Blood filled my mouth.
Warm. Metallic. Mine.
I was on my knees in the deepest part of the Shadow Abyss Dungeon, level 47. The boss was already dead. The loot glowed on the ground the Eternal Heart Pendant, the item every guild in the city would kill for.
My "friends" stood around me in a half-circle.
Lena stepped forward first. My girlfriend of three years. The girl who used to fall asleep on my shoulder after raids. She twirled the dagger she had just pulled out of my back. My blood dripped from the blade.
"Sorry, Kai," she said softly, like she was breaking up with me over coffee. "But this pendant is worth fifty million credits. You were never going to share it anyway."
Behind her, my best friend Marcus laughed. "Bro, you really thought we'd split it four ways? Cute."
The tank, Rina, shrugged. "You carried us this far. Thanks for the carry, loser."
They weren't even hiding it anymore. No fake tears. No long speeches. Just greed in their eyes and smiles on their faces.
I tried to stand. My legs wouldn't work. The poison on Lena's blade was already spreading like fire through my veins.
I looked at each of them, one by one, burning their faces into my memory.
"You'll all regret this," I whispered.
Lena crouched down so we were eye level. She patted my cheek like I was a sad puppy. "No, we won't. You're the villain of this story, Kai. Always were. Cold. Selfish. Trusting nobody. Funny how the person who trusts nobody still gets stabbed in the back, huh?"
She laughed. Then she drove the dagger into my heart.
Everything went black.
[You have died.]
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in the darkness.
[Calculating final rewards… None.]
[Final thought recorded: "I wish I could start over and make every single one of them pay."]
The void swallowed me.
Then-
Light.
I gasped awake, sucking in air like a drowning man.
Soft mattress. Familiar ceiling cracks. The cheap lamp on the nightstand that I broke two years ago and never fixed.
My hands - smaller, smoother, no scars.
I sat up fast. The room spun. My phone was on the desk, screen lighting up with an old notification.
March 12, 2028.
Five years ago.
The day before I met Lena.
The day before I joined the Iron Fang guild.
The day before everything went wrong.
I laughed. It came out broken and ugly and real.
"I'm… back?"
A blue screen flashed in front of my eyes, transparent but impossible to ignore.
[Betrayal System Activated]
[Host: Kai Voss – Age 18]
[Current Timeline: 5 years before death]
[Core Mechanic: Every time someone betrays you, you grow stronger.]
[First betrayal detected in memory bank. Reward stored.]
[Current stats: All zero. You are weak again.]
[Pro Tip: Make them betray you on purpose. The sweeter the knife, the bigger the reward.]
I stared at the floating words.
A system. The thing every reincarnated loser prayed for in those Stories I used to read to kill time between raids. Except this one wasn't about killing monsters for levels.
It was about pain. It was about trust.
It was perfect.
I swung my legs off the bed. My body felt light, weak, but my mind was sharper than it had ever been. I remembered everything. Every lie. Every smile that hid a dagger. Every person who would stab me in the next five years.
And I remembered her.
The one girl who never betrayed me.
Even when the whole world turned against me, she stayed.
Cold. Quiet. Loyal to the end.
I didn't even know her name back then. She was just the ice princess of the academy, always sitting alone in the corner of the library, reading while the rest of us chased fame and loot.
In my last life she never spoke more than ten words to me. But when they dragged my body out of the dungeon, she was the only one who closed my eyes.
I clenched my fists.
This time I would find her first.
This time I would keep her.
And everyone else?
I smiled at my reflection in the cracked mirror.
They would betray me again.
They always did.
Only this time…
I would be ready.
And every single betrayal would make me a god.