Somehow, I knew he would be in the throne room.

  I came rushed in, skidding across the tiled floor. “SANCTUARY!”

  The glowing barrier exploded around me, slamming into Wen Yong and sending him hurtling across the room like a rag doll. The whole thing probably would have been extremely funny if I hadn’t just been standing over the body of yet another dead friend.

  Who would be next?

  “This is your fault,” I said to Wen Yong, suddenly calm. He staggered to his feet as I advanced, and found himself backed into a corner with the curved surface of Sanctuary trapping him in place.

  Not that I could get any closer either. I stared at him. “Why?”

  He tried to laugh. “What do you mean, why?”

  “Do you not understand what I’m saying?”

  “Isn’t it obvious why?” I was hard to tell if he was grinning or grimacing. “Don’t you want to get out of here? Don’t you want to survive?”

  “So by that reasoning, if you had been playing Hang Tuah, we should all have immediately tried to kill you?”

  “It would make sense. Of course, I wouldn’t just lie down and take it.”

  “Yes, makes perfect sense.” I lifted my arms. “Divine Wrath.”

  The bolt slammed into him, tearing a piercing scream from his lungs. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, for him, he was sturdier than the soldiers I had attacked in fourth scenario. He writhed in his cramped corner, steam rising from his skin. A pattern of welts cobwebbed across his face.

  “Heal.”

  The patterns vanished, leaving him panting and wide-eyed. “You… You’re insane… You’re wasting your skills to –”

  “Inventory.” I pulled the Encyclopaedia from thin air. As the heavy tome landed in my hand, I let the momentum slam the spine of the book into Wen Yong’s face. He yelped in pain as his nose broke with a crack, blood flowing freely down his lips and chin.

  “Heal is on cooldown, so you’ll just have to deal with this,” I said.

  He blocked the next blow with his arms. It was difficult to swing the book anyway, with its size and weight, so I tossed the Encyclopaedia back into my Inventory and punched him instead.

  My first punch glanced off his ear, and when he shifted his arms to guard against a second, I punched him squarely in his already broken nose.

  Pain shot through my hand and up my arm, making me wince, enough for Wen Yong to raise his head and grin at me, blood etching the gaps between his teeth.

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Punching you? Yes, actually.”

  “No, I mean getting fucked by your friend.”

  It didn’t matter, in that moment, whether her knew or not that Lee Wai Meng had let me ‘cut-scene’ the event.

  My vision was gone.

  I’d heard about people getting black-out angry. It seemed like an exaggerated metaphor, just something that was said to indicate how angry they were.

  My neck seized, all the way to the base of my skull. I couldn’t feel my hands.

  When my vision returned, brown arms were looped under mine, holding me back. I was kicking, roaring in a voice I didn’t recognise, and Wen Yong, that fucker, was curled on the ground, clutching his face and chest, but laughing, laughing wildly with the pitch of someone on the edge of hysteria. I must have

  “Mik Tsaam,” Jesse said steadily in my ear, “you have to stop.”

  “LET GO OF ME!” I screamed, flailing my arms but unable to reach her. She had her arms firmly wrapped around mine, her hands pressed against the back of my neck.

  “Are you going to kill him?” she asked.

  “YES! I’M GOING TO KILL THAT BASTARD!”

  “And then? When he’s dead, will your anger be gone?”

  I wanted to say yes. I wanted to do anything to make her let go of me, let me tear him apart with my bare hands.

  “He’d be dead, but you’d still be angry,” she said relentlessly. “Stop, Mik Tsaam.”

  I slid slowly to the ground, as though she had cut my tendons. I couldn’t scream or even cry anymore. Jesse’s grip loosened. She followed me down, holding me close as we both crouched on the floor.

  “Besides,” she added, “you were punching him wrong. You’ll hurt yourself. Like this, use the big knuckles of your pointer and middle fingers, line up your wrist with your elbow… Good… Now punch.”

  Wen Yong had stumbled upright and was reaching for the throne, but Jesse lifted me from the floor like she was raising an avenging angel, or demon, guiding my fist as I swung it straight into Wen Yong’s abdomen.

