As I stood at the edge of the Great Lawn, the red text of the System notifications burned into my retinas, marking the rhythm of a massacre I had been too slow to prevent. The Angels hadn't just moved a piece on the board; they had flipped the table.
[WARNING: 45% of the people you are protecting have been killed.]
Five percent. That was the razor-thin margin between retaining my hard-earned power and being crippled by the System. But in my heart, I knew the truth: I had lost the quest the moment the first sleeper agent drew a blade.
No matter how fast I moved, no matter how many records I accessed, I was powerless against a threat that had been festering inside the group from the beginning.
How did I miss this? How did my preparation lead me to this graveyard?
"Fine! You want to challenge me this way? Then I, Hye, will gladly accompany you to the end!"
I threw my head back and roared, my voice a thunderclap of raw fury and unfiltered hatred. I wanted the Angels to hear me in their celestial high-seats.
I had strangled their resources and limited their influence, yet they had still outplayed me with this disgusting, human-shield gambit. But if they thought I would crawl into a corner and weep over the loss, they had severely underestimated the man I had become.
"Heed my orders!" I bellowed, my focus snapping to my elite guards. "My team will surround this goddamn place! Lock down the perimeter! Anyone trying to escape—traitor or survivor—is to be killed on sight! If I'm going to lose this quest, then I'll ensure every one of these motherf*ckers dies with it. If I lose, you lose bigger!"
I didn't wait for a confirmation. I ignited my speed, a blur of motion streaking toward the clusters of panicked survivors.
"Everyone without a weapon, get on the ground!" I screamed as I closed the gap. "Sit down and do not move! You move, you die!"
The absolute coldness in my tone paralysed the civilians. I drew my twin blades—my own and the one I had taken from Angelica. With the steel singing in my hands, I descended upon the traitors like a tsunami made of grief and steel, my eyes burning with a singular killing intent.
"Let him try!" one of the traitors laughed, a young man with a face twisted by fanaticism. "The Masters promised us revival once the job is done! Just keep killing! As long as the others die, he fails! Kill them all!"
I didn't waste breath on his rubbish. I plunged into the fray, but as my blades flashed, the traitors realised with a jolt of horror that I wasn't playing their game. I wasn't aiming to kill.
Clang! Crunch!
I moved with surgical precision. My swords bit into elbows and shattered kneecaps with the sharp edges, and then I flipped the hilts, using the heavy, blunt spines of the blades to crush the base of their skulls.
I was a whirlwind of non-lethal, incapacitating force. In less than sixty seconds, I had neutralised nearly half the traitors, leaving them screaming on the grass, alive but utterly powerless.
"Bastard!" the youth who had spoken first yelled, his eyes wide with rage. "Don't stand there like idiots! If he subdues us, we lose our revival! Don't fight him! Kill! Kill anyone! Kill everyone! Even kill yourselves!"
"That cold-hearted bastard!"
The urgency in my chest flared into a wildfire. It was the most vicious directive I had ever heard. To order them to commit suicide just to tip the casualty percentage? It was insanity.
Who in their right mind would follow such a command? But as I looked around, I saw the glint of desperation in the traitors' eyes. They truly believed in the Angels' lie of resurrection.
I locked onto the youth. He was the catalyst, the one stirring the madness. He had to die first.
But the coward wasn't looking for a glorious end. Seeing me coming, he turned and bolted, weaving through the sitting survivors to use them as human shields.
"I'll kill you!" I surged after him, my blades occasionally lashing out to disable any traitor who crossed my path. But I was only one man. Away from me, the remaining traitors ignored my team and began plunging their knives into the people sitting on the ground.
They were fewer in number now, but they were efficient. And the margin was already too thin.
[WARNING: 50% of the people you are protecting have been killed.]
[CRITICAL FAILURE: You have failed the subquest. All your stats will be halved as a penalty.]
A sudden, agonising weakness washed over me. It felt like my very marrow was being drained, my muscles losing the explosive tension I had worked so hard to build. The world, which had been moving in slow motion, suddenly snapped back to a blur of terrifying speed.
"Hahaha! You failed! He failed!" the youth shrieked, stopping his flight to point and laugh at me as if he had just won the ultimate prize. "Look at you! You're nothing now!"
