Soulless Soul

Chapter 54: Betrayal

Sky was not surprised by the sudden, lethal betrayal cutting through the thick white fog. It was not as though he had been blind to the shifting political currents of the upper echelons, or unaware that Colton, or some other high-tier lackey from the Vanguard Order, would eventually materialize in the unmapped sectors to clean up their loose ends. The treaty with Commander Arthur had been entirely too smooth from the outset—a cynical, temporary band-aid designed to secure a rare green-tier weapon blueprint without risking their own people in a blind, hazardous run through unmapped territory. Somewhere deep inside his cold, cynical mind, Sky had always known they would meet like this on the ice. They were never destined to face each other as standard rivals competing for a higher rank on the server leaderboard, nor as typical enemies separated by clean faction colors. Instead, they were two desperate men destined to fight in the dark until only one remained standing, their souls weighed by an unfeeling system that only rewarded the absolute survivor.

Colton leveled his jagged longsword, his heavy iron gauntlets tightening around the worn leather grip as he stabilized his stance on the slippery glacial floor. The manic, bloodshot look in his eyes flared with a toxic mixture of intense hatred and predatory anticipation, his chest heaving beneath his frost-coated chest plate.

"You still honestly think you can win this, solo trash?" Colton sneered, his voice echoing sharply off the high obsidian ceiling. "You should be low on health, completely out of energy, and trapped in a collapsing room. You are nothing but an unauthorized variable waiting to be deleted."

Sky stepped forward. It was only a single, deliberate step, his boots clicking softly against the frozen stone hidden beneath the translucent layer of ancient ice.

"You think I’m easy prey just because I am a bastard?" Sky asked, his voice remaining impossibly calm, a stark contrast to the howling sub-zero wind whistling through the amphitheater. He adjusted his grip on his primary weapon, his fingers completely steady despite the freezing temperature of the vault. "I’ve spent months entirely focused on surviving the baseline parameters of this dungeon. I have crawled through the literal mud of the lower tiers while you faction dogs slept in sanctioned safe zones." He paused, a strange, dark clarity settling into his core as he looked around the immense chamber.

"Now I am at my second time—my absolute last time to survive, clear the Gauntlet, and escape this prison permanently."

Sky looked up at Colton with a cold, piercing gaze that seemed to completely ignore the towering, menacing presence of the nearby Grand Knight automaton. Taking another small step forward and slightly turning his upper torso to minimize his target against an incoming thrust, he spoke in a remarkably casual, conversational tone.

"I’ve fought monsters twice your size," Sky noted, his eyes locking onto the Vanguard Lieutenant. "I’ve killed men who were significantly smarter than you. I’ve survived absolutely anything the world has thrown at me so far." A faint, grim smirk touched his lips beneath the dark, frayed fabric of his crimson scarf. "Huh... sorry. Two worlds at that, if we’re being mathematically precise."

His dark eyes narrowed into thin slits, capturing the flickering blue light of the boss’s dying greatsword. "So tell me, Lieutenant... What makes you think you’re any different? What makes you think you can kill me?"

For the very first time since he had stepped out of the stealth shroud, Colton’s manic grin completely faltered. A flicker of genuine hesitation crossed his features as he felt the chilling weight of Sky’s total lack of fear, an unnatural composure that did not belong to a low-tier independent player. He had expected a cornered rat to beg, scream, or panic; instead, he was staring into the eyes of a seasoned predator that was actively calculating his execution in real-time.

Then Sky smiled, a sharp, dangerous expression that didn’t reach his eyes.

"But today..." He paused, a low vibration shaking his throat before he spat a mouthful of icy moisture onto the floor. When he spoke again, his raspy voice suddenly carried a raw, jagged edge that cut through the mechanical hum of the room: "I’m going to enjoy every second of killing you."

Colton barked a loud, forced laugh to shake off the physical chill running down his spine, his knuckles turning stark white against his hilt as he forced his fading confidence back to the surface.

"You really do talk too much, you little disgusting worm!" Colton barked, stepping forward as his heavy plate armor clankled loudly against the heavy silence of the chamber. "From the very first time we met in the academy, I hated your guts. You were always a threat to my existence, an unpredictable anomaly in the grid that shouldn’t have passed the initial screenings. I constantly wonder why a pathetic, common-tier worm like you was ever considered a threat to someone of my rank."

