9 Low-Level Betrayal

Neve stared at the scene ahead.

Nothing made sense.

Blood pooled beneath Stella's body. Uriel stared up at the night sky with blank, frozen eyes as one of Thomas's knives remained stuck between them, and now, all of the low-level players behind Thomas were drawing their weapons. The campfire's crackling was all anyone could hear for a while.

As the surprise slightly faded, a couple of mages rushed toward Stella, casting healing spells on her. The Valkyrie did not respond. John moved toward her and crouched beside the woman, disbelief clear to see on his face.

None of this felt real.

"You... What have you done!?" Carson asked, stepping forward, furious.

"Is she…?" Neve asked but couldn't finish the question from the sheer shock of it all. The answer was obvious as the healers' spells had no effect, but Neve just couldn't believe it.

[Why? How!?]

"H-Hold on," Neve said, moving closer, "let me-"

"You take one step further and we will destroy you along with the others, Neve," Thomas warned her.

Raising his voice further, Carson asked:

"You, what is this about!?"

"'You', huh? You don't even know my name," Thomas replied, smirking back at Carson. "Of course, why would you? I'm just a low-level assassin, aren't I?"

"Look," Allen said, walking up, moving past John, and pulling out two daggers of his own, "I dunno what made you do this, but if it's a fight you want, I'm down."

"… Are you all looking for a fight?" John asked the people behind Thomas, quietly, with a threatening tone, without taking his eyes off Stella's body.

None of them looked quite as sure of themselves as he did, but they all remained in their positions, holding their weapons in their hands.

Neve looked back and forth between them.

[What the hell is going on?]

"Fine, then." John gently set Stella's body down and stood up, unsheathing both his swords.

"Wait, wait, hold on," Carson stepped forward, his hands raised. "People, think about this! We are in the middle of a dungeon, the most important dungeon humanity can face, and we're thinking about fighting each other? Why are you-"

"You. Know. Why," Thomas stated firmly, leaving no room for a response. "Do you think we don't know why the monsters we've faced are so strong? How stupid do you think we are?"

That made Carson pause.

"These two fights we've been through, the Forces That Be thrust them onto us for a reason," he stated, pointing ahead at John. "It's because this is the real test."

Thomas narrowed his eyes at the high-level players ahead. His determination was unshakeable.

"The Forces That Be wanted us to see this. When the Unity Trials first started, for the smallest time, humanity was perfect. There was no discrimination anymore, no injustice, no evil. Just people and a will to survive. True equality and equal opportunity. But, when we came into the Final Challenge, I realized that something changed along the way."

He turned, looking at the others. He even snuck a glance at Neve, whose face was still horrified.

"People began seeking power. Power they shouldn't have. And it turned things unfair. Now, a new type of injustice exists. And, *that* is what the Final Challenge is trying to tell us. That's why the enemies here scale with our levels. It's to show us that people like you, people with the kind of power that can make the world unfair, shouldn't exist. And now, the only way humanity can move forward is by going through you."

"Hey, that speech was nice and all, but can we just get to killing each other? My hands are getting cold," Allen said, twirling his knives in his hands.

"Stella alone could have cut down half of you if you hadn't attacked her while her back was turned," John muttered spitefully. "I will ask one more time. Are you sure you all want to die by our hands? Because I will spare not a single one of you if that's what you wish."

"Many of us may die," Thomas responded quickly. "But, those who are left will complete the Final Challenge the way it was intended to be completed. By the weakest amongst us with the strongest hearts. Those capable of standing up to the likes of you."

"This… This is foolish," Carson said, even more desperately. "Think about what you are doing!"

"We have, and our choices have been made. You, though, still have a choice to make."

Thomas did not aim that last sentence at the high-level players standing before him. No, he turned toward Neve as he spoke. That statement was for her.

"Choose," he added. "Who do you stand with?"

Carson, who was still near Neve, finally gave up on talking sense into them.

"... So, that's how it is?" He asked in a low voice.

Then, he turned toward Neve and said:

"You should go with them."

