Chương 586: Children of Fanaticism

Cindy had been running for days. Father's group was made up of lunatics. She had joined them because, unlike the island's other madmen, they had seemed kind. But there had always been something wrong with them, something rotting underneath the smiles. They were willing to die for Father, and worse, they wanted Cindy to die right alongside them.

"Cindy!" Brad shouted. She crouched lower behind a tree, pressing a hand over her mouth and holding her breath.

"Come on, Cindy. You need to come back," Brad called out.

"Father needs all our points. If we can't get a bracelet for him, then we have to die for him, Cindy." He was close. Too close. Cindy squeezed her eyes shut and wished with everything she had that she could turn invisible.

"Cindy, why did you run?" His voice came from right above her. She looked up. Brad was standing there.

"I... I don't want to go back," she stammered.

"I want to survive."

"And you will," Brad said, reaching down and grabbing her by the arm.

"Father has a plan. You need to stay with us."

"You're insane, Brad. All of you are insane. I don't want to die. I don't want anything to do with you anymore." Cindy thrust out her hand and activated [Mana Drill]. Brad dropped to the ground.

"I'm... I'm sorry!" Almost in panic, she cast [Healing Dome], creating a zone of recovery around him before turning and running.

"Cindy! You can't leave our group. Traitors are worse than unbelievers!" She was already far away. Cindy threw herself into the river, sank beneath the surface, and let the current carry her. Over the next few days, she came to accept that she was going to die. She was nowhere near the top of the leaderboard. There was no chance she would earn a bracelet on her own. She knew how this ended. Even eating became difficult.

She forced herself to consume the fruit she found, but it took her nearly an hour to finish a single piece. She could barely swallow. A heavy sadness sat on her chest and never seemed to lift. Her only offensive skill was [Mana Drill], and she had not killed a single person during the entire challenge. She had only healed. The only points she had came from the thousand daily survival points awarded for making it through one more day. Then, on the last day, the island began to collapse.

She ran toward the third zone even knowing it was probably pointless. Still, she refused to die without trying, refused to go down without at least throwing herself toward the other side.

"Give me the bracelet, please!" someone screamed. Cindy stood on a rooftop and looked down into the village below. A man with an orange bracelet was running from a crowd. She watched as they surrounded him.

"Let me go! Let me go!" They swarmed him, beating him to the ground. He died there in the middle of the street. Cindy watched the bracelet change hands again and again as people turned on each other for it. Then an explosion tore through the crowd. Most of them died instantly. The survivors collapsed around the blast, wounded and gasping.

"I have the bracelet now," a figure said, walking calmly among the injured.

"Why don't you come and take it from me?" The man laughed. Then others rushed him, and one by one they started dropping to the ground. The corpses around him began to release smoke. He kept walking, green vapor spilling from his body. Anyone who tried to get close died.

"Come on, try it!" he shouted, clapping mockingly.

"Go on." People clawed at their throats as they collapsed, unable to breathe. A group charged him with cloth wrapped over their noses and mouths. The man twisted away from their spear thrusts as he ran.

"Not laughing now, are you, bastard?!" someone shouted.

"Stay back!" he yelled, sprinting toward the forest. Cindy went after him. Poison. Now she understood what was happening, what was making people choke and fall. She ran through the forest and soon saw a region of rope bridges stretched across a vast abyss. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"I can't die," she whispered, still running. By the time she reached the fight, the man was already being overwhelmed. He tried to defend himself with a dagger, but it was useless. Spears kept punching through his guard. A group of women armed with spears pressed him from all sides. He screamed and thrust out a hand, firing a dark green sphere. When it burst, smoke flooded the area. One by one, the women began to fall. The man spat blood and smiled through it.

"There are poisons you don't need to breathe." As more people arrived, he stalked toward the bridge with smoke curling from his hand, anger rolling off him in waves. No one dared step into his path. The moment he set foot on the bridge, the people nearest him went weak, collapsed, and tumbled into the abyss below. Cindy came up behind him with a knife. Then he turned.

"You're tougher than you look, huh?" He raised a hand toward her. Cindy dropped to her knees, choking, then collapsed onto the wooden planks.