Hm... maybe it was my Curse, Sky thought to himself, tilting his head a little to the side as he remembered the dark, glitching text of the curse [Imperfect] hovering eternally in his profile status. The system array marked him as inherently flawed, but that very flaw allowed him to break the boundaries of their rigid, standardized classes. It gave him an asymmetric edge that structured players could never comprehend.

"The simple fact that you’re still actively breathing inside this zone is a personal insult to me and the Vanguard Order," Colton hissed, his longsword rising into a high, offensive guard position. "So I’ll fix that error right now."

Sky simply shrugged, his shoulders dropping in a loose, unbothered motion that showed he was entirely detached from the threat.

"Maybe."

Then, without a single millisecond of warning, he suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs: "Hey, bastard!"

Instinctively, Colton’s gaze snapped upward, his elite combat training forcing his eyes to track what he assumed would be a sudden throwing knife or a high-velocity dash from Sky’s position. But Sky wasn’t aiming at his chest or his throat at all. His new mechanical Repeating Crossbow was pointed directly downward, the integrated crimson laser sight painting a bright red dot on the ice precisely beneath Colton’s heavy, iron-shod boots.

"Thanks for the beautiful distraction," Sky whispered.

THWIP! THWIP! THWIP!

Three heavy, steel-tipped bolts slammed simultaneously into the deeply fractured glacier ice right between the Knight’s feet, the overclocked firing mechanism unleashing its full, concentrated concussive force into the weakened terrain.

CRAAACK!

The ancient ice sheet, already heavily compromised and webbed with deep structural fractures from Vesper’s massive kinetic collision with the boss, completely shattered apart under the concentrated localized impact. A freezing, dark chasm of sub-zero water opened up instantly beneath Colton’s feet, swallowing the smooth surface he had been standing on.

"What?!" Colton gasped, his manic eyes widening in sudden, absolute terror as gravity took hold.

His heavy armored boots slipped instantly off the crumbling ledge, plunging directly into the lightless, freezing depths of the underwater crevice. The heavy Vanguard iron plate armor that usually protected him from high-tier monster strikes instantly became a fatal anchor, the immense mass dragging his physical avatar down into the glacial water. He flailed his arms wildly, his longsword slipping from his fingers and clattering uselessly against the surviving ice as he struggled desperately to pull his upper torso free from the collapsing edge.

"What the hell are you doing?! Pull me up!" Colton screamed, his voice cracking with pure panic as the flashing system status alerts for hypothermia and drowning began to flood into his peripheral vision.

Sky tilted his head, watching the bully sink with a completely neutral, detached expression. "You actually honestly thought... that I’d ever be stupid enough to fight a high-defense Knight class head-on in a low-friction arena?"

Sky burst out laughing, the sound raw, sharp, and echoing through the vault like a madman completely unbothered by the horror of the realm. "I told you, Lieutenant... I’m just a little, insignificant worm. I don’t play by your rules."

Before Colton could claw his way out of the freezing pit, the massive Elite Grand Knight automaton completed its heavy rotation, its massive gears clicking into place with a resounding, industrial thud. Its glowing crimson optical visor locked instantly onto the largest, most continuous source of movement and noise in the entire arena. It wasn’t looking at the silent assassin standing motionless in the shadows of the pillar. It was looking at a stationary, heavily armored target trapped helplessly in the collapsing ice, splashing wildly and emitting high-density distress signals to the system grid.

[TARGET ACQUIRED.]

The towering war machine raised its enormous, crackling electrified greatsword high above its rusted iron helm, the blinding blue lightning arcing off the steel illuminating the stark panic on the lieutenant’s face. Colton’s face turned deathly pale, his bloodshot eyes staring up at the descending monument of iron that completely blocked out the dark obsidian ceiling.

"No... wait— please—"

The massive blade crashed down, carrying the overwhelming force of the vault’s ancient defenses with it.

BOOOOOOM!!

The explosive impact vaporized the water, shattered the surrounding ice for ten meters, and completely engulfed Colton’s position in a blinding flash of blue fire, leaving Sky to watch the final deletion from the safety of the dark shadows.

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