The number of survivors could be counted on one hand.
After the gauntlet of the death labyrinth, the fractured worlds, and the collapse of Nothingness, the ones still standing beside Ethan were so few that they couldn't even take a group photo. And yet, in this rare moment of fragile "unity," someone—someone annoyingly still alive—decided to start scheming.
His name was Ryan.
Yes, that Ryan. The one who always napped at critical moments, survived by letting others take the fall, and somehow managed to coast through apocalypse after apocalypse. Ethan had long suspected his survival wasn't luck at all—it was the byproduct of something even worse: the kind of dumb fortune immune to corruption, the "shit-luck" that even Nothingness refused to digest.
But this time, Ryan actually stepped forward.
In his hand, he held a shard of the Core of Nothingness. It looked like chewed-up gum spat onto the floor, still shimmering with a weird light.
"Ethan," Ryan smiled, all harmless charm, "don't you think we should change our approach? Look, we've been fighting against Nothingness all this time, right? But what if we handed this over to the Bureau of Investigation? They've got manpower, tech, and enough bureaucracy to stall things for decades. Isn't that more reliable than a handful of wandering misfits like us?"
Ethan froze for a second, then burst out laughing."Reliable? The Bureau? You mean the same Bureau that's gone completely rotten—and branded me as 'Global Nightmare Host #1'? What's next? You hand them the shard and collect a medal for 'Outstanding Traitor of the Year'?"
Ryan shrugged, but his eyes gleamed with greed."You don't get it. Human society needs order to function. We few can't carry a new world on our backs. But the Bureau—they can systematize this power. And when they do, I'll be a hero. You… well, you can choose to hand it over with me."
Karl's fractured soul sneered in Ethan's head: "This guy's a natural bureaucrat. Even at the end of the world, he's still chasing a desk job."
Ethan didn't reply. He just stepped closer, slow and heavy, the air pressing down like a courtroom before the verdict.
Ryan sensed danger and immediately raised the shard to his chest, eyes twitching with mania."Don't come any closer! I'll detonate it right here! We'll all go down together!"
—The scene was so absurd it looked like an office farce.
On the stage of apocalypse, a side character had somehow picked up a nuclear warhead fragment and was threatening everyone with "mutual destruction." And the way he shouted it—it was identical to an overworked junior employee in a meeting room, whining about unpaid overtime.
Ethan couldn't help but laugh."Ryan, do you know why you've survived this long? Because we treated you like a mascot. And now you think you're in control? Wake up. What you're holding is just Nothingness' spitball. It doesn't even qualify for trash sorting."
Ryan's eyes turned venomous."Shut up! You're just afraid I'll succeed! Once I hand this over, the Bureau will reinstate me, give me power, status, and—most importantly—safety!"
"Safety?" Ethan raised a brow. "You'd feed the world to the tiger, just so you can sleep a little easier at night?"
Ryan screamed, his voice cracking:"At least I want to live! You lunatics keep yelling about destruction and rebirth, pretending you're saviors. But in the end, you just want a name in history! Not me. I don't care about glory—I just want to survive!"
As his words fell, the shard began to pulse, vibrating like a heart on the edge of seizure. Black lines spread from it across his arm, crawling inch by inch, until half his face was swallowed in shadows.
Ryan kept grinning, but the smile was wrong—stiff and broken, like a marionette stuck mid-laugh."See? It's responding to me! It's chosen me!"
Ethan's eyes went cold. He spoke slowly:"No. It's eating you."
The shard exploded with hunger.
Like a starving pocket-monster, it sucked Ryan in whole. His screams came out chopped and distorted, like a broken tape recorder stuck on loop. Within moments, nothing remained but a puddle of silent black sludge—no bones, no trace.
The air stilled.
Karl whispered in Ethan's head: "You knew this would happen, didn't you?""Of course." Ethan smiled, but his voice was ice. "Betrayal isn't a choice. It's a joke fate plays. Ryan was just the first clown to jump on stage."
He bent down and picked the shard from the sludge.
It was calm again, as if its frenzy had been nothing but illusion. But Ethan knew better. The real trial was just beginning.
—Because betrayal never comes alone.