  The punch connected. He sprawled back, unable to even gasp. Panic gripped his bloodied face; he couldn’t breathe. Even so, he reached for the throne again. I had to admire him somehow; even amidst the absolute terror of excess carbon dioxide building in his body, he still had the presence of mind to act.

  Why was he reaching for the throne?

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  The sultan was dead.

  How would this whole scenario be neatly tied up?

  An old, tyrannical sultan had died, and a fresh new ruler had taken their place.

  Smart. Smart bastard.

  “Inventory.” Jesse pulled something out so quickly that I only caught a flash of metal before Wen Yong screamed again.

  “Glad I kept this,” Jesse said lightly, pulling me back. A bear trap was clamped around Wen Yong’s leg. The wicked steel teeth bit into his flesh, immediately wet with blood. Gasping, he called up his own Inventory and pulled out a jug.

  I made an animal sound, turning to hide my eyes in Jesse’s neck. “The water…”

  “What is that?”

  “Golden Water… I gave it to Rohan…”

  Wen Yong didn’t even have time to raise the jug to his mouth. A black, shadowy presence plucked it from his hands and ferried it back towards the door, where Han Sung-hyuk stood with Peach and Calvin a little behind him. The two of them were holding each other tightly, their cheeks wet.

  “Was it worth it?” Jesse asked.

  “Did you enjoy it?” I asked, hoarsely.

  His bloodshot eyes found mine, then Jesse’s. She hissed suddenly, grabbing her head.

  “Jesse? What -?”

  “Get back!” she shouted to the three behind us. They had begun walking towards us, but froze at her shout. Then –

  Haltingly, Han Sung-hyuk began to walk forwards again.

  “Shit.” Jesse pushed me sideways, away from both Wen Yong and the now advancing Han Sung-hyuk, and drew the knife at her belt. “Sung-hyuk! Don’t listen to him!”

  A brain-washing skill. I looked towards Wen Yong, thinking I would need to knock him out, at the very least, but he had already slid down to the ground and was lying motionless, despite Han Sung-hyuk approaching unsteadily. Evidently, once the skill was activated, it didn’t need the caster’s continued concentration.

  Jesse had her knife held out in front of her. Calvin had backed to the door, pushing Peach behind him.

  My voice cracked.

  But I sang.

  I sang whatever came to mind. Some mindless pop song that I had sometimes found myself humming when alone at home, washing the dishes or sweeping.

  Han Sung-hyuk blinked and shook his head with an intake of breath. He looked around him, electric eyes falling on me, then Jesse.

  “The fuck…?”

  “Wen Yong has a brain-washing skill,” Jesse said, slowly lowering the knife. “Mik Tsaam just boosted your Luck so you could break out of it.”

  Those neon blue eyes landed on me again, unfathomable, and then away again.

  “You’re welcome,” I said loudly.

  His lips twitched. “Thank you.”

  Jesse prodded Wen Yong with her foot. “He’s out cold.”

  “What do we do?” Peach whispered. She and Calvin approached again, cautiously.

  “There are two things we need to decide,” Jesse said. “What to do with this –” She prodded Wen Yong. “– and how to manage the fact that the ‘Sultan’ is dead.” The way her dark eyes considered Wen Yong and the throne he had been reaching for, she had evidently come to the same conclusion as I.

  “Wai Meng,” Peach said. “We need to…”

  I wanted to ask Jesse what had happened with Angry_Birb, but I also didn’t want to know.

  “Peach, you should take the throne,” Jesse said, pinching the bridge of her nose.

  “Me? Why?”

  “Didn’t you notice? When we met the guards early, you seemed extremely popular. If anyone’s going to stage a military coup and take control, it should be someone who has the affection of the people, or at least the military.”

  Peach covered her face with her hands. “I must be Hang Tuah then. He’s the… hero… after all.”

  We all looked at the throne, then at the whimpering heap beside it.

  “Now this…” Jesse frowned. “I want everyone’s opinions. What should we do with Red?”

  No-one wanted to speak first. At last, Han Sung-hyuk made some kind of ambiguous, dismissive noise, but when we all looked at him, he turned away and remained silent.

  “I think…” Jesse said slowly, reluctantly, “that we need as many people as possible. Even if… just as a meat shield.”

