"It's a lost cause."
The man leaned against the bar, confidence weighing heavier than the glass in his hand. "Kai will bulldoze this gamble. The rich only have money. No care. No brains."
"You're right," the other replied, glancing toward the casino doors. "Today's gambling won't be that fu—"
The sound was sharp. Absolute.
The gunshot cut the sentence clean in half.
One bullet passed through a skull, exited without resistance, and buried itself in the head beside it. Two bodies collapsed almost together, drinks shattering as red wine bled across the marble floor like a mockery of blood.
For a moment, the bar froze.
Then the music resumed—too loud, too cheerful—its rhythm echoing through gold-lined halls as if nothing had happened.
The man who fired the shot slid the gun back into his waistband. He picked up his glass, took a slow sip, and exhaled. His eyes flicked briefly toward the bodies. Just long enough.
Amon turned and walked toward the casino.
His steps were unhurried. Indifferent. As if death were not an event, but a minor inconvenience.
No one screamed.
Those closest to the bodies moved quietly. Jackets were removed. Blood disappeared beneath fabric. The dead were wrapped and dragged away with practiced efficiency.
The doors opened.
Warm light spilled out.
A guard straightened instantly and bowed. "Master Amon. The guest is waiting."
Amon nodded once and continued forward.
The gambling arena roared.
Sound crashed from every direction—cheers, laughter, the metallic clatter of chips. At the center of it all sat Kai, relaxed in a single chair on the raised stage.
A revolver rested on the table before him.
Kai felt the noise roll over his skin like heat. He didn't absorb it. He let it pass.
Seven times.
Seven times he had sat under lights like these. Seven times the gamble had demanded a life. Seven times he had survived.
He rose when the crowd noticed him.
The cheering wasn't affection. It was expectation.
Kai offered a nod and a faint smile. Not arrogance. Not humility. Acknowledgment.
If you stripped away the stage and the legend, Kai looked ordinary. No scars worth remembering. No presence that demanded memory. A face you'd forget by morning.
That was deliberate.
Amon entered without hurry.
Kai noticed him instantly—not because the crowd began chanting his name, but because the sound bent around him. Men like Amon didn't absorb attention. They erased it.
When Amon reached the table, Kai stepped forward and extended his hand.
"It's a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Amon."
The handshake was brief. Firm. Lifeless.
Amon sat without a word.
No fear. No curiosity.
Kai felt it then—a thin flicker of interest.
The presenter stepped forward.
"Tonight," he announced, "is no ordinary gamble."
The lights dimmed. From the floor between the two men, a glass cage rose slowly, hydraulics hissing softly. It was thick—layered, reinforced—etched with sigils meant to resist impact and poison alike.
Inside, the table was smaller. Intimate.
Two revolvers lay at its center, angled slightly inward.
Between them, coiled in a loose spiral, lay Reaper.
The snake's scales were black, not glossy but matte, like wet stone. Its body rose and fell slowly as it breathed, tongue flicking once, tasting the air. The crowd leaned forward as one.
"This cage," the presenter continued, "is sealed except for two openings."
Circular holes at the top gleamed faintly under the lights—just wide enough for a hand. No arm. No weapon. No tricks.
"The revolvers," he added, gesturing, "have been coated with a substance Reaper finds… comforting."
The snake shifted slightly, tightening its coils around the weapons.
Protective.
Possessive.
Kai studied the cage carefully. The distance between glass and gun. The height of the snake's strike. The angle of retreat.
A gambler didn't rely on luck.
He measured probability.
"One last rule," the presenter said. "This is a death game. The one who dies first loses."
A pause.
"If a shot is fired and your opponent survives—you lose."
The weight of that settled heavily.
The crowd understood now. This was not about speed. Not about courage.
It was about control.
"Begin."
Amon moved first.
Slowly, deliberately, he slid his hand through the opening in the glass. His fingers hovered, barely disturbing the air.
Reaper lay still.
Amon didn't rush. His eyes never left the snake as his hand crept forward, millimeter by millimeter, toward the revolver.
Kai watched him.
Not the snake.
Not the gun.
The man.
Amon's breathing was steady—but something else flickered beneath it. A tension too subtle for most to notice.
His hand reached halfway.
Reaper stirred.
The snake uncoiled with frightening grace, body lifting upright, eyes locking onto the intrusion.
Amon's pupils shrank.
