The interior of the Junction tower was as plain as a demon’s skin. The cavernous entrance was split from the main chamber by a partition. The main chamber itself was opened high above to give a clear view of the sky.

The five of our team were gathered around a ring of ten terminals. There were no screens, and the only interface was a pad to place your hand on.

“As provided by our contract,” Rin said through gritted teeth, “I will give you an explanation on how to use the terminals. First you—”

All five of us placed our hands on the pads at the same time, completely unprompted. Before me, a window appeared in my vision.

Would you like to form a party?

[Yes] [No] [View Terms]

“I’m hitting ‘yes’ now,” I said.

No sooner than I’d thought it that the window disappeared and was replaced with another.

Counting down to party formation: 10

“Oh, okay, you’ve already figured it out,” Rin said. “Now, what you all have to do is choose yes and—oh, you’ve all done it. Now make sure you don’t—”

“We fucking know, so shut your smoke breather!” Volce yelled.

Rin bit her lip. “I’m contractually obligated not to swear at any deuces for the next hour.”

Enzi offered her a consoling look. “I’m so sorry.”

Meanwhile, Markus stared at the air in front of him, likely at his own timer, with a shit-eating grin on his face. I looked down at his hand, half expecting him to remove it.

The Ring of Betrayal’s terminals followed a simple rule. When you activate an option, you get ten seconds before the effect is activated. Everyone who is at a connected terminal at the time and who has also selected the same option will, once that initial timer runs out, have the same effect applied to them. However, if a member takes their hand off the interface, the effect doesn’t apply to them personally. Everyone else will have the effect applied as normal.

The same thing goes when a member in a pre-existing party used the terminal in tandem with an unpartied Participant: they all enter the same party if their hands are touching the terminal at the end of the countdown.

In our case, it meant joining the same party. I highly doubted anyone would remove their hand, but there was one event from the twenty-second Culling that played upon my mind.

A human was betrayed by his team when all of them removed their hands from the terminal at the same time, leaving them in a party of one. Since it’s not possible for parties to be broken in the Ring of Betrayal, they were in a tough position. That position was exploited heavily by the people that betrayed them, and the human never gained the chance to break their party and form another. Ironically, that human won their Culling. The demons around them were so busy backstabbing each other that they stupidly ignored the human right until the end, allowing the human to sneak in the win. Furthermore, since they were in a party of one, they were the only winning Participant.

That Culling went down as having the highest administrator-caused eliminations of all Cullings. Nearly twenty demons all turned to smoke in an instant for having lost the Culling. When I’d first watched the video, I was overwhelmed with shock and excitement that I woke up the orphanage with my cheers. I got a good scolding from Mother Wysterly after the fact for watching banned content when I ought to be recharging my “biological batteries”, as she liked to put it.

The timer ticked down… 3, 2, 1.

You are now in a party of 5 Participants.

In my stat screen I could see a new row stating that I was in a [Point-share Party], along with how many other members there were. It also offered me a chance to view the terms again, but I already knew what they were. We shared points. Nothing more. All transactions made were docked by the party. All points gained by an individual were, again, given to the party.

Oh, and our points were at 2,740. I had to do a double take. By my estimation, we had to have erased at least a thousand digressers during the estray fight.

I furrowed my brows. Certainly, there had to be more information. The party row didn’t give a list of members, or further explanations, or anything. The system messages had been so candid with information up until this point. Why hide the details of parties? At the time, I’d figured it might have been to reduce the likelihood of team-eliminating in larger parties.

Rin flicked around to Markus. “If you already know how the Junction Towers work, why exactly did you insist on making me explain it to you?”

Markus scrunched up his face in contemplation. “Thinking about it, it would have been better if I’d also requested you wear a maid outfit.”

Rin bit her lip. “I am contractually obligated to specifically not call you a sack of horse radish.”

“Amongst a host of your other favourite insults.”

I took a deep breath, flexed my grip on Möbius, and exhaled. “Alright, you two. I’m done getting fucked around. Let’s get this over with.”

“Not so fast,” Rin said. “Explain why Silica isn’t here.”

“Because, as I already explained to you,” Markus began, rolling his eyes, “she’s off gallivanting across the Ring of Betrayal with an army of digressers.”

“That doesn’t explain much of anything. If she’s your ally, she should be with you. What do you all gain from being in two separate parties?”

Markus shrugged. Rin looked to me and I couldn’t be bothered explaining it. There was nothing to gain by foiling Markus’ plans now. Not that Rin could stop him if she tried.

Finally, she turned to Septo, who was waiting in the shadows by the entrance. When their eyes met, the balaam quickly looked away.