  “How are we supposed to control him?” I asked. “He’s killed Rohan, and got W… Wai Meng killed. And Angry_Birb, I guess. And I just don’t trust him.”

  “I doubt anyone here trusts him. Does anyone have some kind of control skill?”

  One by one, we shook our heads.

  “Only this guy,” I muttered darkly, glancing at Wen Yong’s twitching body.

  “In short,” Jesse said, “we don’t trust him. We don’t have any way of conclusively managing him…” She folded her arms across her chest, but she seemed to almost be hugging himself. “… the only thing we can do is kill him, then.”

  “Is there nothing…?” Peach began, but bit back her own words.

  Nothing else was offered. We all looked at the floor, avoiding each other’s gazes.

  I broke the silence at last with a pathetic squeaky voice. “Who… Who’s going to kill him?”

  Again, Han Sung-hyuk snorted.

  “Is that you volunteering?” Jesse asked coolly.

  He didn’t look at her. “I was just… thinking of something.”

  “Care to share with the class?”

  I was suddenly aware that… Jesse didn’t really like Han Sung-hyuk. She was courteous enough with him, but there always seemed to be a slight edge to their interactions. I understood it, somewhat. Han Sung-hyuk had a tendency to watch from the shadows, rarely stepping in, his electric blue eyes watching. I had the impression of a waiting predator, although his sudden possession earlier had surprised me. Was he not as strong as I thought?

  “I have a skill,” he said slowly, choosing his words with excessive care. “One-use only.” He stopped.

  “And?” Jesse asked coldly. I’d never seen her so agitated.

  “I can… revive the dead. Once.”

  The full implications of what he had said surged up through us a moment later.

  “Then Wai Meng…”

  “Hang on,” Jesse said, raising her hand. “Forgive me for asking, but did you only recently get this skill? Why didn’t you use it on your sister?”

  A crack appeared in Han Sung-hyuk’s fa?ade, and for a moment, a stricken boy’s eyes stared out at us, before he blinked and glanced away. “I… I wasn’t where she was.”

  “You need to be able to see the body,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “If it’s a one-use skill…” Jesse murmured. She groaned and grabbed her forehead. “Guys, I’m… I need to ask this too. Should we use this skill right now? It’s… I know it sounds horrible, but what if this isn’t the best utilisation? We’ve got to think carefully about this.”

  “I think it is,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “Wai Meng is… was… is a pain in the arse, but he’s an Administrator. He’s been able to help a few times, even if it’s been limited.”

  “I agree,” Peach said quickly, drying her face messily with her hands. “We’ll need his admin privileges.”

  “It just means,” Calvin said quietly, “that if someone else dies, we have no way of reviving them.”

  “We didn’t really before,” Jesse said. “Our friend here has just provided us with an unexpected opportunity.”

  “I was thinking of our…” He grimaced. “We’ve all survived this long for a reason. Would it… Shit… Wouldn’t it be better to save it for if one of the longest-surviving players dies?”

  “What if Sung-hyuk is the next to die?” I pointed out. It felt weird not using his full name. “Then we don’t have any revives.”

  No-one had anything else to say, after that.

  Jesse said, “Then we’ve decided. Peach will become the sultan, Sung-hyuk will revive Lee Wai Meng… and Red… needs to die.”

  “Should we get the guards to execute him as a traitor?”

  “We don’t know the details of his brain-washing skill. He could have them turn on us.” She ran her thumb over the hilt of her knife. “I’ll do it.”

  No-one looked happy about his announcement, but then no-one offered to take her place, either. Han Sung-hyuk suddenly straightened himself and marched out of the throne room, presumably to find Lee Wai Meng’s body. After a moment of hesitation, Calvin and Peach hurried after him.

  “I’ll stay here,” I said.

  Somehow, I needed to. I needed to bear witness to this death. I needed to be there with Jesse as she plunged the knife.

  “Mik Tsaam, you don’t have to.”

  “I know.”

  She nodded, and crouched by Wen Yong’s shivering form. “He still seems to be out cold. That’s… lucky.”

  I laid my hands briefly on her shoulders, then stepped back as she gently pulled his head back to reveal his throat.

  I think I saw the knife enter his neck, but I don’t remember.