Finn smirked, half amused, half annoyed. He hadn't expected them to take the first steps, let alone read them so clearly.
"And what makes you think you're worthy enough?" he spoke with mockery. She looked like a rich noble lady, no doubt, but also very weak — her type disgusted him the most. People like him were polished through life-and-death games; to him, she could be killed with a snap of his fingers — snapping her like a twig.
The dark lady (OG Yunxia) stepped forward, hand nestled under her chin as she thought of the offer. It was undeniably a good one, but she was still guarded; after all, there were no conditions. She didn't know Yunxia's (Nyx's) true motives. The fact that she could read them so openly was suspicious in a way, especially with how precise her guesses were. Sighing, she stopped Finn from continuing to provoke the duo.
"What are your conditions, imposter?" she spat.
She hated Yunxia (Nyx) — hated that she couldn't be in her own body, stuck instead in a spirit form. If not for the two men beside her, she'd have died countless times already. Just the thought made her shiver.
"My conditions? That's simple," Nyx said. "You'll help me survive the upcoming disaster. I know you two are still low-ranked players" — it was written right above their heads — "but from your auras, you've got loads of experience. So, in exchange, you'll get limited access to my resources. It's to boost our chances of survival. So, do we have a deal, or are we going to have to duke it out?"
Finn laughed darkly after hearing the conditions. He wasn't one to back down from a fight, but above all, he was amused by her boldness — and the rank above her head.
Narrator: "Sysi, do you care to explain what the players are talking about?"
Sysi: comes out wearing pajamas and a sleeping mask "Why are you all so impatient? Try figuring it out yourselves for once. Let a lady sleep in peace!"
Narrator: "Firstly, you have no gender. Secondly, do you even need sleep?"
Sysi: "••••••••••😡" leaves
Narrator: "Wait, come back here, I didn't mean it—"
Sysi: "Hehehe, kneel and beg, you creature!"
Narrator: "Never! I'll just watch them and get the answers myself."
Sysi: "Oh please, like your pea-sized brain could decipher their motives."
Narrator: "Try me."
Finn's amusement stemmed from the "???" above his opponent's head. As players, they all had a built-in feature tied to their title — "Player." It allowed them to see the ranks of others once certain conditions were met.
"Yo Black, you see this shit?"
Black Dorian, who had been silent for a while, placed his hand on his chin and responded,
"Yes, Finn, I see it."
— (btw, this is a meme)
Mei, hearing this, stifled a chuckle. She knew the meme, and it took all her self-control not to laugh — she had to swallow it down. She had been quiet throughout the entire negotiation, only whispering to Yunxia her guess that they wanted to build her designs but didn't have enough resources to do it.
"Only a second or first-generation rich kid can afford to build it," she muttered.
Yunxia, who didn't get why she was laughing, flicked her forehead in reprimand, making Mei pout. A flash of anger and jealousy crossed OG Yunxia's gaze, but she quickly suppressed it.
The thought crossed her mind: from what Dorian had told her, each player had systems — tools that handled various tasks, assigned missions, and managed their worlds. In other words, the system was a cheat code, a promo that every "Player" possessed.
She sighed, burning with jealousy. She decided to decline the offer. She didn't want to involve herself with these law-defying players. They were too dangerous to be around. She'd already faced countless attacks, and just seeing Mei — her childhood best friend — being so close to that imposter made her blood boil. "Mei needs my protection," she told herself.
But before she could finish her internal monologue, she heard Dorian speak.
"We accept your offer."
"What!!!" The word escaped her lips before she could stop it.
Finn smirked. "Hey, lady, are you saying we shouldn't accept?"
"N-n-no! It's not that, just—"
"Just what? Look, Black, you claim to be smart, yet you didn't anticipate that your lady wouldn't be on board with your plans?" Finn laughed at Yunxia's embarrassment.
She felt wronged that they hadn't bothered to ask for her input, but she couldn't blame them — she had been lost in thought the entire time.
"Sigh, it's the same thing I was thinking, so alright."
"Alright then," Mei stepped up. "Why don't we go inside and finalize our agreement?"
"Okay," they chorused, dusting themselves off and heading toward the partly damaged building.
Suddenly, both OG Yunxia and Mei froze, unable to move. The once-red world seemed bleak and gray, with tiny sparkles of blue and green. The rest of the players — Yunxia, Dorian, and Finn — had moved a short distance before realizing they were missing their partners. Turning back, they all froze, unable to move their bodies, glitching uncontrollably.
Each of them heard loud voices ringing in their heads — voices they knew very well. Their systems.
"Noctis, what's going on?" Dorian asked, a hint of worry in his voice, while Yunxia tried to calm Sysi down.
Finn's system, Zyra, as well as the other systems across the world, kept repeating one word:
Error ⚠️ Error ⚠️ Error ⚠️
Red warning signs flashed everywhere.
After a tense moment, peace returned, and the players sighed in relief. But the respite was short-lived. Not long after, sparks of light began to burst from each player.
The sparks dimmed, then shone brightly — turning into pillars of light in the gray world. The lights symbolized each player's system bursting forth into the sky, like angels ascending from their masters.
It was a beautiful yet terrifying sight.
Nineteen pillars of light shone from different parts of the world, each with vibrant colors — light blue, yellow, pink, green, purple — and darker ones: red, orange, gold, gray, blue, deep green. Rarer colors followed: white, black, cyan, silver, violet-black, azure, and crimson. Each pulsed and coalesced into a large ball in the sky.
A deafening bang followed, shaking the earth. The sound echoed six times before the world froze, then burned, dried, flooded, grew, and finally — crumbled.
Silence.
It felt as though everything had returned to the beginning. The genes of the world were being rewritten — sparks flickering through the DNA structure itself.
Then a bright light shone, revealing a large hourglass hanging in the sky — its top half a frozen sky, the bottom a desert of sand, and in the middle, a vast grassland. The glass spun, cracked, and spilled its contents — all pouring toward one direction.
The Big Ben.
The hands of the clock spun wildly, and the hourglass and Big Ben merged. Cracks appeared in the heavens like giant eyes overlooking the world — four in total. One was blue and cold, one light and warm, one black and eerie, and the last red with rage.
Inside each eye swirled millions of universes and a single star — the star that held the time. The time that would determine the start of the Apocalypse.
The players could finally move again, but the scene before them left them shivering. Eyes were watching their every move, ticking down the moments until the Death Games would begin.
Mei and OG Yunxia awoke from their frozen state, seemingly unmoved by the cosmic spectacle. When Yunxia tried to ask if they could see it too, her words were censored.
The NPCs couldn't see it. Only the players could.
Each of them could hear the ticking —
time waiting for no one.
…THE END…
Don't forget to join the discord
Thank you very much