Unholy Player-Chapter 220: Burden

"H-Help me."

Adyr paused mid-step, having been following the trail deeper into the corridor, when the voice reached him.

Turning, he spotted the source: one of the players, sprawled across the floor. His arm had been torn off entirely. Both legs—crushed, as if something massive had flattened them. Yet, somehow, he was still alive and conscious. Watching Adyr with bloodshot, pleading eyes.

Adyr exhaled quietly.

"Weak... yet stubborn enough to keep breathing," he muttered, changing direction and approaching him.

The wounded player’s expression shifted when he saw Adyr moving closer. Even through the agony twisting his face, a fragile flicker of hope broke through.

"P-Please... I don’t want to die. Help me." His voice cracked, forced from a throat weakened by blood loss.

Despite losing both legs and an arm, he wasn’t dead. He was a mutant. A Player. As long as his core systems held, survival was highly possible. His injuries weren’t inherently fatal. With the right medical support, even his missing limbs could be replaced—new biological augments grafted in.

He knew that. Which meant he saw Adyr as his lifeline. His chance.

Adyr stopped beside him, his expression unreadable. "How exactly do you expect me to help you?"

There was no one else. No backup coming. This deep underground, no STF team would reach him. Adyr was all he had.

The player hesitated, then spoke, voice shaking. "Y-You can carry me...? If I stay here, they’ll find me. They’ll finish me off."

Adyr gave a slight tilt of his head, his voice steady and unemotional. "Why would I do that?"

The words hung heavy in the silence.

He continued without changing his tone. "You came here for a mission and got yourself crippled—that was your first mistake. Now you’re just a burden you expect someone else to carry. Isn’t that pathetic?"

The player froze. He didn’t answer.

But Adyr saw it—the subtle shift in his expression. The unwillingness to accept the truth he’d just been handed.

"You’re not... you’re not actually leaving me here to die, are you?" The player whispered.

His gaze searched Adyr’s face but found nothing there. No trace of empathy. No hint of hesitation.

Then, suddenly, Adyr smiled.

"Of course not."

The next moment, a boot crushed down against his throat. He heard the crack—felt it, deep in his spine—as his neck snapped under the pressure.

Silence returned.

Adyr withdrew his foot, the faintest trace of the smile fading as if it had never been there. His face returned to its natural calm, eyes cold and detached.

Without a word, he turned and continued forward, his steps steady as if nothing had happened.

As he moved through the maze-like corridors, the floor told a brutal story—countless signs of fierce struggle were scattered in every direction. Footprints crisscrossed among shattered debris, and mutant bodies lay fallen, their deaths clearly inflicted by the group.

A little further ahead, the chaos intensified. Adyr paused, his eyes sweeping over every detail with methodical precision. The depth and spacing of the footprints revealed more than numbers; they spoke of size and weight. The cracked floor and walls bore pressure marks from something immense, too heavy for ordinary mutants.

Jagged fractures in the walls resembled the aftermath of a bulldozer’s rampage. The image of the player whose legs had been crushed here came vividly to mind. Two extraordinary mutants had clearly joined the fight.

The tracks aligned with desperate haste—evidence of the group’s frantic retreat, splitting at a fork just ahead. By comparing stride length and foot shape, Adyr identified Victor and Dalin taking the left path, confirming what he had seen during Victor’s earlier video call.

To the right, unfamiliar prints—those of the top player from Shelter City 8, as Adyr had already deduced—were paired with Selina’s smaller, lighter steps. Behind them, heavier tracks marked the relentless pursuit of two dominant mutants and their minions.

Every fragment fit together like clockwork in his mind—no guesswork involved. Cold observation and deductive logic rendered the battlefield an open book.

When those two monstrous mutants appeared, the group had no chance. Overwhelmed, they broke formation and fled, splitting at the fork where their paths diverged.

Curious about the two extraordinary mutants, Adyr’s choice was clear—he took the right path, where Selina and the unknown player had fled, with those two monsters close behind.

As for Dalin and Victor, he didn’t worry. The ones chasing them were only ordinary mutants, though numerous. Still, to ensure their safety, he decided to send a warning. He unleashed his Presence into both corridors, Malice bleeding in like a dark horror, letting it fill every inch ahead of him.

As he stood watching, the cave trembled beneath him. Even the stones shuddered, gripped by a silent fear born from his very existence.

—

"Ahh... my legs can’t carry me anymore," Victor gasped, his voice cracking as he ran. Behind him, a swarm of mindless mutants chased, their growls echoing through the tunnel.

He looked exhausted, far beyond normal fatigue. His already pale skin had turned almost bloodless, sickly in the dim light coming from their wrist devices. His left arm hung limp at his side as he ran, swinging uselessly with each step.

It looked broken—unnaturally so. His fingers bent at odd angles, as if every bone inside had shattered. The tips of his fingers were worse; the nails were torn off completely, leaving his fingertips raw and destroyed.

"Stop whining and keep running, idiot. We’re in this mess because of you, remember?" Dalin snapped beside him. Her once-fiery red hair had lost much of its shine, dulled and heavy with dirt. Her entire body was streaked with mud from head to toe.

Not long ago, while searching for this underground facility, they had been following Evangeline, whose investigative-type skill allowed her to safely navigate the barren lands ahead of the group, marking a secure path for them to follow. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

But Victor, too caught up in the thrill of riding his motorcycle, had broken formation. Recklessly pushing ahead, he ignored the others and Evangeline’s lead. His speeding bike had triggered the collapse of unstable ground, sending the entire group crashing down into this underground cavern without warning.

"Why is it my fault? It was an accident, alright?" Victor snapped, his voice breaking as he stumbled forward. "And how do you even know Evangeline’s skill would have detected that the ground was loose? She couldn’t have known it would collapse."

But when he glanced back and saw the approaching mutants closing the distance, his defiance crumbled. His voice cracked again, turning to a pitiful whimper. "If Eren were here... he’d sacrifice himself for us. Let us escape."

Dalin’s temper flared. "What the fuck are you talking about? Why would he do something like that when all of this is your fault?" She wasn’t even sure if Victor was serious or just rambling under pressure.

"What do you think brothers exist for...?" Victor muttered as if it were obvious, but before he could finish, his foot caught on debris and he stumbled forward, crashing to the ground.

"You idiot..." Dalin’s frustration turned into panic. She lunged toward him, grabbing his uninjured arm and trying to haul him up—but before she could, cold, iron-like fingers clamped down around her own arm from behind.

"Ahh!" The pain shot through her instantly. Whatever was holding her had the strength to crush stone to dust. She kicked and struggled as her arm burned from the pressure, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw a second mutant’s massive jaws lunging toward her face.

This is it.

The thought passed through her mind as she squeezed her eyes shut, the sharp certainty of death washing over her.

But just as she braced for the end, something passed over them. A gentle warmth, strangely comforting. The fear, the weight of death itself, faded as if it had never existed.