[Contestant 5, Hoax.] <>
[He/Him. Team DrachenTech. Veteran. Sponsor.]
This guy… Yeah.
This guy was more in line with what Neon expected a Sponsor to be.
Hoax’s arrival was heralded by the dissolution of the fortress, deconstructing and refracting into electric particles that scattered across the fog like pixelated fireflies.
No more cardboard cutout castles. Just gloom, fog, and the decay beneath. In the center of the barren swamp now sat a throne. In it, a self-appointed king.
The old man was dressed in a somehow stuffier uniform than Levia’s. A tailored, high-collared military coat, adorned with gold embroidery and medals. Though the clothes gave him an air of regal imposingness, they were nothing but surface-level.
Expensive wallpaper for an emaciated structure that had already begun its slow rot decades ago, held together by sheer stubbornness and all the surgical procedures that money could buy.
His face told the real story. Stained skin stretched tightly over prominent cheekbones, thin enough to display a map of veins underneath. Pale blue eyes, nearly colorless, flat and milky. Lips dry as sand, crumbling at the edges.
“Twenty years…” Hoax murmured, more to himself than anyone else. His fingers adjusted his silver-white hair, even when it had already been slicked back into perfection. Then, he spoke louder, with all the crisp weight of ancient aristocracy addressing some lowly peasants. “Twenty years since I last sullied my hands in this godforsaken circus.”
>> “And yet here I am. Drawn by a grief stronger than age itself.”
Or so he said.
Neon couldn’t detect any trace of actual sorrow in his voice. Nah, this wasn’t grief. This was too performative. Only cold satisfaction tincted Hoax’s words as he surveyed the scene.
The scene of Nomine coughing and writhing inside the dissipating miasma, of Neon restrained and held by gunpoint, and of all his little soldiers standing like gargoyles in his court of law.
A faint smile touched Hoax’s lips, adjusting the cuffs of his immaculate white gloves. Yet the gesture didn’t feel particularly joyful. This looked closer to the self-congratulatory smirk of a chess master reviewing a solved board.
But what did Neon know? With a face that looked ready to crumble into ash like a poorly-preserved mummy, maybe he simply couldn’t support to express too much anymore.
“Black Lion of the VileSports.” The title rolled off Hoax’s tongue with a hint of venomous respect. He only had eyes for Nomine. Neon might as well have been part of the scenery. “You murdered my son with that blade of yours.”
Oh, great. Another guy with a vendetta. How many enemies could this one singular edgelord have? Had he double-crossed half the world already?
“When you claimed Friedrich as a victim, you didn’t simply take my heir.” Hoax’s voice never rose, much less strain. He was calm and composed, certain of his own grace. “You also brought shame to the entire Von Drachenfels name for everyone to laugh at.”
>> “Tonight, Dieter and I confront you to correct that mistake. Educate the world about what happens when a lesser dreg forgets their place.”
Despite being reduced to his knees, only kept in place by the support of his word jammed into the ground, Nomine chuckled bitterly.
“Haha… Never heard of him.”
>> “But I bet he bled real fucking good.”
Hoax went still, something sharp and vicious flickering behind his milky eyes. For a moment, Neon thought the old man might actually snap back, lose his cool, show his true colors —anything that a human would do. But no.
The veteran sponsor inhaled slowly, and the fracture sealed itself as if it had never existed.
“I won’t waste breath. There is no arguing with a feral animal. We’ll simply demonstrate our superiority in your own primitive language.”
>> “That of violence.” His attention turned to Levia with all the interest of someone ordering wine. “Dieter, if you please.”
Levia’s posture straightened into military rigidity at the mention, his steel-blue eyes holding a hint of humanity that was yet to be fully extinguished. The look of someone about to do something they hated because refusal had been beaten out of them so, so long ago.
Still, he nodded, swift and obedient.
“Understood, Father.”
What followed was a visceral, one-sided beatdown.
The young heir didn’t use his hands, almost as if following some sort of unspoken decree. Instead, Levia limited himself only to his boots.
His expression remained blank, dutiful, almost as empty as the armored puppets flanking Neon. But each blow carried its own devastating weight, landing on Nomine’s ribs, then jaw, then sternum —over and over until the veteran’s body snapped from the agony.
