Season 1. Chapter 70:
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CHAPTER: "Caught in the Dark"
"You had a gift. Too bad you weren't chosen to keep it."
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🌫️ Twilight in the Verdant Wilds
The forest felt quiet again.
Not peaceful—quiet like a beast had just entered.
Wilbur felt it before he saw it. A prickling in the air. The plants stilled around him. The moisture in the lake trembled, not from wind—but from intent.
He had just reshaped half the southern grove with a massive surge of blue Vita—birthing ponds, cloaking trees in mist, and forming natural walls of water-rooted defense.
> "That should hold them back…" he muttered, panting, gripping his map tighter.
Then… a shadow moved.
No sound.
Just movement.
And the faint shimmer of something unreal.
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⚫ Zack Erebus Has Arrived
Zack stood only twenty feet away—half-shadowed beneath a moss-covered boulder.
His white long headband fluttered slightly in the breeze. His black sleeves and pants were clean, unbothered by travel. His face was neutral. Blank.
But his eyes—
Cold. Fixed. Certain.
In one hand: a simple iron dagger, sharpened to a ghost's whisper.
> No flourish. No trick. No entrance music.
Just presence.
Wilbur froze.
> "You're… one of them," he said slowly, backing a step. "The Catcher."
Zack said nothing.
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🎒 Amber Seized by Fear
The amber stone inside Wilbur's pack glowed faintly, then dimmed.
Froze.
As if reacting to the overwhelming threat. It knew the rules: Zack had the authority to eliminate any player caught abusing loopholes or tampering with divine equilibrium.
Wilbur had made a mistake—he'd gone too loud, too fast, too big.
And Zack had followed the trail of imbalance directly here.
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💦 Wilbur's Desperate Stand
Wilbur inhaled sharply, backing toward the lake he'd just formed.
> "I'm not going down easy," he whispered, eyes glowing. "I earned this. I got this blessing fair."
> "You're not a god."
Zack's expression didn't flicker.
Wilbur raised both hands.
Water surged, rising in a massive swirl behind him like a reverse tidal wave. The trees bent, pressure intensified, the entire clearing drenched in Vita.
> "Let's see if darkness can drown," Wilbur growled.
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🕳️ But You Can't Drown the Void
The water burst forward like a living serpent, crashing in from all angles.
And Zack—
Walked through it.
Unfazed.
His form didn't even shimmer. The water parted around him like it refused to touch him. Darkness doesn't resist water.
It devours it.
All natural elements—water, fire, wind, stone—simply don't register. They lack the spiritual density to interact with the non-element that is void-borne darkness.
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🪡 The End Comes Without Sound
Wilbur's heart sank.
He stepped back, trying to draw more Vita—
Too slow.
Zack's form blurred.
Then—
Thread.
Invisible.
Silent.
Tightening.
Wilbur's arms froze mid-cast. His legs buckled.
He didn't even see the strands—nonexistent threads wrapping around his limbs, shoulder, neck. Paralyzing his spiritual network with pure absence.
> "No fair—" Wilbur gasped.
Zack's dagger gleamed once.
Not a slice. Not a cut.
Just a gesture.
Wilbur's vision snapped to black.
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☄️ Eliminated
> [Player Orangedubz – Eliminated]
[Amber Seized]
[Spiritual Trail Redirected to: Center of the Universe]
(Vita Contract with Flora Suspended)
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⚫ Zack Walks On
No words.
No pride.
Zack walked out of the lake clearing as if he'd only paused to tie his boots.
He glanced once over his shoulder.
> "Too loud," he muttered.
Then disappeared into the trees.
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CHAPTER: "The Roots Remember"
Some bloom. Some wither. All return to the soil.
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🌿 Verdant Realm: Eternal Twilight
High above the mortal forest where trees still shifted and players hunted one another, the Verdant Throne sat undisturbed. Time didn't pass here. It grew.
Flora, barefoot and radiant, reclined in her living throne of flowering vines and moss, arms wrapped around a bundle of blooming vines. Goldenberries sat uneaten beside her.
Her luminous eyes were cast toward a single shimmering thread in the vast green canopy overhead.
It flickered, then snapped.
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😔 "He Was So Close…"
> "Wilbur."
She whispered the boy's name gently.
The glowing thread above her curled in on itself and blinked out.