Despite the bitter coldness spreading through my veins as the System drained my vitality, I didn't feel like a loser. In the eyes of the Heavens, I had failed, but my calculations remained sound. Even halved, my main stats were still formidable enough to ensure my survival through the main quest without a shred of doubt.
Besides, who said I was going to lay low and cry bitterly in a corner like a real loser? This was a setback, nothing more, and it had yielded a lesson far more valuable than the points I had lost.
I had learned the true cost of arrogance: I should never underestimate my enemies like this ever again. No matter how favourable the odds, no matter how much the world seemed to be under my control, I wouldn't let my guard down until the final second of the apocalypse.
Bang!Bang!Bang!
Just as the traitors were lost in their sickening joy, their eyes shining with the expectation of seeing me collapse in despair, my two swords continued their relentless rhythm.
I slammed my blades into their bodies with explosive force. I could feel the strength being withdrawn from my limbs, a phantom exhaustion pulling at my muscles, but it didn't turn me into the powerless victim they anticipated.
"H… How can this be possible?!!"
The youth, who had been laughing only a moment ago, stumbled backwards. His face paled as he watched me carve a path toward him. Now that the quest was officially lost, keeping them alive was no longer a strategic necessity. Mercy had been my first mistake; I should have slaughtered every one of these motherf*ckers the moment they drew a breath.
I had tried to immobilise them, hoping to control the chaos and prevent the penalty. I had been wary of the "revival" the Angels promised them. But right now, my anger exploded like a subterranean volcano. If they wanted to revive, let them. I would find them, hunt them, and kill them again—for real this time.
Without the need to hold back, my movements became more lethal. Killing a man is infinitely easier than precisely shattering a joint to maintain his mobility.
Even with my Strength stat halved to twenty points, I was still a monster. To a normal human or a low-level traitor, twenty points was an insurmountable wall of raw power. I was still faster, stronger, and more experienced than anyone else on this lawn.
"You…!" the youth gasped.
Clang!
He managed to regain his footing just as I reached him, raising his blade in a desperate parry. He succeeded in stopping one of my swords, but he didn't have the speed to account for the second. My left-hand blade was a silver blur aimed directly for his throat, ready to end his gloating forever, when a familiar voice tore through the screams of the dying.
"Allen!! What the hell are you doing here away from Washington?"
It was Angelica. She had finally managed to catch up, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Her sudden recognition of the youth made the final pieces of the puzzle click into place in my mind.
"So, you are the leader of these bastards?" I hissed, shifting my weight. A quick death was too good for him now. Instead of taking his head, I pivoted mid-swing. My blades flashed four times—hitting his elbows, then his knees—shattering the bone and forcing him to collapse into the dirt.
"Keep him as bait until I return," I commanded Angelica. She was sprinting toward us, her face hidden behind her visor, but I could feel her shock radiating off her.
I didn't stop to explain. I had less than ten traitors left to deal with, and they had finally realised that their "victory" hadn't slowed me down enough to save them. They clustered together, forming a tight, defensive circle of steel and desperation.
"Sara… Hit them hard!"
I didn't halt my advance. I kept walking toward them, my shadow lengthening over the grass. I hadn't even covered ten meters before the air began to vibrate. The violent, crackling roar of Sara's fire skill thundered through the park. Ripples appeared in the air around the remaining traitors as the temperature skyrocketed.
Whoosh!
The fire danced in a lethal, concentrated spiral. In a single second, four of the traitors were incinerated where they stood. The survivors screamed, their gear melting as they frantically tried to beat back the flames.
They were distracted, broken, and burning. I didn't give them a chance to recover. I closed the remaining distance in a sudden burst of speed, my two swords flashing right and left. I moved through the smoke like a ghost, cleaving the heads of the last bastards before they could even raise their shields.
The remaining traitors put up a desperate, frantic resistance. They tried to interlock their shields, tried to trade deadly blows with me, hoping that my halved strength would give them an opening.
But their attempts were futile. Even crippled, I was a whirlwind of practised violence. One by one, they fell, until my two swords were plunged deep into the chest of the final standing man.
I collapsed over his corpse, breathing heavily, feeling like a ferocious beast guarding its kill. There was no denying I was wounded—not physically, but strategically. That subquest penalty was a heavy blow to my pride and my stats. However, it wasn't a death sentence. Not yet.
