Chapter 3The Glitch That Deletes Gods

The players scrambled toward the massive gate, the one that represented freedom and their prize money.

"Ten million dollars, here I come! I'm gonna find ten girls and..."

"The Purgatory ain't so tough! I'm coming back tomorrow..."

Their faces were masks of greed and relief.

But the moment the gate began to slide open, their smiles vanished.

With a flick of my wrist, I disintegrated the first ten players who reached the threshold. The gate slammed shut again.

The scar-faced man, seeing his hope of escape evaporate, finally snapped. "You said you'd let us go! What is this?"

The others erupted. "What the hell? Why did they get to leave and we're still stuck here?"

"The ten players I just 'released' have satisfied the game's minimum survival quota," I explained calmly. "Now, I can kill every last one of you, and it wouldn't even be a violation of my programming."

Panic, pure and undiluted, washed over their faces.

I let it sink in before continuing. "However. The first player to hand over the Shade gets to live."

The fear on their faces was instantly wiped away, replaced by suspicion.

I sweetened the deal. "Find me the traitor who helped him, and I'll give you a ten-million-dollar bonus."

That did it. The scar-faced man immediately balked. "What traitor? There's no traitor! You're just making things up to mess with us!"

Oh, there was a traitor. A traitor who had planned this from the very beginning. Without his instigation, no Shade would ever dare dream of escaping. Not even in death.

"So, the goal is to find the escaped Shade and the traitor," I clarified.

The scar-faced man shot back, "He's dead! What's the point of looking for him?"

A thin smile stretched my lips.

"I want to see a body."