“Silica is a solitary demon,” they said. Then they bunched up their shoulders and tried to slink further into the shadows.

Rin’s upper lip curled. “No shit! She’s a valax.” She turned to Toll, who was watching her sideways. “Why is Silica not here?”

Tense silence descended upon the room. Rin and Toll stared at each other, unblinking. Off to the side, Markus watched with a grin on his face. The balaam’s hesitation was the better choice, for me, at least. We would still be at risk when moving to the other side. If we revealed the fact that Silica was only allied with me, then that would greatly ruin our chance to bully our way through the ambush that was waiting for us. Toll was contemplating whether backstabbing Markus was a good idea right now or if they should help the team. I mean, backstabbing Markus did help the team, in a way. The bastard was a danger to all of us. However, there was a better opportunity here.

I cleared my throat and everyone turned to me. “Markus, we won’t reveal anything if you share some rabdoses with us.”

Markus gave me a disbelieving stare. “Do you want to die when we teleport. Because if you all piss me off, I’m just going to leave, and if I’m not there, you’ll definitely be dead.”

“I don’t mind taking myself out just to get back at you. You should know by now how little I value my life.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” Markus said carefully. He turned to our other party members one at a time. “However, for the sake of ease, you can all get one rabdos each.” Then he faced me and flashed teeth. “Except for you.”

Nodding, I turned to Rin. “Silica has had plenty of chances to erase us and has chosen not to. With her strength, you should know that’s a matter of choice, not inability. So regardless of what you think our alliance looks like, you can’t deny we have her favour.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Rin. “I don’t believe anything that comes out of your mouth.”

“Then ask Septo.”

The balaam’s ears perked up at their name being called, though they refused to raise their head.

Rin stared at me deadpan. “Are you a moron?”

“No,” replied Toll. Everyone gave them a look, as if doubting the balaam. Assholes.

“Fine. Whatever. I don’t care. You didn’t pay the fee, you can deal with whatever’s on the other side. End of discussion.”

So everyone was getting a rabdos but me. By this point, I just didn’t care anymore. I waited for the contract to be signed. Markus managed to negotiate them down to one rabdos each, on the promise that they will be able to choose from a pool of fifty of Markus’ choosing.

Enzi tried to solicit me for help identifying any rabdoses. I had half a mind to, given that it would have helped me in the future. She had saved my life, after all. It took a moment for me to realise that she’d only done that because her existence was at stake.

On the bright side, that little stunt I’d pulled with my half-lie about Silica had gained my party members some rabdoses back from Markus. Realising this, I decided it would be best that, when Markus offered them their rabdoses, I could make a “recommendation” or two. That way I could exercise some measure of control over them.

Once everyone was done, Markus called for everyone to join him at the terminals.

“Now remember,” he said to the party, a grin splitting his face, “that when we get to the other side, try to avoid any untimely eliminations or else Silica might to go on a rampage.”

I rolled my eyes. He was so predictable at this point. This whole thing was going exactly how he wanted it. We all placed our hands on the terminal pads again and message popped up asking us where we wanted to teleport.

“We’re all going to the Eastern Junction,” I said slowly. My eyes darted over to Rin who was biting her bottom lip. Just a little more and she was going to crack. “I will click on the button first, and then you all choose to join in. Make sure you are ready for fight because—”

“Wait!” Rin shouted.

“Oh, right. I almost forgot,” said Markus, slapping his forehead with a gloved hand. “You need to give us instructions, Rin.”

“I—oh, fuck you, Markus. No, we’re coming. I’ve decided that a fight would be against both of our interests.”

“Oh, how nice of you!” Markus said. “And you’re even going to foot half the teleportation cost.”

Rin gritted her teeth. “Yes. Yes I am.”

Honestly, I should have been happy about that. I hadn’t actually lost anything in all of Markus’ shenanigans, but that was only because I had nothing to begin with. Actually, that was Markus’ fault too. He had stolen Everwant. The point is, we were only going to spend fifty points on the teleportation. When multiple parties use the terminals, the cost gets split evenly between them. All in all, it wasn’t that bad. If anything, I was just pissed at having been blindsided.

But now that I’d calmed down a little, I decided to have some fun with it. I turned to Rin and Septo then spoke in a droll, “Please place your hands on the terminal pad so that we may commence teleportation.”

With a growl, Rin stomped over and placed a hand on a terminal. Septo skittered after her. Oddly, the balaam decided to take a place close to me rather than next to Rin. They kept shooting me sidewards glances. Realising where this was going, I winked at Septo. Their ears perked up for a moment. Then they glanced at Rin with wide eyes and the balaam fix a stare on a spot directly ahead of them.