And even like this, Nomine refused to cry out in pain.
Refused to give them any satisfaction.
A third strike came from above. Levia’s boot drove down onto Nomine’s skull with enough force to bury his face in the mud, and then kept him there.
“I could think of countless ways to subdue you.” Clearly enjoying the sound of his own voice, Hoax prattled on, leisurely, as bubbles emerged from where Nomine’s head was pinned beneath the surface. “Hardly surprising. I have forgotten more about combat than you will ever know.”
>> “And yet… You look best under a Von Drachenfels’ foot.”
What twisted logic. The old man spoke of combat, when this was nothing but a rigged execution. Called Nomine a beast, then treated him like sport. It was obvious something had been done to him, same as the soldiers. Something to leave him handicapped and defanged.
And now this scum had the audacity to congratulate himself for this victory? Ridiculous. This battle held no merit. It proved nothing except their willingness to rig every deck in their favor.
Neon’s scowl at the brutal torture could only last so long. Suddenly, it was him the one under the stare of the overlord.
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“Surely you understand. Right, young man? You, who’s been shackled into partnership with this monster against your will. Forced to walk beside a demon simply in order to survive.”
Such presumption… As if this fossil could understand anything about them…
“Why talk to me?” Neon’s reply came out bluntly, colored by his own mounting frustration. “Should I start preparing for my turn next?”
“Heavens, no. We’re not barbarians driven by crude thirst for bloodshed.” Ah, how magnanimous of him. What a joke. “There’s no need for fear, Neon.”
>> "In your hands lies the choice to remain unscathed. All you need to do is behave. Never mind the conditions of this hunt. When you possess a power like mine, rules are but suggestions.”
Levia got the memo. The Dark Waters tendrils binding Neon’s wrists began to recede, peeling away like parasites commanded to abandon their meal. They slithered back into the marsh, leaving red imprints where they had once clung.
The soldiers lowered their weapons, though that remained poised to change with any excuse —like cops eager for a riot to escalate.
Now wasn’t that real fucking dandy.
Right after he had promised Nomine to abandon him the first chance he got, no less. Here it was. A ticket out, delivered by the very monsters behind this hellhole. The edgelord had it coming. That much Neon knew with bone-deep certainty.
Nomine wasn’t someone he should root for, much less try to defend. Hadn’t he made abundantly clear that they were doing nothing more than use each other? That any cooperation or loyalty between them was coercive in nature since there was no gain in betrayal?
Wasn’t this the same rhetoric he employed to slaughter four innocent people who had offered them shelter, warmth and the possibility of friendship?
And yet…
“My benevolence isn’t for free, of course.” Hoax continued, as if Neon’s compliance had already been purchased. “You’ll join us humbling this cur. Help restore our honor. Serve justice.”
... Neon would sooner eat glass than side with someone his ilk.
"Justice? You call this justice? Don't make me laugh."
This was just revenge dressed in fancy clothes. The powerful exerting their will upon the rest, calling it righteousness because they had authority while the other party didn’t.
As always, they wanted accomplices. Landlords renaming evictions into enforcement of standards. Corporations rebranding exploitation into providing opportunities. Governments capitalizing on fear, calling it safety.
Neon had already made this choice before, and he’d make it again every time. It was the self-destructive part of his brain that chose kindness even when it was stupid. The part that clung to principles over convenience. The part that could never live with the betrayal of his own beliefs.
“Excuse me?” Hoax’s expression shifted subtly, the pretense of politeness slipping just enough to reveal the putrid rot underneath.
“You heard me, you decrepit clown.” Neon pushed himself back to his feet, fueled by the reckless courage of someone who had already died. “You can take that justice of yours…”
>> “… And shove it sideways up your wrinkled ass.”
The old man’s hands trembled into fists at the sight of Neon’s raised middle finger, one eyelid twitching wildly from the barely suppressed irritation. A reaction far sharper than the last, this time drowned only by pride.
"Valiant as you are, you seem sorely confused."
>> "I never asked for your opinion.”
Hoax didn’t need volume nor venom for the clarification to land like a blow. The delivery of a man who didn’t have the need to raise his voice to make people disappear.
