Chapter 78
6:28 PM.
One hour and thirty-two minutes until Kael had to kill his best friend on live television.
The cell was getting smaller. Or maybe that was just his brain playing tricks. Probably the latter.
Concrete walls didn't move. Physics still worked that way even in a world where vampires ruled and the System turned people into video game characters.
Focus. Stop spiraling. Think.
But thinking wasn't helping. Every thought led back to the same impossible problem.
Derek was brainwashed. The tournament rules were absolute. One of them had to die.
No exceptions. No loopholes. The System didn't do loopholes.
Kael's restraints hummed with power suppression. He'd been testing them for the last three hours. Pulling. Twisting. Trying to access even a fraction of his bridge consciousness.
Nothing. The restraints were too good.
Whatever technology the Eternal Council had developed, it shut down System abilities completely.
He was weaker than a normal human right now. Probably couldn't even win an arm-wrestling match against a teenager.
Great survival strategy. Very helpful.
The screens in his cell never stopped. Constant coverage of the tournament. Interviews with officials.
Behind-the-scenes footage of the arena preparation. Promotional materials that made his stomach turn.
Right now they were showing highlights from previous tournaments. Fights from the test runs they'd done before going public.
A vampire woman fighting three humans at once. She moved like liquid death. The humans didn't stand a chance. Lasted maybe forty-five seconds combined. The crowd in the stands screamed with bloodlust.
Two hybrid creatures tearing each other apart. Both of them classified as "corrupted specimens" according to their System interfaces. Both of them fought like they had nothing left to lose. The match went for twelve minutes. Left the arena floor covered in blood and viscera. One hybrid finally collapsed. The crowd cheered as the winner consumed what was left.
They're literally eating the losers. In front of billions of people. And this is legal now.
Another fight. This one between former allies. The announcer provided backstory like it was a sports match.
"These two served in the same resistance cell for three years! But when Registration Day came, one chose cooperation while the other chose defiance! Now they meet in the arena to settle their differences!"
The fight was brutal. Personal. They knew each other's moves. Each other's weaknesses.
Made it worse somehow. More intimate. The registered fighter won.
Stood over his former friend's body. Looked into the camera.
"I chose the winning side. Everyone else should too."
Propaganda. All of it. Designed to make people accept the new order.
And it's working. The view counts keep going up.
Kael turned away from the screen. Focused on his cell instead. Looking for anything useful.
Nothing.
They'd designed these cells specifically for System users.
Reinforced concrete that blocked dimensional travel. Power dampeners built into the walls.
The door was solid metal. No windows except the small reinforced ones looking out into the corridor.
Other cells lined the hallway. Kael could hear the prisoners inside.
Some had given up. Accepted death.
Others were still fighting mentally, trying to find solutions that didn't exist.
Cell 003 held a vampire who kept muttering calculations. Probability equations. Win scenarios.
His voice had gone hoarse hours ago but he kept going. "If I dodge left and counter with a 2.3-second delay, survival odds increase to 31%. But if the opponent adapts, then I need to—"
Cell 007 had a hybrid female who just cried. Soft sobs that never stopped. Sometimes she called out for someone named Demian. No one answered.
Cell 012 held a human. No System access. Arrested for harboring unregistered vampires. He'd been silent for hours. Then suddenly started laughing. Manic. Broken. "They said it was safe. They said the resistance would protect us. Liars. All liars."
Kael wanted to say something. Offer comfort. Hope.
Didn't have any to give.
His own survival odds were 23%. And that was before fighting Derek.
Derek. God. Derek.
The video of Derek's brainwashing kept playing in Kael's head.
On loop.
Like his brain wanted to torture him. Derek screaming. Fighting the restraints.
The technicians pumping corrupted data into his System interface. Rewriting his memories one neural pathway at a time.
They'd turned Derek's entire worldview into a weapon. Made him believe Kael was the villain. The betrayer. The one responsible for all his suffering.
And the worst part?
Kael could see the logic. If you changed just a few key memories, altered some timestamps, edited the security footage—it would look exactly like Derek believed.
Like Kael had escaped alone and left Derek behind to rot.
Complete fabrication. But Derek doesn't know that. To him, it's real. It's truth.
The screens switched to a new segment. "Tournament Spotlight: Featured Fighters!"
Kael's stomach dropped.
His face appeared on screen. Not a flattering angle.
They'd pulled it from his arrest footage. He looked disheveled.
Angry. Dangerous.
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