The noise around the chamber thinned when the voting phase approached.

The timid girl Fei Ming noticed hadn’t moved from the corner the entire time.

Fei Ming’s gaze pulled toward her during the challenge.

She had her back angled slightly toward the wall, brown hair falling loose to her neck, the collar of her plaid shirt catching it at the shoulders.

Her jeans had a scuff along the left knee from earlier. She kept her arms close, fingers curled against her thighs, and her eyes tracked the floor in a radius that didn’t extend beyond a few feet in front of her.

He thought about the rock-like creature they just killed.

When the rock had rolled toward Helena’s group earlier, it had lunged straight at that girl.

Either the girl was their prophesied player or owned high enough stakes to matter.

Both options made her valuable.

Helena had read the angle a fraction before impact and stepped directly into its path, drawing it off course with her own presence.

The rock had followed Helena instead. The girl had pressed herself back against the wall, and Helena had kept her body between them until the threat resolved.

He took a step toward her.

Instantly, Helena retracted back, eyes wide as she put herself between them with a distance of less than an arm’s length— close enough that Fei Ming could see the way her jaw had set, and the faint rise in her chest.

She glared at him.

"Do whatever the fuck you want." The words came out flat.

"You called the spotlight upon yourself. Do not drag me or anyone else into this," she added.

Humming, Fateless stared at the girl once more, then turned and walked back to his group

However, Olive had seen the whole exchange.

He slid sideways toward Xia, voice dropping beneath the general noise of the floor. "I was right. He’s our group’s prophesied player. What Helena just did outed him." His eyes didn’t leave Fei Ming’s back.

"If we don’t do anything about it, our group may be doomed, Xia."

Xia rolled her shoulders back and her knuckles cracked in sequence as she stretched her arms out, the joints popping audibly one after the other.

"People aren’t stupid." She let her arms drop. "They won’t take the chance."

Her gaze moved across the floor, then at the other groups, taking in everyone’s posture.

"If they vote him out and he was the true prophesied, the wrath event fires and three people die at random. Nobody here wants to be the one who made that call and get punished for it... like honeybees."

’Honeybees?’ Olive thought. Why did she compare the players with bees?

It was a weird contrast for him.

Just as Xia glanced at Fei Ming, she raised her voice loud enough to call him: "Fateless!"

He turned around.

Xia continued, "The least you could do was tell us your plans back then. Why did you tell everyone Ivan was our prophesied player? "

The floor had gotten quieter. A few heads turned at the edges of the group.

Everyone in range already knew the answer to that. Ivan has died. And that his death had led to Fateless being revealed as a prophesied player.

Fei Ming held her stern gaze as he replied, "I miscalculated." His eyes narrowed into slits, catching the light from the Runic board.

Just as sharp, a flicker ran through Xia.

Her fingers curled into her palm. When Fei Ming moved away from her, an electrifying tremor shot through her.

’What was that?’ she thought to herself. ’I had never been this... scared?’ Placing a hand on her chest, Xia heaved. ’It was like I was staring into the eyes of a cosmic eldritch or something.’

Afterwards, neither of them said anything else.

Ding!

The Runic board panel split open across the air in front of the floor.

[You may vote out the prophesied player.]

The whole chamber fell into silence.

Feet shifted on the stone. Low breathing filled the space as players eyed one another across the blood-stained floor.

Two minutes passed with only the faint drip of black blood and the occasional shuffling of boots.

Keres, who had been silent the whole time, glanced over Fateless’ shoulder.

The sweet fragrance smell hitting Fei Ming’s nose as Keres spoke to him:

"So..." he drawled, dragging the last letter.

"What’s your move, Prophet?"

His two fingers hovered an inch from Fei Ming’s face.

"Either you’re a decoy and they vote you out... or you’re the real thing." Keres smiled.

"Then you’ll trigger a wrath event to save your neck? Heh. Other players could just keep voting you out till you’ll eventually die..."

He inclined his head, the small smile stretching across his face. "What’s the plan here... Hmmm. Do you just wanna watch people die?"

