Renas left the temple and headed for the Nameless Base. After a long, two-hour walk — most of it through dense forest — he realized something had changed.
First of all…
Where was everyone?
This time, unlike before, bodies lay on the ground. He still didn't know who the necromancer controlling them had been, but judging by the scene, that person had gone through something — and badly.
The whole village was in ruins.Had he really been gone for just one night? How could the entire place fall into chaos so fast?
As he followed the road, the number of corpses grew.
And among them — white masks.
Every building was either destroyed or barricaded. And this close to the Nameless Base, seeing this many corpses was a bad sign.
Renas kept walking. At last, he reached the cave entrance — the base of the Nameless ones — surrounded by a mountain of bodies.
He barely gave it a glance.
Because among the corpses, two people were fighting — moving with almost beautiful precision, as if dancing.Thea and Kael.
Thea swung her golden, blood-soaked sword with both hands. Every strike drew blood from the fallen around her, yet none of the corpses vanished. So, even if her blade fed on blood, it wasn't hers that had raised the dead. Not originally, anyway.
Each motion flung droplets of sweat from her body, and her sword pulsed, siphoning blood from the ground to empower both itself and its wielder.
Looking at her like this, Renas couldn't help thinking that "Thea" was far too cute and innocent a name for her.
Kael, on the other hand, wielded a pair of daggers. His eyes were closed, purple hair shining faintly under the morning sun.
Those daggers were shattered — broken into thousands, no, tens of thousands of pieces. Yet somehow, the fragments refused to separate. The metal itself seemed to reject disunity, straining to hold its form together.
This wasn't like Thea's masked soldiers, whose cracked masks fit together seamlessly, almost floating. No, these daggers were crude — the fragments grinding and trembling to maintain shape. Renas could see the effort in every trembling shard.
Still… that Kael could fight like this at all — maybe Renas should stop trying to understand him.
Had everyone died in their battle? Or had these two simply been the only ones to survive everyone else's?
And to think it all happened in one night. Unreal.
So whose side should Renas take now?There were only three of them left — and two were already fighting each other. Maybe if he ran, he could survive this game.
But Renas wasn't one to run. He never had been.
He stood before a puddle — not of water, but of blood — staring at the clash between Thea and Kael. Then he made up his mind.
He'd strike when Kael was most vulnerable.
The battle looked close to ending; both were injured, though it wasn't obvious at first glance. Thea, for instance, had two clean slash marks across her chest.
Since neither had noticed him yet, Renas crept closer.He was about thirty steps away — ten more wouldn't hurt, right?
He moved carefully around the corpse mound, edging nearer.
The battle raged on. Kael's movements were fluid, his daggers slicing through the air like waves.
Even Thea's wounds looked like patterns of flowing water.When had Kael learned a sword art like that? Or maybe trying to make sense of him was the real mistake.
Thea swung her massive sword with all her might. Just for a heartbeat, she paused — a single breath to steady herself.
That one breath was enough. Kael closed in, grin wide.
"Got you," he said — voice bright and mocking, like a playful child.
Thea didn't hesitate. She sliced through her own left arm and leapt back five steps.
Renas's pupils widened. Why would she cut off her own arm? Even if Kael touched her, she could've hit him back. This made no sense.
Then again, Kael never made sense.
— and maybe trying to understand was the mistake —
— why even try to understand him? wouldn't it be easier just to— —
— just follow instead? —
— what am i even doing now— —
— what's my goal? —
— what? —
The voice in Renas's head wasn't his own. It sounded like him, but it wasn't. Something else was speaking — through him, as him.Was he deceiving himself? Losing his mind?
What was happening to him?
Renas dropped to his knees, clutching his head, pressing his palms over his ears.
Then, all at once, something cut through the noise.
— [kill] —
This time, it wasn't his own voice.Nor the manipulator's.It wasn't even sound. It was an image — a red-haired girl wearing a smiling crimson mask burned into his mind.
Maybe another manipulator. Maybe not. Renas didn't care.
Whatever it was, it cleared his head.
He should do as it said.
Renas stood.He was steady again.
He would kill.
Yes. He would kill.
Cracking his neck and fingers, he stepped forward with calm certainty, dagger ready.
But just as he was about to enter the battlefield—
He saw it.
Renas staggered.
He fought not to vomit.
He grabbed a corpse to stay upright — and the contact made the nausea worse.
He turned away, refusing to look.
He wanted to deny it.He did deny it.This wasn't desire.
This wasn't what he wanted.
Renas…
would kill Kael.
Purple hair fell into his eyes.His hands were around the thick neck of a large man.
He wasn't even squeezing.He didn't need to.
With his ability, focus was enough. As long as he concentrated, anything was possible. That was the power of Endless Manipulation — the power to shape anything, infinitely, as long as imagination and focus held.
Of course, contact was a necessary condition. Without it, his influence was limited.
Still, he'd done plenty with it.
The fool behind him — and countless others like him — had already been manipulated, without even realizing it.
On the very first day, everyone who didn't use their vote had in fact already used it.On him.
He'd made them vote for the one who promised to kill them all.
They just didn't remember.
And oh, how that pleased him — using idiots, standing above them.
It always thrilled him to dominate fools…But to dominate the smart ones? That was bliss.
People like Thea.
Of course, "intelligence" depended on perspective — but Thea had been the one to propose the most effective strategy for surviving this game. Calling her smart was only natural.He even respected her. Hated her, sure — but respected her.
Even if he killed her, he wouldn't insult her by denying that fact.
He knew she was brilliant.
And he knew, with absolute certainty, that he had surpassed her.He, Kael, was better than a genius.
When he realized his mouth was watering from those thoughts, he stopped thinking and opened his eyes again.The act of opening them disrupted his focus — but that hardly mattered anymore.
Even if the fool behind him moved, it wouldn't make a difference. There was no one left who could stop him now.
Thea was dead.
Or rather — Kael had made her kill herself.
Kael was a manipulator.