Death System: I awakened SSS rank System

Zakar's words hung in the air, sharp and heavy.

"Yah. I mean I got the truth. The Negative Entity…" Kyara muttered almost lavishly, as though testing the taste of the words. Her voice carried no fear, no hesitation just a kind of calm sensation.

Carene tilted her head slightly, staring at Kyara with a puzzled expression, her brows arching in the faintest suspicion.

Zakar, however, couldn't help himself. His mind swirled with images and possibilities. He imagined his friends being captured, chained, possibly even dead because of this so-called Negative Entity. His heart hardened at the thought, but the uncertainty left a crack of hope deep inside him.

"So what's with this?" Zakar muttered, his tone clipped with irritation.

"This isn't supposed to be some funny joke. I'm dead serious. My friends are in absolute danger. If nothing is done, then I guess I might have to do something on my own accord."

Kyara shifted slightly. The energy around her flared for just a second, almost as though it was reacting to her emotions. She stepped upright, her long coat flowing around her ankles, her expression grave but composed.

"Really?" she asked, her voice soft but sharp. "Do you think I'm laughing? No, Zakar. I wasn't joking about this. Look at it this way. The Negative Entity somehow managed to learn of your meeting with us. And now they tried to kill you so as to reduce our forces before we can even organize them."

Her words landed like a blade to the gut. Zakar stiffened.

"What?" His brows furrowed deeply, his voice rising with disbelief. "How? How the fuck did they even know that? None of my roommates were around when you guys showed up first."

That truth burned him even more. He remembered the empty room, Justin's absence, the eerie silence when Kyara's team first revealed themselves to him. No one should have seen. No one should have heard.

Kyara folded her arms, her gaze steady. "Yah, I agree with you on that. It makes no sense. But the fact remains. I only relayed the truth. The Negative Entity has a spy on us. We are being watched by unknown eyes."

Zakar clenched his fists so tight his knuckles cracked.

"So was that why they tried to kill me? Justin is part of them? General Lemon too? How the hell does this connect? If they're part of this, then why was I tasked to kill Justin to get my friends back? What kind of twisted game is this?" His words came out in a near growl, his chest heaving with anger.

Carene's voice slid into the conversation. "Both Justin and the General are agents of the Negative Entity. Their actions are too suspicious to be dismissed otherwise. I heard that General Lemon killed someone during his introductory speech. That was no normal thing. He killed someone we had our eyes on. Someone we thought of recruiting."

The words hit Zakar like a storm.

"What…?" he whispered, his voice nearly lost to the sudden tremor in his chest.

The memory came back; General Lemon's ruthless expression, the way he had murdered the recruit without hesitation, the false pretense of "protocol." Zakar had brushed it off then as brutality masked by discipline, but now, with Carene's words, the truth clawed at him like poison.

'Wait, so all that was related to this? How? Why? Was that why he killed him without thinking twice? Killing a player, staging it like some creepy protocol rule? This isn't just brutality, it's a damn cover. This world… this world is worse than I thought. If I don't blend in as one of them, I'll get cooked.'

Carene continued, her eyes darkened with memory. "Now, when you join the Negative Entity, you are marked by the Master himself. Once he marks you, you become his toy. Rumor has it, he controls them like puppets. He recruits high-potential candidates by letting them kill his toys that didn't last long enough to be marked."

Zakar's breath hitched. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he tried to piece it all together.

"Wait, what? You're saying this group this… Negative Entity. They're barbaric enough to toy with lives like that? So Justin isn't even fully part of them? And I'm supposed to kill him so they can hand me back my friends? That's what this is?"

Silence fell for a moment. Only Kyara's steady eyes stared back at him. Finally, she spoke.

"No." Her voice was calm but unyielding. "They would never give back anything they've taken. The Negative Entity plays games, Zakar. Once you enter their stage, you are no longer a player you're just a pawn. And you… you just happened to be caught in it."

Zakar's fury boiled. His body trembled lightly, his breath turning shallow. His mind screamed with questions he couldn't answer.

"Then what the hell am I supposed to do?" he snapped. "Wait for them to tear me apart piece by piece? Watch my friends vanish into their claws? You speak like you know everything, but you're not giving me solutions."

Kyara's lips curled ever so slightly into the faintest of smiles. It wasn't mockery. It was the kind of smile one gave when seeing someone finally step into the harsh truth.

"Why are you smiling?" Zakar snapped, almost agitated.

Kyara chuckled softly, her voice carrying a subtle amusement. "Because you finally said it. You spoke about doing something about this in your own way. I'd like to see that assassin?"

Zakar froze. His chest tightened as if a blade had pierced straight through his ribs.

"How…?" His voice was hoarse, his eyes widening.

How did she know? How the hell did she know he was an assassin? That secret was buried deep within him, a truth he had carried silently back to this Wasteland. No one in this realm should have known. No one.

His mind raced. Who the hell is Kyara? How much does she know about me? What else is she hiding?

'Fuck!! There are more mysteries to this place than I can figure out. She knows more than I do. I'm standing in a damn pit, blindfolded, and she's staring at me like she has the map.'

Finally, Zakar forced himself to speak, his voice low but firm. "Yah. I will."

Kyara's eyes flickered with a strange glow approval, or maybe recognition.

Carene, who had been silent during the tense exchange, finally stepped forward. With a wave of her hand, a red rift swirled open before them.

The energy swirled violently at first, then softened into a stable portal. Its crimson light illuminated the room.

In an instant, Zakar's body was lifted. He felt the whirl of energy coil around his arms, his chest, his legs. His stomach lurched, his vision flickered and before he could say another word, he was gone.

The rift closed with a hiss.

And Zakar was teleported back to the path of the rift rooms.