Really, the dog-headed balaam was too easy to toy with. I shook my head then began the teleportation process.

Rin said, “Make sure to keep your hands on the terminal at all times or else you might suffer a serious misplacement mishap.”

The timer counted down. 3, 2, 1—then we were in a red room. It looked identical to the black one we’d just left, with an opening above just like it that allowed sunlight to pour in.

I hadn’t even felt anything when we’d shifted places. No disorientation, no beams of light, nothing. One instant I was in a black room, the next I was in a red one.

Aside from the colour change, there was also another demon in the room.

They appeared as strikingly pretty human on the more masculine side, if a little too pale, save for two key features. Firstly, they had no eyes, just flat skin where their eyes ought to be that they didn’t bother to cover, now that they were out of civil society. Secondly, the helixes of their ears were unnecessarily large and drooped down to their knees, like an exaggerated elephant’s ears. Those large ears marked them as an iuda.

Upon realising we’d just teleported in, the iuda’s large ears flicked and they motioned to bolt out of the Junction Tower.

Rin thrust a hand forward. “Wait, Polka! Don’t start the attack.”

The iuda froze near the exit. They didn’t face us, but their closest ear flicked towards Rin. “Why are you with the targets, Rin?”

Their voice was unnatural, like a dozen different people were all talking at once. Furthermore, it seemed to come from all around, despite it being clear that their mouth was the origin of their voice.

Markus sidled up to Rin. “Go on, Rin. Tell them why you’re with us.”

The iuda, Polka, turned to face Markus. Both their ears strained towards him. “That voice, and the sound of your embers. I’ve never heard anything like it. What are you?”

Markus shrugged. “A one name.”

Polka gave a slow nod. “We are aware of that, but you are giving off a very different sound from Synaesthesia. It seems almost like—”

“Not now, Polka!” Rin said in a rush. “We have to call the others off. Send out a message to everyone else. Tell them that the targets are not to be harmed.”

If Polka could glare, I was certain they would have in the moment. When they spoke, it all came out in one endless ramble. “Do you know how much effort we put in to get everyone here? We spent many points to bring the whole party together, which was made worse by the fact that we can only teleport in groups of ten. Furthermore, the effort that myself and the other communicators had to exert—are you aware of what kind of effort it takes to send so many messages over a distance? Add to that the fact that we only have three iudas but two aratosas, and it means that communicating with one of the Towers requires us to use an intermediary to translate visual messages. We iudas are blind so we cannot communicate with aratosas in any way, and they are deaf so—”

“Okay, okay, I get it!” Rin cried. “Please, just stop. I can’t stand hearing you lot talk for so long.”

I didn’t blame her. When iuda’s speak, they’re difficult to hear and overwhelming for the senses. It’s like listening to hundreds of different people talk to you at the same time, with each voice flitting in and out of the conversation to let the others speak for a while. The worst part, however, is that they all liked talking. It’s a combo that is deadly for the ears.

Polka’s ears flicked in what I could only describe as frustration. “Then hurry up and explain your reasons before—”

“They’re allies with the Sun Eater.”

“Oh.” There was a long silence as Polka processed that information. “She does not seem to be here though, so I am assuming they made vague threats and you took the bait—”

“Just tell everyone not to attack, asshole!”

Another pause. “Do recall that I outrank you in terms of names.”

“And do recall that the only reason you’re still bound is because I decided to take pity on you after I kicked your ears into the mud.”

“Oh, I recall that.” The iuda faced the exit and, though their mouth moved, they remained silent for several seconds. No doubt they were relaying an overly verbose message to every member of their party.

Iudas can project their voice to any spot within a certain range. They can also hear anything within range, and can fixate on distant sounds while blocking out the other. Such a talent makes then natural scouts and information specialists.

Volce hovered up behind Enzi and rested his elbow on her shoulder. “And I thought our party was dysfunctional.” She smirked her agreement.

“Everyone here is dysfunctional,” I said. “That’s the whole point of the Culling.”

Markus crept up behind me and clapped next to my ears. I flinched but otherwise didn’t give him the satisfaction of a strong reaction.

“Finally!” the haures cried. “I’ve been edging for the last hour. I need to get this out of my sigil.”

I closed my eyes and let out a long sigh. “Just get it over with.”

Polka’s ear flicked towards us. “Get what over with?”

Both balaams spoke as one. “Diplomacy.”

“Diplomacy?” Polka queried. “What does that mean? Has he not already negotiated with Rin? Is there some hidden meaning to this?”