The fire crackling in the background was nearly louder than his voice.

"What?" Neve asked. "B-But..."

Carson smiled back at her.

"Don't worry," he said, as he looked through his inventory and pulled out his axes from a holographic screen, "I won't hold it against you."

In a split second then, he charged forward, toward Thomas.

"Agh!" Thomas cried out and immediately, the assassin became invisible. Neve's eyes widened.

Carson swung his axes at the air where Thomas had been standing, but it didn't seem like he caught anything.

Despite that, that attack kicked off a massacre.

Both sides clashed. The lower-level players did their best to swarm the higher-levels. Instantly, almost faster than Neve could see, Allen flung knives into the chests of four of them. John dashed forwards and tore through multiple enemies. Blood flew out in every direction as he cleaved a path through the low-level group. Carson spun and crushed a pair of low-level tanks, nearly bisecting them with his axes.

Neve could do nothing but stand by and watch in horror. Neither her hands nor her legs could move as she watched one person after another die. Players cut and broke each others' bodies in a frenzy.

The bloodbath before her was not entirely one-sided, however.

It did not take long before the low-levels' strategy began to bear fruit.

One of the higher-level players, a female assassin, nimbly took down a pair of tanks with rapid stabs to their abdomens but was too slow to react to a third low-level tank running up and plunging his sword through the side of her body.

A couple of high-level mages in the back tried to heal up their allies, maintaining a barrier on themselves simultaneously to protect them from projectiles, but a barrage of simple, beginner-level Fireballs eventually managed to break through their defenses, distracting them long enough for the swarm of players to overwhelm them.

It was a scene Neve had seen many times in the past, but not like this. The players looked like a horde of goblins as they pushed back their opponents through sheer strength in numbers and stabbed them while they were down.

It was too much. Seeing that was the push Neve needed.

She couldn't just stand there.

[This is insane! I have to step in,] she thought. [I have to-]

However, the instant she took one step forward, she felt a sword press against her neck.

"Did you forget what I said?" A familiar voice asked in her ear. "Not one step further."

Neve's lips trembled as she remained fixed in that position. The cold steel slid forward and positioned itself at Neve's throat as a hand held onto her left arm.

"Level 20 or not, I can easily kill you from this position," she heard as one final warning.

Ahead, she could see the three high-level players trying their hardest to cut down every enemy around them. They looked larger than life as they took out one target after another, but they were slowing down.

Neve gulped.

"I… You can't seriously think this will work," she muttered with a shaking voice.

"As if we have a choice," he replied. "I could see it in your eyes as I stood before those tyrants. You understood just like I did that this was all we could do in order to live."

The most annoying part of all of this was that Thomas's voice held no malice. It felt like he genuinely believed the words coming out of his mouth, and that made Neve even angrier.

"Even if you kill them all, even if the monsters get brought down to your level, that doesn't mean you and these players have the skill necessary to complete the Final Challenge!"

Player Count: 44

Player Count: 38

Player Count: 32

A symphony of cries and screams formed as a backdrop to the slowly decreasing number of players still left alive.

"That remains to be seen," Thomas answered. "If my theory is correct, and this was the true test, a test of our wills, then the rest of the Final Challenge will be a cakewalk because this will be what the Forces That Be wanted out of us."

"And if you're wrong?"

"… I do not believe that's possible," Thomas replied. "I told you, right? The Unity Trials have been nothing but fair to us. I do not believe they would begin being unfair now. This was all intended, and I understand that."

Naturally, the higher-level players who lasted the longest were John, Carson, and Allen.

However, as their allies fell, Neve saw that they were all heavily wounded.

Carson was brought down to one knee ahead, as a man slashed the back of his left leg. He tried to swing at the man with his ax, but a woman shot him with an arrow that pierced his right shoulder. More and more players surrounded him until Neve couldn't see the man anymore through their bodies, but she heard him cry out and suddenly go silent.

Allen finally fell when a series of ice-based spells brought him down and a few assassins took the opportunity to kill him while he was on the ground.

