Assassin's Gambit: The Sixth Player

In the Vanguard, you don't fight with brute strength. You fight with lies.Elian is drowning in a blood debt that isn't his. To clear his family's ledger, he has entered the Vanguard—a brutal, underground 5x5 arena where combatants are assigned hidden identity pieces. If your identity is revealed, the arena crushes you.Elian has secretly drawn the Assassin—the deadliest, most fragile piece on the board.Surrounded by towering Wardens and lethal Scouts, Elian must pretend to be a weak, low-level pawn to bluff his way to the center of the grid. But when a glitch in the arena summons a mythic Executioner, the rules of the game are shattered. Elian soon realizes the Vanguard isn't just a deadly game; it is a prison designed to harvest the minds of its players.To escape, he doesn't just have to win. He has to kill the logic of the world itself.