Markus strolled by Polka whistling to himself. Rin chased after him, begging him not to do anything stupid and giving vague yet non-specific threats as to why he should just leave.

As the rest of us followed, Toll clapped a hand onto Polka’s shoulder. “In situations like these, it is better for you to see for yourself.”

“Is that a joke? I am an iuda. I cannot see. What is he—”

The ground rumbled as a large boom echoed into the Junction Tower. Polka’s ears folded in on themselves to muffle the noise. They faced us, and even without eyes I could tell they had a thousand questions as to how something like this even occurred. I just shrugged.

We hurried outside to witness mayhem. Markus stood alone in the middle of a muddy field. A crowd of ninety armed demons had gathered around and were using stacks of logs for cover. Off to one side, a crater as wide as a car had been carved into the earth and blue-tinted ash was scattered all throughout it. Markus’ thrust a glowing, red-tipped finger at the watching crowd of armed demons, all of which seemed eager to attack. Between them stood Rin, who was holding a card in the air. Splayed around her were seven spears, hovering in the air like poltergeist wings. That weapon did not look capable of stopping a fight, unfortunately, only finishing it.

“Stop!” she cried. “We are not going to fight. This is suicide for all parties.”

Markus flashed his teeth. “But dear Rin, this is the Culling. We’re going to eliminate each other anyway.”

“Let’s avoid that for now.”

The other demons seemed to take more to Markus’ words, however, because not a single one of them looked ready to back down.

Enzi was standing beside me with her arms folded. She leaned in and muttered, “I told you we should have just attacked them. This is about to turn into a complete disaster and I want no part of it. Furthermore, we could have got more rabdoses each if we’d fought.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just watch.”

Markus shook his head. “Oh, fine, Rin. You’ve convinced me.” He gave his right hand a flick and the heat rolling off of Monk dissipated. He clapped his hands twice. “Alright, show of hands. Who doesn’t want to be erased by an army of digressers?”

“Um, Septo doesn’t.” We all turned to stare at the dog-headed balaam, who was staring off to the side and rubbing one of his arms. “But then again, Septo isn’t sure if being bound is good. Septo is always looking for truth, but never finds. Never finds. Maybe erasure might be better. No more seeking. No more—”

“Septo, shut it!” Rin bellowed.

The balaam’s eyes went wide then they slammed their head into the earth.

Markus opened his mouth to speak, then slammed it shut again. “You know what, Septo? You ruined it. This was supposed to be fun, but now I just feel bad. Well, might as well get it over with.” He turned back to the crowd. “Let’s end this without any more untimely explosions. Everyone take all of your rabdoses out of your inventory and give them to me.”

There were some murmurs, and the general mood seemed to be for fighting us. However, every once in a while I heard the words, “Silica,” and, “Sun Eater,” being uttered.

Rin whirled around to Markus and gaped at him. The lances hovering around her twirled with her. After a few moments of gaping, she gritted her teeth, seeming to come to a decision. She faced her allies again and said, “Listen, this is the party that eliminated the spawner. They’re allied with the Sun Eater. Even if we have the firepower to take them out now, we’ll get slaughtered the moment the Sun Eater shows up.”

Volce bumped against my shoulder. He was staring at Markus with his jaw hung slack. “He’s going to get us eliminated. Seriously, what a dick.”

“I do not get it,” said Polka. “How is this diplomacy. Are you not meant to negotiate with the other side and be diplomatic to some degree? Most of the demons here would rather take their chances fighting than hand over all their rabdoses. This seems more like—”

“Gunboat diplomacy,” I said. Then with a sign, I stepped forward, and raised my hand. “Markus, will you stop fucking around? We don’t have time to pick up every single rabdos.”

The haures turned to me and shrugged. “You’re all so boring. Fine. Everyone give me one rabdos from your inventory. I don’t care what it is, just give me something. And be quick about it. Daylight is burning and I have places to be. Oh, and as a consolation to me, if I point at you then you have to grovel. No, not you, Septo! It makes me sad when you do it.”

There was some more murmuring, but after some back and forth, they agreed in good time. It was a dirty move Markus had pulled, but one that was effective even on demons. Start by offering a terrible deal, threaten them if they don’t comply, then when things stall you offer something kinder. One by one, demons began pulling items from their inventories and dumping them on the floor.

Markus snapped his fingers at me, then pointed at one of the demons. They immediately dropped to the floor. “Human, go fetch my stuff.”

“Right away, master,” I answered dryly. “When I’m done, can we proceed straight to the ball fondling?” I stomped forward. “Alright bring out something you’re not using, bunè. No, not that one! What the fuck am I going to do with that?”