A ragged, wet gasp tore through the fighter's throat. He stared down at the mangled, lifeless bodies of his comrades. His head drooped, a heavy, dead weight. Tremors wracked his knees, threatening to buckle beneath him. He pulled in air violently with every passing second, his mind scrambling through the suffocating panic for an answer, a reason—a way out. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird, pinning him helplessly to the cold marble floor.
He lifted his head. The crowd was already shifting, shuffling forward in a mindless herd to obey the man in the glowing joker mask without a single shred of resistance.
His bluff hadn't been a lie.
In the brief, ringing silence of his own mind, the fighter looked at the masked man again. This time, he didn't just see him—he felt him. A heavy, oppressive pressure radiated from the man. The very atmosphere of the room had been hijacked; the air was thick, metallic, and trembling on the verge of rupture.
"I'LL TAKE YOU ALL WITH ME!"
The scream tore raw from his lungs—directed not at the monster in the mask, but at the paralyzed, terrified guests. Fear hadn't just broken him; it was the crushing, humiliating realization of his own utter incompetence. The glowing red smile of the mask seemed to burn brighter in the dim light, silently mocking his failure. He hadn't been able to execute the ambush. He hadn't even scratched a single target.
How could I possibly defeat a monster who doesn't even have to lift a finger to turn an entire crowd into a weapon?
Yug stood beside the corpse of the first assassin he had executed, observing the unraveling psyche of the room with dead, apathetic eyes. It was a descent into madness he had witnessed countless times in his past loops.
Moving with a slow, predatory elegance, he took a seat on a plush velvet couch just inches from the bleeding corpse. He casually crossed one leg over the other, resting his chin on his gloved hand. With a fleeting thought fed through his TICKET interface, he issued a silent, overarching command.
Across the expansive hall, a chorus of tiny, metallic clicks echoed softly. The mechanical Vokal-Spiders detached from the crushed throats of the dead and scurried seamlessly back into the shadows.
BANG!BANG!
The broken fighter who had just screamed was instantly gunned down by one of the hidden assassins. He collapsed onto the marble, dead before his mind could fully process the impact of the bullets.
"Ouch," Yug whispered to himself. A theatrical pout touched his voice, laced with genuine disappointment. "I thought he would have at least taken out half the room before dying."
He scanned the grand hall. It didn't erupt into a unified, righteous rebellion. Some guests hadn't even flinched toward the armed men; they simply stood frozen in place. Not because they were plotting a brilliant counterattack against Yug, but because their minds were rapidly deteriorating, shifting toward darker, entirely primal intentions.
The fragile illusion of civilized society had violently shattered. With Yug simply sitting back and watching, the twisted, rotting core of the trapped elites began to surface.
The men who had initially rushed forward stopped dead. They looked around at the sheer anarchy of the bloodstained room, a sickening realization dawning on them: There are no rules anymore. Their eyes swept over the terrified crowd, lingering hungrily on the wealthy, elegant women they had been politely sipping champagne with just hours earlier.
One man's face contorted into a depraved, feral grin. Without a word of warning, he lunged, violently seizing a young woman by the hair.
At first, there was no sound. Her Vokal-Spider flawlessly swallowed her initial, desperate cry for help, rendering her violent thrashing completely mute.
Lounging on the velvet couch, Yug's grin widened beneath his synthetic mask. He needed a spark to ignite this powder keg. With a simple, calculated blink through his TICKET interface, he intentionally deactivated the mechanical lock on her throat. He wanted the herd to hear the slaughter.
Her second scream tore through the dead silence of the hall—raw, deafening, and vibrating with absolute terror.
"AHH—AHHHHH! HELPPPPPPPPPP!"
Hundreds of heads snapped toward the sudden noise. The crowd flinched, violently jolted from their stupor. Realizing the suffocating, enforced silence had been broken, several people frantically clawed at their throats, testing their own voices in breathless, weeping whispers.
For a long, agonizing moment, no one dared to help her. They waited in sheer, trembling terror for Yug's reaction. When the joker mask remained motionless, a few brave souls finally rushed forward—only to freeze in their tracks when a synthesized voice boomed through the hall's acoustics.
"HAHAHA! We have a winner!"
Yug laughed, a crazed, piercing sound that dropped the temperature in the room. The rules of his improvised game—Find Me—had finally clicked into place. He would weaponize their own rotten nature.
"That lady has found a piece of me inside another person!"
The depraved executive who had thrown himself at the young woman had inadvertently volunteered to be Yug's proxy. Since the hidden assassin had already killed the armed fighter Yug originally intended to use, he decided to adapt. He casually kicked a loaded handgun across the polished floor. It skittered heavily across the pooling bloodstains and stopped perfectly at the attacker's expensive shoes.
"Right now... he is me."
Yug took his time, letting the twisted logic marinate in the suffocating air. He relished the thick, palpable tension. The crowd clenched their jaws. Knuckles turned white. The attacker, emboldened by the sudden gift of power, eagerly snatched up the gun, aiming it wildly at the crowd while keeping his other hand firmly clamped around the terrified woman's neck. Nobody dared to breathe.
"If you can kill him, protect the lady, or simply survive, I will let you all go," Yug declared, his voice smooth as silk. "But if he kills you, or successfully keeps the woman he claimed, then he will be released with a grand reward. As for the lady? I've already transferred one hundred million into her bank account. She is technically a free woman... but unfortunately, she has been captured by a piece of me."
