Chương 583: The Last Smile in the Dark

Yut and his men avoided the spiked logs without much trouble. The same could not be said for Father's group. Several of them had triggered the traps and now lay scattered across the forest floor, some groaning in pain, others already dead. Yut barely glanced at them as he ran past. The hunt had him smiling. He picked up speed.

"Move, you idiots! We can't lose this guy now, not when we finally have every card on the table!" Luke Moon escaping didn't bother him.

"False ground ahead, dark green leaves!" Somchai called out. The entire group jumped at once, clearing the hidden pit trap. They already knew every trick Luke had prepared in this area.

"Tripwire ahead!" An arrow shot forward. The string snapped and a spiked log came crashing down through empty air. They passed beneath it without slowing.

"Don't trigger the rest," Yut said with a laugh.

"Let those fanatics from Father's group walk into them." Every trap placed here had already been revealed to them. The traitor inside Luke Moon's group had been feeding them information throughout the entire hunt.

"Muddy hill ahead," Somchai warned. Yut clicked his tongue, scanning the forest. Where is that bastard?

"That green cloak of his helps him blend in," Maronp said.

"Not anymore." Yut smiled and looked toward the trees ahead.

"The hunting event just started." Through the forest they could now see it. The glowing silhouette of the bracelet moving between the trees. They had found him. Yut and his men moved toward it quickly. A group from Father's faction soon caught up with them.

"We can't let that bastard escape! He's killed too many of ours!" one of them shouted.

"I know," Yut replied calmly.

"We need him dead. You go ahead. Your eyes are better than ours." The men from Father's group rushed forward. A moment later, one of them stepped onto a hidden trigger. The ground collapsed beneath them. Spikes. Screams erupted as bodies crashed into the pit. Yut ran past them laughing.

"Help us!"

"Go screw yourselves along with Father!" Yut shouted back, still laughing as he kept running. More traps activated ahead. Spiked logs rolled downhill through the forest. Yut and his men climbed into the trees with practiced ease. When Father's group finally managed to crawl out of the pit, the rolling logs slammed into them. Yut nearly burst out laughing.

"I should give a prize to the bastard who built all this." They continued forward. Then they saw it. The green cloak darting between the trees ahead. If it weren't for the orange bracelet glowing through the forest, Luke Moon would have been nearly invisible.

"You really thought those traps would work on me?" Yut shouted. Somchai began firing bolts upward through the trees. Luke Moon ran in sharp zigzags, but several bolts still found their mark. One struck his shoulder. Blood darkened the green cloak. When Luke reached the riverbank, another part of Yut's group was already waiting.

"The river won't save you anymore!" Yut called out.

"That item of yours lets you breathe underwater for hours, right?" Luke had already turned away from the water, sprinting along the riverbank instead. He was being boxed in. Even when he triggered traps along the way, nothing worked.

"You're dead," Yut continued.

"Even if you throw away that bracelet and try to run, I'll hunt you down at the bottom of the river. You don't have any hidden cards left." Luke vaulted over a fallen log. Yut avoided it easily. They already knew there was a false floor nearby.

"It's over," Yut said, watching Luke's pace begin to slow. The forest opened up around them as his men closed in from multiple directions. Every escape route had already been mapped. Luke suddenly changed direction and ran toward a cave entrance. They followed, but no one rushed this time. Yut walked calmly. As far as they knew, the cave had no exit. Luke reached the end first. A dead end. Nothing there but cold stone walls and the remains of an old, extinguished campfire. Yut finally caught up with him.

"I've been wanting to kill you for a long time, you piece of shit." His smile widened.

"I'll admit, though, watching you run was fun. Every day you escaped, I got to enjoy seeing those idiots from Father's group die in your traps." He rested the sword casually on his shoulder again.

"I was always one step ahead of you." But the game was over now. He would take Luke's bracelet. And his points. Luke Moon dropped to his knees. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Yut laughed.

"So now you want to beg? Too late for that." A smile touched Luke Moon's mouth as he looked up at them and lowered his hood. Somchai's expression changed instantly.

"That's not him!" The man's hand burst into flame.

"You idiots are screwed!" He slammed the burning hand into the campfire. The instant he did, he vanished.

"What?" one of Yut's men shouted.

"What the hell just happened? That wasn't Luke Moon?" Yut stood frozen for half a second, then his face twisted.

"That bastard gave the bracelet to someone else. He played us!"

"Hello, Yut." The voice came from behind them. They turned and saw Ivor.

"Goodbye." Ivor fired an arrow straight into the air. It was one of those cursed arrows, the kind that hit like it weighed a ton.

"Get away from that arrow!" Yut roared. The arrow struck the ground. Stone cracked.