> "He was so close…" she said to no one and to everything. "His courage bloomed. His Vita answered."
> "But fate chose the wolf."
Below her in the moss-carpeted reflection pool, the image of Zack Erebus walking away through fading mist replayed once more — calm, sharp, without remorse.
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🧝♀️ Amarathus Watches in Silence
Kneeling nearby, her white-and-gold robe pristine, Amarathus lowered her head slightly, then spoke with gentle reverence.
> "When he returns to Caelus, he will be weaker. He'll lose his accumulated points."
> "But not his spark."
Flora didn't respond at first.
Then she nodded.
> "He'll try again."
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🧩 Yarrow's Plan for Higher Trials
Amarathus continued, her voice neutral.
> "The Arbiter Yarrow has already assigned him to a different tier upon his return. No longer the forest stages."
> "He'll face mechanical labyrinths, fractured dimension loops, and logic gods who don't even understand mercy."
> "But he'll be better for it."
Flora exhaled—soft, floral, fragrant.
> "If he learns. Not all roots regrow the same."
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🐺 Zack: The Chosen Predator
She gazed again at the reflection.
Zack's calm, cold face.
A predator not born of malice—but of function.
> "The wolf saw the rabbit," she murmured. "And the game let him win."
> "Survival of the fittest," Amarathus replied, almost as a ritual phrase.
> "Strategy, luck… even divine gifts. It doesn't matter unless you carry it all the way."
Flora reached for another goldenberry but didn't eat it.
Instead, she placed it softly beside the fading memory of Wilbur's pond—one of a hundred stories dying in the roots of the Amber Game.
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🌍 The Game Continues
From her throne, Flora observed the forest floor again.
More threads dancing. Some tangled. Some cut. Some burning brightly for now.
> "They fall," she said, "and they bloom again."
> "The Game doesn't love them. But it remembers."
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CHAPTER: "The Quiet Return"
He didn't run. He didn't hide. He just arrived—with results.
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🌘 Somewhere in the Bioluminescent Grove
Nico was mid-rant about crooked forest paths again, scratching behind his ear, his tail flicking irritably. Oliver adjusted the strap of his mask, watching the warped branches above swirl in odd, unrooted spirals.
Then — a pulse.
A shadow split open behind them with no sound. No rustle. No distortion of air.
And from it stepped—
> "Zack."
Calm. Unbothered. His black-and-white gloves still clean.
In his hand, a glowing amber stone.
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🦎 The Right Amber
The amber had the correct symbol glowing faintly within: the sigil of a lizard—one of the few true targets in the illusion forest.
Nico blinked. "Already?"
Oliver turned, jaw tightening beneath the white mask.
> "How did you get it?" he asked.
Zack's response was quiet.
> "I eliminated a player," he said simply. "Orangedubz."
Nico raised an eyebrow. "Wilbur? That map guy?"
Zack nodded once.
> "Caught. Outplayed. Done."
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🥶 The Chill in Oliver's Spine
Oliver didn't speak immediately.
He knew the rules. He knew the game. But…
> "So… he's out," Oliver said, voice lower. "No points. No pass. Just—gone."
Zack didn't clarify. He didn't need to. He wasn't proud. He wasn't sad.
It was just fact.
Nico shrugged, already flipping the amber over. "It's how the system works. He could've eliminated us just the same. Fair game."
But Oliver looked down at the lizard-etched amber in Zack's palm.
Something about it felt heavy.
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🚷 An Unwanted Witness
Just then, a distant crunch of leaves.
A lone player — maybe green-ranked — stumbled through the mist toward the trio.
His eyes caught the group.
Then Zack.
The player froze.
Seconds ticked.
The stranger's eyes widened.
He took two steps back.
Didn't say a word. Didn't wave. Just turned and retreated into the trees.
No one chased him. They didn't need to.
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📛 Reputation
Oliver noticed it now.
> Zack didn't just carry the amber.
He carried a growing reputation.
A wolf among players.
No anger. No warning. Just absolute efficiency.
And in this game… that might be scarier than rage.
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✅ One Step Closer
> "One lizard down," Zack said, tossing the amber lightly to Oliver.
Oliver caught it, fingers curling tight.
> "Let's keep moving," Zack said quietly. "It's not over yet."
And just like that, he walked forward—disappearing into a shadow-bend.
Nico and Oliver followed, one curious, the other uneasy.
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