For the first time, hesitation crept into his movements.
He withdrew instantly.
The strike came anyway—fangs snapping shut on empty air.
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
Kai moved.
His hand slipped into the glass without pause.
Not toward the gun.
Toward the snake.
In one clean motion, he grabbed Reaper by the tail and yanked.
The crowd gasped.
The snake thrashed violently, twisting to strike, but Kai didn't hesitate. He swung and threw it across the table.
Straight at Amon.
Amon stumbled backward as the black mass flew toward him. Reaper hit the floor in front of him, scales scraping stone.
The snake rose again.
Its gaze was locked on Amon now.
And Amon… froze.
Not calculation.
Not indifference.
Fear.
The crowd saw it.
The man they feared—hesitated.
Kai calmly reached into the glass, retrieved the revolver, and aimed.
"One."
Click.
No shot.
The sound echoed louder than gunfire.
Amon snapped out of it, grabbing his chair and swinging it down at the snake. Reaper recoiled, hissing.
Kai placed the revolver back into the cage.
Pulled it out again.
"Two."
Click.
Still nothing.
The crowd was silent now. Watching history fracture.
Amon's movements grew erratic. His breathing uneven. He struck again, forcing the snake away, then lunged toward the table.
Desperation.
Kai saw it clearly.
He placed the revolver back one last time.
Took it out.
His pulse was calm. His breathing steady.
"I guess I ran out of numbers."
Bang.
The shot cracked the air.
Amon's skull split open.
His body collapsed forward, lifeless before it hit the ground.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then silence swallowed the arena whole.
Kai stood.
He bowed—graceful, precise—like a magician concluding his final act.
He turned and walked away.
The lights dimmed behind him.
His steps slowed.
Once.
Twice.
Then his vision blurred.
The noise he'd shut out crashed inward all at once. His knees buckled, and he fell hard onto the cold floor beyond the stage.
Darkness surged.
Kai opened his eyes.
Silk.
That was the first thing he felt.
Soft. Cool. Expensive.
He sat up abruptly, breath catching. The room around him was vast—curtains of deep crimson, golden light filtering through tall windows, the scent of incense hanging faintly in the air.
His head throbbed.
"Where…?"
He stood, unsteady, and staggered toward a tall mirror near the wall.
The reflection made him freeze.
The face staring back at him was not his.
Younger. Sharper. Regal.
Eyes unfamiliar.
Kai raised a hand.
The reflection followed.
His heart began to pound.
"I… don't remember…"
Fragments stirred at the edge of his mind—glass, a snake, a gunshot—but they slipped away before he could grasp them.
He stared at the stranger in the mirror.
And somewhere deep inside, something laughed.
Kai stared at the reflection for a long time.
Slowly, the panic faded.
The confusion did not.
But beneath it—something else surfaced.
A thought.
So it worked.
His fingers tightened against the edge of the mirror as fragments returned—not of the gamble, but of something far older. Quieter. Hidden beneath every reckless wager he had ever taken.
The ritual.
The one the world was never meant to know.
Eight times, he had cheated death.
Eight times, fate had been bent, delayed, fooled—by probability, by preparation, by sheer audacity. He had always walked away when he shouldn't have. Always survived when the numbers said he wouldn't.
But the ninth time…
Kai's lips curved upward.
The ninth time was different.
The Old One's words echoed faintly in his mind—not spoken aloud, but etched into thought itself, as if they had always belonged there.
To climb higher, you must stop fleeing death.You must invite it.Embrace it willingly.
Eight survivals strengthened the soul.
The ninth surrender released it.
That was the ritual.
Not sacrifice.
Not suicide.
Acceptance.
He had always wanted the peak—not wealth, not fear, not applause—but the place beyond all of it. Where chance no longer ruled him. Where the game itself could be rewritten.
Kai let out a quiet laugh.
Low. Breathless.
Mad.
He had trusted the book when no one else would have. Trusted the scribbled theories of a mad old gambler who claimed the soul could be tilted, like odds on a table, if one understood death deeply enough.
And now—
Now he stood in another body.
Another world.
His reflection smiled back at him.
Not relief.
Not peace.
Joy.
Pure, unfiltered joy.
"I won," Kai whispered.
Not the gamble.
Everything.
His smile widened—bright, dangerous, unrepentant.
If this was the higher realm the Old One promised…
Then Kai would climb again.
And this time—
He would gamble with gods.