The crowd stared in sheer, unadulterated disbelief. Their pampered minds couldn't fully process the sickening madness of his rules. But they understood one universal, bloody truth: Yug had just given them a target they could actually bleed. To survive, they just had to butcher the man with the gun.
Yug leaned deeper into the velvet couch. He could taste the adrenaline in the air. He saw the woman's absolute helplessness. The attacker's manic, power-hungry shock. And most dangerously of all... the crowd's sudden, violent hope.
"HAHAHAHA!" Yug's laughter boomed like thunder. "BEGIN!"
"Leave me, please! I'll do whatever you say!"
The young lady sobbed, her desperate pleas echoing across the marble. The young man holding her, however, could not answer—his Vokal-Spider was still active. Frustrated by his enforced silence and irritated by her piercing cries, he violently slammed his fist into her temple.
She collapsed against his chest with a sickening crunch. "UGH—AHHHHH! PLEASE! SOB... SOB..."
Seeing the proxy distracted, two male guests felt a sudden surge of false, adrenaline-fueled courage. They broke from the herd, sprinting blindly toward the armed man, desperate to cave his skull in and win their freedom.
They never even got close.
BANG!BANG!
Two deafening gunshots erupted from the dead center of the crowd. The running guests collapsed violently, their momentum sliding their bleeding bodies across the slick marble.
The rest of the crowd shrieked, violently trampling each other to stumble backward. Standing in the newly formed clearing was a man with a twisted, grotesque smirk on his face, casually lowering his smoking, concealed weapon.
He wasn't a guest. He was the hidden assassin.
Sitting on the velvet couch, Yug threw his head back and howled.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" His manic voice tore through the amplifiers. "Look at that! One is still hiding among you! Fascinating, isn't it? You aren't even looking closely at the people standing right next to you! HAHAHAHA!"
It was the final, fatal push. Yug didn't just break their unity; he utterly shattered their fragile sanity.
Absolute, suffocating paranoia infected the room like a virus. The wealthy elites, stripped of their societal armor and realizing a professional killer was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them, completely snapped. Desperation hijacked their nervous systems. They frantically pulled out their hidden trump cards—concealed pocket-pistols, ceramic stilettos, and tactical blades they had illegally smuggled into the venue for self-defense.
And then, the slaughterhouse gates opened.
SLASH!
A corporate executive, convinced the sweating man beside him was the assassin, lunged forward and buried a pocket knife directly into his colleague's neck. Arterial blood sprayed across the floor in a thick, hot arc.
Someone nearby violently vomited at the sight of the butchery. Expensive designer shoes slipped in the growing, viscous pools of dark red. People clawed at each other like feral animals, stabbing wildly at whoever stood closest. Throats were torn open. The rich and the powerful were reduced to bleeding meat, slaughtering their own friends out of pure, unadulterated terror.
Amidst the sheer, blinding chaos of the bloodbath, the young man holding the lady finally reached down. His trembling fingers wrapped around the heavy grip of the gun Yug had thrown to him.
He raised the weapon into the fray.
BANG!BANG!
It took exactly half an hour.
Thirty minutes for every single breathing human in the room to fall. The pristine white marble was now painted a slick, glossy crimson. The elegant reception hall had been forcefully transformed into a grotesque charnel house. It looked less like a high-society gala and more like the feeding grounds of a nightmare.
Amidst the tangled, bleeding mountain of severed limbs and ruptured torsos, only one man remained standing. He was panting heavily, his tailored clothes heavy and soaked in gore. He had personally butchered almost every single armed person in the crowd.
Even the depraved young man who had claimed the lady was dead. Driven completely mad by his own silence and the relentless butchery, he had foolishly turned his gun toward Yug with bloodshot, manic eyes. He hadn't even managed to squeeze the trigger before the assassin ended him.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Slow, hollow applause broke the heavy, metallic stench of the room. Yug remained comfortably seated on his velvet throne, casually bringing his gloved hands together.
"Outstanding," Yug praised smoothly, his tone entirely devoid of empathy. "Will you follow me? I'll give you anything you wish for. Money. Power. Women. Just pledge your loyalty to me. I have already bypassed the security of your handlers and erased your mark from their system. You are a ghost. What do you say?"
The assassin gazed at Yug. His chest heaved as his wild eyes darted left and right over the sea of mutilated bodies. He thought of his captain on the roof. He thought of the powerful, untouchable clients he usually served. But looking at the relaxed man in the glowing joker mask, a chilling realization washed over him. The air around Yug was devoid of humanity. He had never met a monster like this.
He is too dangerous, the assassin thought. Too calm. And a total genius.
It was an easy decision. If I don't follow him right now, I'll die. If I pledge my loyalty, I can protect myself from my former clients, escape this bloodbath, and secure a terrifyingly powerful backer. It's the smartest move.
Lowering his weapon, the assassin took a cautious step forward. He knelt subserviently on one knee, bowing his head before Yug's blood-spattered couch.
"I... wish to serve—"
BANG!
A single, deafening gunshot shattered the quiet hall.
The assassin's head snapped back violently, a neat, smoking hole punched directly through his forehead. His lifeless body slumped backward, splashing heavily into the pooling blood on the marble floor.
Yug slowly lowered the smoking barrel of his gun. He looked down at the dead assassin with absolute, hollow disgust.
"You are a fool."