"With only ten enemies left after this, I've already won," he muttered as he kept walking toward the bridge.

"I'm getting off this island alive." Then Cindy forced herself back up and drove [Mana Drill] into the side of his head.

"Shit." He spun toward her. One of Cindy's hands pressed against her own body, glowing green.

"Damn it... a healer..." He lifted his hand again, but Cindy stabbed him before he could do anything.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She ripped every bracelet off his arm. The man crashed against the wooden bridge supports, then dropped into the abyss. Trembling, Cindy threw the bloodied knife to the ground and started running across the bridge. Other people were already closing in, drawn by the bracelet.

"Get back here!" someone shouted after her. From the bridge on the other side, someone fired an arrow into Cindy's leg, then another into her arm. One after another, they pierced her as she ran. Everything was going dark.

"No..." She kept moving.

"Stay away from me!"

"You can't run! You can't abandon us!" a woman screamed, then slashed through the bridge ropes with her sword. The bridge gave way beneath Cindy. With a desperate burst of strength, she tried to throw herself toward the far side, but overshot, slipped, and dropped, until suddenly a hand caught hers.

"Don't let me fall, please!" Cindy screamed.

"Please don't let me fall!" A woman hauled her up with one arm, straining with the effort even as arrows from the other side struck around them.

"Run!" she shouted. Cindy and the woman took off together, putting as much distance between themselves and the bridge as they could.

"They can't reach us here!" the woman yelled once they broke into the forest. Cindy dropped to the ground. Tears poured from her eyes and wouldn't stop.

"It's okay. You made it," the wounded woman said. Cindy cried for a while before finally managing, "What's your name?"

"Zoe," her savior replied. They stayed there for a moment. Cindy started healing her.

"I should've healed you sooner. I'm sorry. I panicked."

"It's okay."

"Thank you, Zoe. I don't even know how to repay you."

"This place brings out the worst in people," Zoe said.

"I just wanted to do one decent thing." The two of them looked at the notification hovering before them. [The third and final challenge is for the Red Bracelet! Proceed to the challenge area!]"We have to go," Zoe said.

Luke walked through the forest. Antony Brandt had run the moment Luke let him go. By the time Luke reached the agreed meeting place, he found a group of people already gathered around a campfire on the beach.

"It's a fake horizon. I shot an arrow at it," Ivor said.

"It's a wall." There were six people there already.

"There's a guy hiding in the bushes. Some kind of assassin," a woman said. Luke recognized her immediately. Madison Sullivan. [Attacking one another is forbidden! Anyone who does so will be disqualified!] The notification hovered above the fire.

"I'm guessing disqualified means dead," said a man sitting on the ground with a toothpick in his mouth and a cowboy hat tilted low over his face. He was leaning against a log, a massive crossbow resting across his lap, fitted with a scope like a sniper rifle.

"I'd assume so," said the assassin as he stepped out of the trees, half-mask covering his face beneath the hood. Luke sat down on a log.

"For now, all we can do is wait for the others," Madison said. Time passed. They stayed there in uneasy silence.

"So what's everyone's theory about the final challenge?" Madison asked at last.

"If only one of us is getting off this island alive, making us sit here and chat first is a pretty boring waste of time."

"My guess is they want us all to confirm the others are real," said the man in the cowboy hat. Oliver Black.

"And of course, to squeeze information out of us." Father Brandt had arrived a few minutes earlier. Then, when the sound of movement came from the forest again, the final two appeared. Zoe, with a woman beside her.

"Looks like the whole party made it," Madison said. Zoe sat on a log next to the other woman and deliberately avoided looking at Luke.

"Hey, everyone," Zoe said.

"Hey," a few of them answered.

"So all eleven of us are here," said a man in knight's armor carrying a shield. Roger.

"Now what?"

"No idea," Madison replied.

"What happens if someone breaks the rules right now, kills everybody else, and ends up the last one standing? Do they just win?" [All participants in the final challenge have arrived!]"Yeah, yeah, we know," Oliver muttered. Sixth Bracelet: Red Bracelet And then the island's final challenge appeared before them.