Chapter 194: Faltering Thoughts

Chapter 194: Faltering ThoughtsAnd now he’d gone and killed himself for her.

Tidwell let out a shaky breath. His hand rose and pressed to his side. Wet. Still bleeding. The pain barely registered under the noise in his head. His eyes were still fixed on the exact spot where Elias had knelt.

Gone. Just like that.

No dramatic speech. No real goodbye. No last laugh to spite the system. Just a choice. One last damn choice.

The ground didn’t even remember him. His blood was still there, but the body was gone. The image stuck in Tidwell’s head like a migraine.

The guy who chained us up. Who left us there to die.

The guy who also pulled us through hell before that.

His mouth opened again. No sound came.

Around him, others were moving. He heard Faye cry out, saw Kikaru fall forward onto Elias’s last imprint. Saw Wes stiffen like someone punched through his chest. Paul was saying something—loud and unsure—but Tidwell didn’t register the words.

He didn’t move.

He didn’t blink.



His cloud Ikona finally descended, brushing low over his shoulder. Its touch was faint. Barely even real.

"Why’d you do it?" Tidwell whispered. His voice cracked halfway through. "You dumb bastard... why now?"

He didn’t expect an answer.

He just stood there, leaning into the railing, eyes locked on the fading echoes of the man he’d wanted to hate—until he didn’t get the chance.

His Ikona pulsed faintly beside him—steadier than most—but its rhythm had shifted. The once soft glow now flickered, a delay between each beat, like even it was confused. The little orbs it spat occasionally drifted into the air and hung there, unmoving, refusing to pop.

He’d said it minutes ago. Said it with conviction.

He’ll fight for us. Even now.

But Elias wasn’t fighting anymore. He was fading.

The figure on the sand was barely visible—translucent, glowing, drained. Wes didn’t move. He couldn’t. His posture was locked, rigid. His jaw clenched hard enough to hurt. His nails dug into the sleeves of his jumpsuit as if anchoring himself to the present, to a world that still made sense.

Only it didn’t.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Elias was the one who survived. He always found a way—through the pods, the Drip Hall, the net bindings. Through the resort. Through Vincent.

So why was he lying in the dirt, vanishing?

Wes blinked. Once. His lips parted, but no sound came.

He hadn’t cried when Elias left A Block. Not when the net bound him, or when his Ikona dimmed to near nothing under the system’s pull. He didn’t cry when Paul screamed or when Faye lost Colby. But something about this—

Something about the silence after that explosion, the stillness of Kikaru’s hands over Elias’s chest, the way Dot just hovered without speaking—

It cracked something in him.



He remembered the pod room. Remembered standing in front of the others, too exhausted to argue, too focused on survival. Elias had taken Junjio and left the rest of them to rot. Wes hadn’t understood it then. He still didn’t now. Was this the payoff? That choice? That betrayal?


Or was this... his apology?

The thought twisted something in his chest. He wasn’t angry.

He was just tired.

Tired of trying to piece together the reasons behind decisions none of them had time to talk through. Tired of losing people before they could explain themselves.

He’d followed Elias’s lead more times than he’d ever admitted. Through chaos. Through silence. Through moments like this where none of it made sense and all he could do was hope the man knew what he was doing.

But now?

Wes exhaled, a short, clipped breath that shook once at the end. He didn’t trust himself to say anything.

Didn’t trust himself not to say too much.

His Ikona dimmed again, one of the tiny orbs popping louder than usual, releasing a quick static pulse. It bounced against his chest like it was waiting for an answer.

He gave none.

He just kept staring down at the arena, at the man who should’ve still been standing.

At the man who didn’t even get to say goodbye.Paul stood beside the others, his crystal Ikona faintly pulsing at his side, its spiraled shape catching the edge of the light as it refracted outward. The normally smooth rhythm of its motion had stopped. It hovered still, uncertain, its subtle glow dimmer than it should’ve been.

His posture was locked, hands clenched tight against his thighs. Not from anger—he didn’t know what this was yet. Shock, maybe. Maybe disbelief.

He stared down at the center of the arena, eyes fixed on the fading silhouette of Elias. That body. That blade. That light.

It didn’t make sense.



"Why would he do that..."

The words never left his mouth, but they looped through his head. He felt them building in his throat, trapped somewhere between breath and panic. Everything Elias had done to get here—the bindings, the corridors, the second-round selection—he’d made every move like someone clawing toward survival. Like someone who had a plan.

And now he was just... gone?

Paul took a step back. It wasn’t calculated. It wasn’t reflex. His body just moved, like it couldn’t bear to be too close to the center anymore.

His Ikona shifted slightly, the outer edge of the crystal spiral twitching in a nervous flick. Paul didn’t glance at it. He didn’t need to.

He could feel it in the base of his skull—something about this wasn’t right.

Elias had talked about breaking the system. About bending rules. But this—this looked final. This looked like giving up. And Paul didn’t know what to do with that.

The other contestants around him felt distant. Tidwell’s silence, Wes’s sharp breath, even Junjio’s collapse—all of it blurred against the weight pressing against Paul’s chest.

His breath came shallow. The kind that made you question if you were breathing at all.

Elias had chosen this. Not just accepted it. He’d made it happen. Forced it. And maybe that’s what bothered Paul most.

There wasn’t time to make sense of it.

There wasn’t time to change it.