Gene's heightened senses caught the whistling sound cutting through the air of the room a fraction of a second before the projectile actually reached him.
He threw his weight to the right, desperately twisting his upper body out of the direct line of fire to avoid taking a lethal hit to the neck.
But that was just a second too late to dodge it completely, feeling the edge of the feather-fletched arrow graze his cheek and leave a burning trail of blood before it slammed into the wall behind him.
Gene quickly looked to the left side of the room to see who had the drop on him from the shadows.
Stepping out from behind a tall wooden filing cabinet was a young woman with short blonde hair and bright blue eyes.
She stood with a straight posture, holding a blue wooden bow drawn tight and aimed right at his chest, looking exactly like the weapon resting on the mahogany desk just a few feet away.
'A duplicate?' Gene thought, his mind racing to understand how someone could have two identical weapons in a stage that severely limited resources right at the very beginning.
Before he could even finish formulating that thought or raise his guard, a pain erupted in his left arm from behind.
"Ahh," Gene grunted out loud, falling hard onto one knee as he looked down to see the wooden shaft of another arrow protruding right through the fabric of his uniform.
Aiden and Maria immediately panicked in the hallway, trying to rush forward into the room to help him, but they were instantly stopped in their tracks.
The blonde woman standing by the filing cabinet smoothly pivoted her aim, pointing the sharp tip of her drawn arrow directly at Aiden's face to keep them pinned down.
Gene gritted his teeth against the pain in his shoulder and glanced back over his right side toward the doorway.
Standing just inside the room, completely blocking their only exit, was another woman with the same short blonde hair and the same blue eyes.
Twins.
'Ah, the famous twins,' Gene thought to himself, a chuckle echoing in the back of his throat despite the blood dripping down his arm.
How could he have possibly forgotten about these two?
In his past life, when he was just a terrified newbie running blindly through the flooded city without a clue how the system worked, these two sisters had practically carried him on their backs for an entire week.
They were genuinely good people at heart and highly skilled in archery, having saved his life more times than he could count before they eventually got separated by the nature of the game.
"One wrong move and the next one will be in your eyes," the woman standing behind him warned, her voice cold and steady as she slowly walked closer to his kneeling form.
Gene analysed the situation quickly, letting his memories fill in the blanks.
Their signature skill was called Cloning, a highly sought-after ability that allowed them to make an exact physical copy of any product they held in their hands.
Although the cloned item might not perfectly replicate the full durability or stopping power of the original weapon, it still made for excellent bait and gave them a huge tactical advantage in a firefight.
'Them having active skills right now means they have already killed a monster or another player to get the required points,' Gene realised, his respect for their survival instincts growing as he considered how fast they had adapted to the rules of Genesis.
As the woman holding the bow lowered her aim slightly to walk toward his blind spot, Gene slowly raised both of his hands in a universal gesture of surrender.
"You are good, Mia," Gene said, keeping his voice perfectly calm and conversational while looking right at her.
The woman's eyes widened in shock, clearly thrown completely off guard by a random stranger casually dropping her real name in a death game.
"What?" Mia asked, her strict archer's posture dissolving for just a fraction of a second as confusion clouded her judgment.
That single moment of hesitation was all the opening Gene needed to turn the tables.
He dropped his right hand toward his waist and whipped out the infinite water bottle and a metal shuriken at the same time.
He threw the plastic bottle straight at the tip of her drawn arrow while launching the shuriken right at her boots.
The bottle shattered on impact with the sharp broadhead, splashing a wave of cold water directly into Mia's face and making it significantly harder for her to aim properly.
Over by the filing cabinet, Lia, the other twin, saw her sister stumble and immediately swung her bow back toward Gene to take the lethal shot before he could recover.
But Kiara had been paying close attention from the hallway, and she didn't freeze up this time.
Remembering Gene's harsh lesson from the roof about never hesitating, the teenage girl threw her black sphere straight into the middle of the office.
Bam.
Black smoke instantly filled the enclosed space, completely hiding Gene's kneeling form and creating a chaotic wall of darkness between the two sisters.
Lia coughed and stepped back, hesitant to loose an arrow into the fog and risk hitting her own twin by mistake.
Gene used the dark cover perfectly, relying on his spatial awareness to close the distance without making a sound.
He pulled the arrow out of his arm with a quiet grunt of pain as the wound started healing itself in the suit, pushed himself off the floor, and disappeared into the part of the smoke.
As the cloud finally started to thin out and drift toward the open windows, the scene in the office became clear again.
Gene was already standing right behind Mia.
He had his enchanted rope wrapped firmly around her neck, pulling it just tight enough to let her know he was in complete control of the situation without actually choking her.
There was still some pain in his shoulder, but he ignored it and glared straight across the room at Lia, who still had her bow raised but was too afraid to shoot with her sister acting as a human shield.
"Listen to me carefully," Gene said, his voice echoing in the tense silence of the room.
"I am not an enemy."