NOVEL NEXT Chapter 55: Ambush
Zakar stared at Justin for a long moment, piecing things together with the cold, methodical logic of an ex-assassin. The Negative Entity was using both of them for its games. That much he could see. But the pattern beneath the cruelty was what worried him most.
If the kidnappers told Justin to kill him to free Sera and then still took Sera and Myia away. Not only did they do that, they tasked him to kill Justin to get them back. What did that imply? Only one answer made sense to a man who'd spent his life setting traps and reading men: they wanted the whole team to be reduced to ash. If Justin and Zakar fought to the death, if both were taken out of the equation, the Negative Entity would still have their trophies. It was simple, brutal calculus.
The thought sat like a stone in his gut. Most players never saw the architecture of a setup like this, but Zakar did. He'd built the same kinds of snares in other lives. Predators craft layers: bait, pressure, an eye on the eyewitness. He'd been a craftsman in those alleys and now he applied that old craft to survive.
"Hey, Justin." Zakar's voice was low, deliberate. "I don't know you to be this timid. What's gotten into you? Can't you see? Sera isn't here. When did you last see her and Myia? They've been taken. We have to act before something happens to them."
Justin's features collapsed into a fresh, raw shock. "What do you mean? Sera?! How—" His words trailed into a ragged breath. Zakar let a faint, knowing smirk settle over his face.
That smirk was a tool; it worked faster than threats. Making Justin imagine the worst his beloved Sera in danger would crack him open quicker than the thickest blade.
"Yes," Zakar continued, voice hardening. "A woman from that group told me she has Sera and Myia. She said I had to kill you to get them back. But I want us to face them together and teach those bastards a lesson they haven't learnt." He let the words sink in, let the fury behind them sharpen Justin's focus.
"Fuck! Where the hell are they?!" Justin exploded, standing so suddenly his chair screeched. "I'll rip the bones out of those chickensf a hair is missing from her head—"
"Shut up." Zakar cut him off. He moved closer until his voice was right beside Justin's ear. "I thought you'd know where they are. We don't have details. All I know is they were last seen around the refectory."
Justin's spine went rigid. He drew himself up, forced composure into his limbs. "I don't know anything. I swear. But we should start at the refectory."
He strode forward, and for a second and in a single instant, flames licked up behind him. Heat painted the air but Zakar's hand stayed steady, unhurried. "Don't torch the room," he said flatly. "We might not get another new one."
He stepped through the rift, thinking fast. Justin's answers were thin, and his fear looked like genuine confusion rather than the cleverness of a conspirator. Perhaps the kidnappers had erased details from him.
Perhaps he'd only been given bare necessities to push him into the act and kept ignorant so he could never fully explain the plot. In either case, the role he'd been forced to play remained clear: Justin had been manipulated.
They used him as bait, Zakar thought. But he still had fight in him. Earlier he had seen a depressed face and not a weak one. He preserved strength for a reason. That preservation annoyed and intrigued Zakar.
Worse more, when he thought about an S-rank like Caslurk had been a backup for Justin, it made him feel goosebumps. Whoever pulled the strings didn't gamble on a single pawn.
He rubbed his temples; the world felt suddenly narrower, the path congested with enemies he had to unmask and dismantle. He looked up, eyes scanning the bright sky, letting his thoughts race through likely scenarios.
Then pain ripped through him. A sudden, searing strike forced him to fold forward, his hand slick with blood as he hit his knees.
"Gah!" he spat. Blood mixed with the dry dust on the stone. Zakar blinked through the sting and saw Justin again not just angry now, but moving with a cold, readied purpose. In his hand, a sword burned with blue-yellow flame.
"Tch." Justin's contempt was a thin, bitter thing now. "To think I was a fool who would fall for your tricks. You were fun to toy with."
'You've got to be kidding me. How the hell?! Damn! Why—?'
Zakar's mind raced. An ambush. The realization struck like a thrown knife. He had been baited into complacency while Justin had been holding something back, waiting for the right moment. He had been preparing an opening.
"You set an ambush," Zakar muttered through clenched teeth, taste of copper in his mouth. "You were waiting for me to lose my guard."
Justin advanced slowly, eyes glittering like a predator's. "I'm impressed you figured it out now," he said, voice flat. "But don't forget I'm not a child." His yellow eyes flared with dangerous light. "You're a little brat waiting to be crushed."
Zakar felt the hot burn along his ribs where the blade had cut earlier. The wound pulsed. He stared at him intently. This was crazy. He had fallen for a crazy type ambush common to some assassins. He had completely forgotten about his assassin instincts.
The options loomed before him; he would kill him and end him the other option? It yawned at his realization fail to act, let the enemy's game continue, become the hunted instead of the hunter.
He weighed the two paths the way he always had: quick, certain calculation over the betrayal Justin. Kill Justin and remove the pawn but do it, and he strengthened the enemy's method. Turning friends into executioners. Spare him, and keep his hand clean of that particular blood.
His Tyrann Sword hung mid air. He thought of Sera and Myia not as bargaining chips but as people he had to protect. He thought of the oath he'd once made, the one that had saved him from becoming the monster he'd once been.
The choice cracked him into two halves. One where he gave in to the old hunger, and the other where he kept his promise despite the knives at his back. He stepped back, pain flaring with each motion.
Justin sagged against the wall, panting. "You should've killed me then." he said, voice ragged. "You should've—"
"You should be grateful i didn't." Zakar said. His voice was flat. "Next time you would learn to. Now there won't be a next time."
He left the vicinity with his wound burning and his head full of plans. Outside felt too thin for the weight he carried. The Negative Entity had shown its hand: it used fear and friends as levers, it marked pawns and puppets, and it expected people like Zakar to fall for the oldest ploy.
To avoid both options he had, he would flee for now and hunt down the kidnappers himself.