In a flourishing gesture, the sponsor summoned a cane from the techno-ether to materialize in one of his withered hands —an ebony scepter wrapped in gold filigree, crowned by a crystalline purple sphere pulsing in unholy light.
With it, he tapped the ground below his feet twice, and in consequence, one of his armored retainers sprang into action. Chameleon.
Her movements were vicious, closing in on Neon with terrifying purpose. The rookie’s arms rose by reflex, even when he already knew this was a losing battle. There was no way he could face several people at once.
But if he was going down, it’d be kicking and screaming all the way to the very end. He’d make them work for it. Neon was ready to bite, scratch, gouge, or anything he could improvise to fight.
This wasn’t that. It would never be that.
Those who issued commands never held enough respect for life.
Chameleon’s hand moved to her gear, wrapping around something that gleamed under the spectral moon. A combat knife, longer than Neon’s hand and serrated along one edge for maximum tissue damage. She drew it efficiently, as if whatever that controlled her had etched the motions into memory.
She then reversed the grip, as soon as she towered over an unprepared Neon.
Her visor reflected nothing. No fear, hesitation, or recognition of what she was about to do. Of the knife plunged into her own throat, driven inside with full commitment, disappearing into flesh until only the hilt remained visible.
Crimson sprayed across Neon’s features in hot trails that made him flinch far too late. His hand came up uselessly, as if he could stop or unsee or reverse what had happened. Blood wasn’t the only thing that fountained from Chameleon’s ruined throat.
Purple dust billowed out in thick, choking clouds. The itching in his nose felt familiar —these were the same, sickly lavender particles that had been dancing lazily through the fog ever since they’d first stepped into it.
Now they poured from Chameleon like spores from a burst mushroom cap.
Soon, Neon was swallowed by this shower of contamination.
[Skill: Panspermic Infection Lvl 10] <>
Perfect symbiosis, craving slaves.
Neon’s lungs tried to close on contact —tried to reject the intrusion— but there was no point. The spores filtered through his squeezed-shut eyelids, invaded through his nose, scraped down his throat with every desperate gasp. They tasted putrid, like trying to down acrid ashes fresh from the morgue.
And Hoax had been dosing them with this poison all along.
A level 10 skill. Frightening. So this was the instrument behind Nomine’s collapse after just one concentrated cloud. Likely also the leash controlling the entire brigade, forcing them to follow Hoax’s orders even if they meant death.
The distress call. It had never been a cry for help. Its true purpose was to beckon contestants like flies to a honey trap, luring them to enter this contaminated marsh where every breath took another dent at autonomy. Hoax had engineered this quite meticulously, hadn’t he? Built his fortress one conscripted body at a time.
Neon felt the spores burrowing further, worming through his sinuses, coating his lungs. His body wanted to push them out desperately, coughing once, twice, but every intake of air invited the infection further inside.
And then he… Blinked?
Uh… Shouldn’t he be contorting in agony right about now? Seizing even worse than Nomine since his defenses were probably far more pitiful? No?
Neon just stood there. He blinked again, and his eyes obeyed. He flexed his fingers, and they responded like always. His thoughts remained his own —chaotic, sure, but undeniably his.
Equally dumbfounded, Hoax’s eyebrow arched in confusion all the way from the other side of his kingdom. Actual, genuine confusion on that half-mummified face.
The gears inside Neon’s head turned for a lil bit until it all clicked.
Voyage of the Fool! Panspermic Infection’s way of control was deemed a form of mental control by the system, so Neon was immune to it.
Hoax couldn’t touch him.
A grin threatened to emerge on Neon’s face, but he crushed it down. Instead, he let his hands tremble, let his knees wobble. Hunched inwards like his spine forced him to. It wasn’t hard to fake. All he had to do was mimic Nomine.
Neon was confident his acting didn’t need to be good. And even if he would never pass any audition, in this dim light, through fog, observed by someone blinded by both old age and arrogance? It was enough.
Hoax’s posture reclined on his throne with smug satisfaction. This was it. The wrinkle in the sponsor’s grand design. Something the fossil could’ve never predicted. Never accounted for.
Neon sank to his knees, head bowing as he let his unruly hair fall across his eyes, playing the part of a consciousness being overwritten.
Inside, though, his mind was a hurricane.
It was a miracle he had any shot at all.
So it was crucial to make it count.