them while he was away, Nodens should have taken action long ago."
"If you say that, then I really can't refute it." Jiang Lu Xiaoxiong spread his hands.
Zeus sighed: "In this case, we can only go in, but whether we can come out depends on luck."
"maybe."
Jiang Lu put his left hand into his pants, lowered his head and fiddled with it for a while, then took out his left hand and raised it up like Doraemon:
"Dang-dang-dang! Evil God's left hand!"
"I thought you were going to take out something incredible..."
"Don't worry, there must be a sense of ceremony." Jiang Lu said.
"But what's the use?"
"Didn't you say that you can also destroy the maze itself?" Jiang Lu shrugged: "I'll just dig it out, there's no need to go in."
After saying that, he jumped out of the basin and slid down the hillside.
"Does it really work..." Zeus was a little skeptical, but still followed Jiang Lu to the front of the maze.
Finding a random spot on the outer wall and squatting down, Jiang Lu skillfully picked at the wall, just like he had done to help Isina get out of trouble.
Zeus, who was standing on the edge, punched the wall first, but the wall did not move at all.
After thinking about it, he picked up Huang Xiu'e, who represented the sharp tip of the halberd after absorbing the power of Nodens' trident, and asked her to scratch the wall with her claws.
But Huang Xiu'e grabbed it hard several times, but it only left some white marks on the wall, and the depth of the marks was less than one centimeter.
This made Zeus feel a little desperate.
If even Huang Xiu'e can't do it, then let alone Jiang Lu who can only become tough.
Zeus wanted to question how long it took to dig so hard, but unexpectedly, he saw Jiang Lu move his fingers a few times, and the wall that was originally built tightly began to crack. After a while, Jiang Lu actually started to dig directly. A brick fell.
The people of Zeus were dumbfounded.
"No brother, this maze is made of large blocks of raw stone. How did you manage to cut out stone bricks of this size?"
"Don't you understand yet?"
Jiang Lu said proudly: "I'm showing off my skills."
"what?"
"I just want to create a strong setting where seams will appear even if there are no seams and I touch them." Jiang Lu explained.
"What kind of strange setting is this?"
Zeus was speechless, but he had to admire Jiang Lu's ability.
Because after Jiang Lu explained, he also understood that it was true that the maze was made of raw stones, but Jiang Lu just cut out the shape of the bricks and then pulled out the "bricks", which was more difficult than simply destroying it.
It's like the difference between stabbing someone with a knife and stabbing someone while simultaneously tattooing them.
He couldn't help but look at Jiang Lu's left hand.