Fateless gave no reply to his question.

A bit disappointed, Keres backed off. "Oh well. I wish for the very very best!"

Ding! Ding!

[Round 1 voting concluded!]

[Counting votes...]

[Player ’Kerian’ has 7 votes.]

[Player ’Misfortune’ has 9 votes.]

[Player ’Fateless’ has 12 votes.]

A sharp gasp broke from someone in Fei Ming’s group.

A few heads turned toward the source and then turned back toward the board.

[What a quick game...]

[The prophesied player with the majority votes will be executed immediately.]

Olive stared at Fei Ming. For someone who had openly admitted he feared death, his expression was unnervingly calm.

Neutral face, level chin, shoulders relaxed. Nothing in his posture acknowledged the glowing number beside his name.

He had the highest count on the board, and Fei Ming’s expression was as blank and bland as it could be.

Then Olive caught it.

The corner of Fateless’ mouth — the right side, barely — had pulled. Not a full expression. The pull was small and tight, climbing, just slightly, into something that wanted to be a smile.

The effort of suppressing it was visible in the faint tension along his jaw.

This motherfucker was trying to keep his face straight. The hell was he smiling for?

Olive’s chest went still for a half second. Then his eyes widened, surprised.

Fei Ming was the true prophesied player.

The vote had done exactly what he needed it to do.

Killing three random players.

That was all he wanted after all.

Olive looked up at the bright Runic board. If Fateless was as unhinged as he once suspected. Then it wasn’t far-fetched that he was the murderer back in their faction.

"I was right the whole time," he muttered to himself.

[A wrath event has been triggered!]

The floor split.

Metal shards erupted from the ground.

They shot upward in sharp uneven spikes across the chamber. Each jagged spike roughly the length of a forearm where they’d sheared through.

The sound was enormous and immediate and then overlapped itself as more came, the ground cracking in thin fracture lines as dust and debris kicked out sideways from the force.

One player near the center convulsed as three shards thrust through his torso, blood splattered outward.

"Arghhhh!" Another screamed once before a thick spike tore through his throat and pinned him upright, his legs kicking once before going still.

A cacophony of screams engulfed the whole space.

A third, standing close behind Fei Ming, jerked violently as shards pierced his legs and chest.

The man screamed—a voice he recognized from the hours of the game prior, someone from his own group, cut open, the sound of it climbing sharply and then collapsing.

The man collapsed forward, his body hitting the stone with a wet thud.

When Fateless turned. The body was already down, a shard through the upper chest, the arms still moving in the spasming, disconnected way.

Blood spread quickly across the floor, finding the cracks and channels in the surface, pooling into the low points of the ground around his feet.

Fei Ming looked down at the lifeless body and the dark pool expanding under his feet.

His skin prickled from his forearms to the back of his neck. Fingers twitched at his sides.

He stared longer at the body, the blood still spreading, the screams reaching his ears, and the sensation moved deeper, down through the muscle, until his whole frame held a faint, involuntary tremor.

As he took in the sight, his breath steadied while the warmth of the blood soaked near his soles.

He stayed completely still, absorbing every detail.

’What beautiful scenery,’ he thought. ’Unlike the first death, this expression is more...’ His eyes dilated as he watched the blood ooze out of the corpse.

’...more captivating. How I’ve missed this feeling.’

One question popped in his mind. Could he absorb the players’ cores? After all, his actions caused their deaths.

But with the people looking, could he really try to absorb their cores here?

In the midst of his thoughts, a bloody hand grabbed him and slammed him back.

Olive’s face was twisted, eyes wide with fury. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"Why?" he snarled, voice hoarse over the dying screams. "Why the fuck did you do all these?"

Fei Ming’s lips twitched again. "Aren’t you too smart for yourself, Olive—"

"Shut up." Olive shoved him harder, fingers digging into his collar, blood smearing between them. "Don’t deflect my question. You could have avoided this easily if you didn’t pull all this shit. Answer me, you sick bastard."