"Keep him there," I barked to my team, nodding toward the shattered form of Allen. I moved to pull my blades from the cooling body beneath me, but then, a series of unexpected System prompts flared across my vision, freezing me in place.
[You killed one of the enemy, John the Traitor. You can claim 50% of his inventory.][You acquired: Basic Sword x1][You acquired: Basic Chestplate x1][You acquired: Monster Tier-1 Cores x20]...[You acquired: 5,000 Coins]
I stared at the scrolling text, my mind reeling with bewilderment. I had fought thousands of battles in my previous life, but I had never realized that killing traitors in this specific early-game window would yield such direct, massive rewards. It was as if the System was rewarding the execution of its own rogue agents.
Driven by a sudden, frantic curiosity, I reached out and touched a second corpse lying just inches away.
[You killed one of the enemies, Peter the Traitor. You can claim 50% of his inventory.][You acquired: Basic Sword x1]...[You acquired: 4,000 Coins]
"This…"
A memory flashed in my mind, sharp and biting. I recalled the moments after I had saved Angelica from her original cell. She had spent a long time lingering over the dead bodies of her former comrades. I hadn't thought much of it then; I'd assumed she was merely savouring her victory or mourning the necessity of their deaths.
But this explained everything.
"Angelica…" My voice was a low, domineering rumble that made the air itself seem to vibrate.
I saw her flinch, her entire body trembling in fear as she realised I had finally connected the dots. She had been standing nearby, watching me harvest the loot. Without me saying a single word, she knew her secret was out. She had systematically stripped those fifty traitors of their wealth while I was distracted by the tactical situation.
My eyes flared with a cold, simmering anger. I didn't waste any more words on her. I began to jump from one dead body to another, my hands moving with predatory speed as I claimed what was mine by right of slaughter.
Isabella and the rest of the team had already closed in on Allen, surrounding the crippled leader with blades drawn. Their expressions were dark; they clearly wanted to finish the job I had started.
"I… you didn't ask, so I didn't mention it," Angelica whispered, stepping closer to me like a child caught in a lie. Her head was bowed, her tone small and apologetic.
"How much did you get?" I asked, my voice like ice. I didn't stop my harvest, moving from Peter to the next traitor.
"I wasn't the one to kill them," she stammered, "so the System only let me claim ten percent of their inventories as an accomplice."
The fact that she was trying to minimise it didn't make me feel any better. Ten percent of fifty high-level traitors was still a fortune.
"And I can collect fifty percent, because I am the one who killed them," I said, my voice heavy with the realisation of what I had missed earlier. I didn't lift my head to look at her; I just kept moving.
"We… we can go back!" she suggested desperately, trying to find a way to appease me. "We can return to where we fought the first group and get your share of the remaining bodies."
"Do you think their bodies will just remain where we left them?" I stood up, giving her a chilling, soul-piercing gaze. "That is childish thinking. You've been in this game long enough to know better."
I finished stripping the small group I had just executed. I knew the System's protocols better than anyone. The dead bodies of monsters and traitors would vanish into thin air like black magic the moment the first quest concluded.
It was a preset designed to prevent the spread of plagues, but it was also a grim preparation for the upcoming Zombie and Undead quests. The System needed that biomass.
"Stingy bastards!"
A scream of rage tore across the lawn. It was Allen. He was watching me loot his men, his face contorted in a mask of fury. "I told you to empty your inventories before we engaged! Fast! Anyone still alive, use everything you have! Don't let him have a single coin!"
"Not under my watch!"
I looked at the field. Almost half the traitors I had "subdued" earlier were still lying wounded on the ground, groaning in pain.
Hearing Allen's desperate command made me realise how lucky I was that these humans were inherently greedy. They were traitors—it made sense they would be stingy with their resources, hoarding their items until the very last second.
My blood began to boil. If these low-level goons had thousands of coins, how much had been on that first group I killed to save Angelica? I had missed a literal king's ransom because of her niggardly silence.
Slash!Slash!Slash!
I didn't hesitate. The wounded traitors were well within my reach. I moved through them like a reaper, my blades ending their lives in less than two minutes. The "revival" they hoped for wouldn't be coming.