Soon, John Dulan, the level 41 Golden Dragon, remained as the final high-level player, standing opposite the horde of low-level enemies.

But Neve could see that he was breathing heavily, and it seemed as though he had no more mana left, judging by the fact that he stopped using skills altogether.

"Insects," John muttered," every last one of you."

He went to raise his hands and keep fighting, causing a few low-level players to flinch and back off, but then, he dropped his swords.

And Thomas let Neve go.

"Seems like this is the end. As I said before, do not take another step," he warned for a final time, as he then walked toward John.

The low-level players, tired and strained, let go of their own weapons just like John had as Thomas approached.

So many players on both sides died that the ground was nearly untraversable due to the number of piled-up corpses. Thomas had to move around multiple bodies, severed arms, heads, and legs just to reach John.

When he did, he put his hands up, holding the same sword that had been pressed against Neve's neck high in the air. A simple, beginner-level, rusted iron blade.

"Everyone, I thank you for what you've done today."

Neve saw sweat roll down John's face, falling onto the dirt beneath him. His eyes looked empty, as though he'd given up already. Perhaps feeling Neve's gaze, he briefly glanced in her direction before lowering his eyes again.

"Nine times, humanity has attempted to complete the Final Challenge. All nine times we were unsuccessful. Why do you think that is?"

Slowly, John began reaching for one of the blades he dropped. Thomas kept his back turned back to him.

"It's because none of those groups had the will to survive on their own. They were all laughably dependent on the strongest among them. Tonight, you showed that you may be weaker than they are, but your hearts may as well be made of diamonds. And that is why we will be the group that succeeds."

John's hand wrapped around the hilt of one sword.

"That is why we will complete the Final Challenge."

John slightly raised it.

"And that is why…"

John moved to stab Thomas in the back.

The man stepped to the side, avoiding the blade. None of the speed that John carried in his attributes showed itself due to his exhaustion.

And then, he stabbed that sword casually through John's throat.

"… we will honor the memories of all those who fell today, when we stand atop the final floor, victorious."

John dropped his sword. Thomas removed his blade, and John fell back.

And at that point, the Golden Dragon representative, the single highest-level player who had come to complete the Final Challenge, the man who had shined the brightest on the battlefield, died at the hands of a level 8 rogue.

None of the lower-level players celebrated. They all looked quite shaken by the gravity of what they'd done, but none of them seemed too sad either.

To Neve, it looked like they'd been through a particularly difficult dungeon. Not like they'd just killed dozens of innocent people.

"Come, everyone," Thomas said. "Now that the higher-level players are dead, the floors ahead of us will likely become so easy we can complete them in one night. Take whatever you can use off their bodies. We won't be leveling up much, so don't take anything that'll just take up space in your inventories. Everyone," he said, standing before the crowd, "Some of these people we killed today were heroes, sure. But once humanity receives its much-needed rest, as they watch us from the afterlife, they will understand that we needed to do this. And we will give them proper burials once our exit from this place is secured. For now, though, we need to remain focused. Come. Take what you want and let's get moving."

One by one, the players began scouring some of the dead bodies for loot. Neve watched a girl walk up to a man that had been nearly split in half. She gagged, looked through his inventory, took his clothes, and quickly put his inventory away, perhaps unable to deal with the sight any longer. The other players were equally as reluctant, getting through this as quickly as they could.

Neve, of course, remained where she was the entire time.

As the players walked out of the Safe Zone and began traversing the second floor again, Thomas walked by Neve one more time.

He placed a hand on her shoulder.

Neve looked up at him.

Level 23

MP: 130/130

"Give it a night," he said. "Think about this logically, and you will understand our position. I promise. Once you do, feel free to come find us. We will welcome you, a fellow low-level player, with open arms."

And then, he walked away.

She collapsed as her legs gave out from under her.

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared at all the bodies ahead.

She had been here, she'd seen it happen, she'd felt the same cold blade that Thomas used to kill John press against her skin, and yet she couldn't believe any of this happened.