The weight of the silence was suffocating.

My breath was steady, deliberate, yet it felt like I was gasping for air in an unseen vacuum.

The ground around me was littered with the remains of my team, their bodies, twisted and broken from the chaos of the past hours.

All the betrayal, the bloodshed, the fury… it was over now.

The arena had claimed its champions, its sacrifices.

And yet, here I stood, still standing amidst the wreckage.

Evelyn was the last one left.

She was kneeling, her hands pressed against the ground, her delicate form shaking with exhaustion and grief.

The healer who had once been so full of compassion, so nurturing, now appeared like a shadow of herself.

Her staff was held loosely in her grip, the light that once flickered in her eyes now dimmed.

I watched her.

I didn’t feel anything, not anger, not guilt, not even relief.

I had watched everyone fall, one by one, but there was no satisfaction in their demise.

I didn’t know what I expected from this moment.

I hadn’t wanted any of this, but now, it was just the way things had to be.

The system had done its work.

Or rather yet that figure did it.

We were its pawns, its playthings, and now there was only us left.

Her gaze met mine, and for a brief moment, I saw something in her eyes, a flicker of something that could have been hope.

"Allen…" Her voice trembled as she spoke my name.

Her tone was low, almost inaudible, and yet it carried a weight that seemed to echo in the emptiness around us.

“Why? Why are you… still standing?”

Her words hit me like a soft blow.

She was asking what they had all asked, in some form or another.

Why hadn't I fought back?

Why hadn't I killed?

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Why hadn’t I joined in the madness?

I didn’t answer.

There was no answer that would make sense anymore.

Especially not to her, in this moment.

Evelyn, still kneeling, dropped her staff to the ground, her fingers brushing the earth as though seeking some kind of connection, some kind of comfort.

Her body seemed so small in this vast, broken space, and for a brief moment, I saw the healer I had once knew for a moment, the gentle soul who had joined her team to fight, who had also cared when no one else did.

But the reality of this place, the brutality of what we had been forced to do, had drained all that away.

She looked up at me, her breath shaky.

"We… we were supposed to survive together. I thought… I thought we’d make it through. But now…” She paused, a sob choking her words. “Now, I’m the last one standing, and I can’t do this. I can't kill you.”

Her eyes shone with tears, her voice breaking under the weight of the inevitable.

She was torn, struggling with what had to be done, with what she had to do to survive.

But she couldn't.

She couldn’t take that final step.

I didn’t speak.

I didn’t need to.

I wasn’t scared.

I wasn’t angry.

I was numb.

And I could see it in her, too.

She had nothing left to fight for, nothing left to hope for.

I wasn’t sure if she was waiting for me to make the first move, or if she was simply hoping, praying, that there could still be a way out of this, that this wasn’t the way things had to end.

But that wasn't the case.

I took a slow, deliberate step toward her, my feet heavy on the broken ground.

She flinched but didn’t move.

Her tear-streaked face was the picture of helplessness, and for a moment, I almost felt something stir inside me, an old, forgotten instinct.

Mercy? Pity?

No.

There was no room for those feelings anymore.

Not here.

Not in this place.

Not after everything that had been done.

Everything that been had lost.

I reached down and placed my hand gently on her shoulder, an almost tender touch in contrast to the devastation around us.

She looked up at me, confusion and fear in her eyes.

“You don’t have to do this,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Please, Allen… I can’t.”

I stared at her for a long moment.

The words she spoke were so fragile, but they didn’t matter.

She was trying to hold on to something that was already lost.

She was trying to preserve the last remnants of her humanity in a world that had no place for it anymore.

She couldn’t.

Neither could I.

And I didn't understand why.

“I know,” I replied softly, my voice steady.

I could see the tears threatening to spill over, the sorrow in her eyes, but it didn’t move me.

It didn’t change anything.

With a quiet sigh, I stepped back, my gaze never leaving her.

I wasn’t going to kill her.

I wasn’t going to take that final step.

Instead I stared at the figure sitting, and it stared back at me.

[Ding!]

[You have been marked as a monster by the Sixth Orc Lord]

[Ding!]

[You have been tamed by the Sixth Orc Lord]

[Ding!]

[The Sixth Orc Lord is now your master]

[Ding!]

[You are to obey it every command, You can't resist]

My eyes widened as I saw the system messages...

Tamed.

How is that even possible.

I am a human.

How could he make me a monster.

The being sitting, tilted it head slightly.

For the first time, fear gripped me.

Slowly, my body began moving by itself.

I turned back to Evelyn, who's eyes widened as she saw me.

I summoned lighting and was walking towards her direction.

"Al... Allen, are you ok..okay" Evelyn said.

I didn't answer.

I couldn't answer.

It looked like I didn't own my body again.

I tried so hard to resist but it was futile.

When I got to her I raised my hands the lighting on my hands intensifying causing the whole chamber to shake.

Suddenly...

Something descended.