"Well," Ivor said, already stepping back, "time for a swim." Then the earth gave way beneath them. Yut and his men dropped into open darkness. It was a trap. A trap the whole damn time. How? How had they set this up? They crashed into water, a hidden lake deep underground. Heavy debris came down after them in waves, slabs of rock and shattered earth slamming into the surface above. Yut swam downward. It was completely dark. He wanted to scream at one of his mages to light the place up. Light it up, you bastards!

Then a glow appeared in the water. The tip of a staff. In that brief light, Yut saw bodies drifting in the lake. Blood spreading through the water. His men being torn apart by monstrous crab-like beasts. And there, cutting through the darkness like it belonged to him, was a figure with a machete. Luke Moon. A half-mask covered his mouth and nose. Yut couldn't see his face, but he knew. The bastard was smiling. Then Luke struck the mage. The light vanished. Darkness swallowed everything once more. Fuck. Fuck!

Yut started swinging his sword in every direction. He had already lost all sense of up and down. Debris slammed into his back and he spun on instinct, convinced it was Luke Moon. Something grabbed his leg. A giant crab. Yut hacked at it. Another one came at him. He slashed again. It could be Luke Moon. He could be right there beside him. Yut started swimming harder. No. I need to move. Fast. He pushed himself forward with everything he had. Then a hand grabbed him. A human hand. Yut lashed out with his sword.

For one brief instant, another flicker of light shone through the water, just enough for him to realize what he'd done. He had killed one of his own men. No, damn it! The darkness closed in again. Yut swam deeper, farther from the chaos. When he finally touched the bottom, he kicked off hard and shot upward, swimming faster than ever. Yut dragged himself out of the water with a curse. One of those damned crabs still had a claw locked onto him. He tore it off, flung it away, and swam for the bank.

When he reached the shore, he dropped to one knee, coughing hard and spitting up river water.

"Somchai!" he shouted.

"Maronp! Phichit! Anan!" Nothing. It was dark in there, but little by little his eyes adjusted.

"They're all dead," a voice said from the water. Luke Moon. Yut bared his teeth.

"So you finally showed yourself again, you foreign bastard." He charged. Luke moved with fluid precision, fighting with only one machete. The blade cut once. Yut's arm hit the ground before the pain fully registered. He snatched up the fallen sword with his remaining hand and came forward again, jaw clenched, refusing to give the pain even a second of attention. Luke carved him apart. He slipped past every swing.

"Slow," Luke said. Another cut opened across Yut's body.

"Predictable." Yut kept attacking.

"Weak." Then a fist slammed into his stomach, another into his face, and he crashed to the ground. He forced strength into his legs and rolled sideways just in time.

"Give up," Luke's voice said from the darkness.

"Never." A sound came from his left. Yut struck instantly, but there was nothing there. Then the pain arrived. The hand holding his sword was severed. The weapon was kicked away into the dark.

"I have the advantage in the dark." Yut was knocked back to the ground. He looked up at Luke Moon's silhouette in the darkness and laughed under his breath.

"When?" Yut asked.

"When did I lose to you?"

"From the beginning." Yut clicked his tongue. He was not going to beg.

"When did I lose, you bastard?" he snapped.

"Tell me seriously."

"It was me sending those messages the whole time. The notes with the locations and the areas I supposedly planned to take my group through."

"No..." Yut stared at him.

"I saw your silhouette running like a desperate dog."

"That was Ivor, the times I ran alone. I gave him the bracelet." Yut went still for half a second, piecing it together.

"So it was you all along. Those papers..." His eyes narrowed.

"You sabotaged your own team?"

"Yes," Luke replied, calm as ever.

"Why?"

"To build this trap, obviously. I couldn't start with a plan like this right away. You wouldn't have trusted a note that easily. I needed time. I needed you feeling more and more certain you had the advantage. And I needed to pressure my team into the right position. Push them one step forward, then drag them two steps back." Luke's tone never changed.

"And having you chase us helped too. It kept other people away. The ones who would've gotten in the way." Whistling under his breath, Luke walked to the side and retrieved a bow and quiver from the shadows.

"I'd been stalling since our first encounter too. Waiting for the right moment to kill you. I needed someone with a lot of men under his command. Someone who could gather points for me. You were perfect." Yut laughed, then coughed blood.

"It would've been fun trying to kill you back in Bangkok, foreigner. You've got my respect."

"Don't try to stand up. You're already dying."

"Yut Saeten never quits," Yut growled.

"I'll kill you, then the daimyo bastards who ruined Thailand. After that, I'll go after the Kings of the World. And whoever else gets in my way." Luke raised the bow. Yut grinned through the blood on his teeth.

"You were willing to sacrifice those fire idiots. I've got to admit, you're one magnificent psycho bastard. Just like me."

"Maybe I am, Yut Saeten. But there's one big difference between us."

"And what's that?" Luke drew, aimed, and put an arrow through his head. Darkness swallowed Yut whole. Luke looked down at the corpse.

"The difference is, I'm still alive."