Chapter 558 Challenges Marlene’s version (part 3)
Seeing the poor bastard whose face was somehow paler than before, not to mention it's erratic breath which made it look as if he was about so fall and die, Daimon smirked, if what he understood about Marlene's lineage ability was right, she could temporarily steal a certain portion of the luck of others and add it to her own temporarily.
There were many variables that let alone Daimon, even Marlene didn't know about her ability, because all the records of her clan were lost, in fact the spells and martial arts that her clan used were either created by the elders that dedicated their lives to take care of the young generations or things that were obtained through trades from the many nomad tribes of the Maelstrom Sea.
The lack of legacy spells and martial arts didn't really affect them, since they could barely enter the Arch ranks, until the appearance of Marlene, but their historical records being lost is what truly blocked their way path as well as the curse that was casted on them.
For example, she didn't even know that her lineage's ability was called "Royal Charm", until Daimon mentioned it to her, the system showed it as such when she accidentally tried to steal luck from him back then.
However, one thing that Marlene did know is that the amount of luck she can take from others is a fixed quantity, she can focus on a sole target or spread it on a selected group and the result can be incredibly different depending on the targets she choices.
Which is understandable, luck is a volatile thing it can increase or decrease based on one's actions.
'She knew that guy was using the bone ring to see what cards were more convenient for him and allowed him to get a winning streak, to then steal all the increased luck for herself', concluded Daimon.
Of course, luck isn't absolute, her ability was more oriented to create opportunities for Marlene to win, in this case, it made the supervising Nethereal to give them a majorly horrible set of cards from which to choose, and also misguided the opponent to pick the worst from them, while helping Marlene to get the best ones.
That opponent on the other hand only had that bone ring which is something Ereth had prepared with Karla's help, it's function according to what his infinity eyes could see was that of a compass, it guided its user towards what it wanted, ignoring the restrictions placed by the arrays of the castle.
Naturally for such a convenient magic treasure to function the price was equally high, every time the bone ring activated, it consumed the life of its user, the only reason as to why Ereth's subordinate didn't become a gray haired wrinkled middle-aged man after losing so much vitality in a short period of time, is because he was in an undead-like state.
That being said, what others thought was that guy getting nervous which including his face paling and that time when he trembled, Daimon knew was caused by the backslash of the bone ring, as to why the owner of the castle didn't notice it, that's probably related to whatever Ereth and Karla had done to their lackeys, unfortunately the preparations done by that guy focused on countering the restrictions of this castle, not Marlene clan's lineage ability.
To no one's surprise, the three humans ended up losing horribly, with one losing his legs, another losing an arm and the guy who had lost its intestine now missing an eye as well.
Leaving their wails aside, the supervisor Malak helped them buy back what they could and then kicked them out of this area, Ereth's subordinate on the other hand still wanted to have a talk with the owner of the castle, so despite the hatred that filled his heart after being deprived of his magic core, he talked with the supervisor and was moved to some kind of waiting room.
The current scores were, Marlene 54 points, Walford 49 points, the magic beast guy who was subordinated to Marcus who had 45 points and lastly the member of Skyfire's sect with 43 points.
And with only four participants left, it was time for another opponent selecting round.
"Hurry up and select your next opponent", said the supervisor, not even a second later, Marlene pointed at the magic beast guy, who frowned for a second but reciprocated by pointing back at her, in fact he wasn't the only one, Walford also did it.
"Hey, let's make a deal, leave her to me and we can make a temporary truce to deal with the others", said Walford without bothering to lower his voice, outside of the castle violence was allowed again after all, but to his surprise the beast guy also called Kail, snorted in response.
"I don't make deals with bastards from the Clear Water kingdom, my boss's orders are to destroy each and everyone of you", he said as he showed his spiked teeth the symbol of his current human form not being permanent.
"Tsk, idiots who can't see the bigger picture, those "things" are Neptune's enemy at the end of the day, regardless of the sea to which we belong, unlike them we are natives of Neptune", said Walford while gritting his teeth.
'Heh, did you hear that, that old scum is now playing hero…', Daimon couldn't help but inwardly snark at what Walford said, which is probably what Arlion was using as his ideology, the classic "lesser of two evils", but his train of thought stopped midway when a sudden idea invaded his mind, which made a certain girl whose almost whole figure with the exception of a few strands of hair were blurred, smile.
'Hurry up and reach the next "level" so I can talk with you more, my dear host~', happily mumbled Evangeline.
Back at the game, since Walford's offer was rejected and Marlene showed no interest in facing him, Kail was paired with her while the member of Skyfire's sect ended up facing Walford.
"The game starts now!", seeing that the pairs were formed, the supervisor shuffled the cards and placed ten on each of the now only remaining two tables.
"Before we start let me tell you that I was impressed by how you dealt with that guy, I heard what he told you earlier, how about you join us instead, I can assure you that my boss won't "pursue" you like that", said Kail while he smirked to show his spiked teeth.
Marlene raised an eyebrow in response, naturally Daimon told his team members everything he could about Marcus, his preferences included, that being said she simply ignored Kail and picked three cards.
"Oh well, let's decide like we magic beast do, by seeing who has the bigger fist", said Kail to then actually select five cards, which earned him some insults from the Nethereals that were planning to bet on him.
"Place your bets now", ordered the supervisor, the Nethereals didn't have to hear it a second time, Daimon could see that despite their insults earlier, many still chose to bet on Kail.
"Reveal", with a single word, the first round ended, Marlene turned her cards up first this time and got a result of 2-1-2, which wasn't bad at all, her previous 54 points turned into 59.
Kail waited for her to reveal her cards before doing the same, the first two cards were actually not good, "arm" and "leg" is the words they had written on them, the remaining three on the other hand got him 5-5-5, for a total of 15 points, so he went from having 45 points to a total of 60.
That being said, unlike Marlene he pulled some body parts, so with the supervisor having registered the new scores, he casually said.
"Time to pay", with those words, the left arm and right leg of Kail disappeared, which unlike others only made him growl in pain.
"Let me show you what you rejected by ignoring my offer", said Kail, then the flesh on his wounds started undulating, his bleeding stopped after a couple of seconds and then slowly but surely what he lost started regenerating, with the difference that his new arm and leg were incredibly skinny and emaciated, but they were still an arm and a leg.
"That is cheating!", screamed one of the spectators, probably one of the ones that had betted for Marlene.
Feeling the supervisor's gaze on him, Kail snorted to then say.
"This is the regeneration ability of my Black Spiked Starfish clan, the rules prohibit spells and martial arts, but lineage abilities aren't included in that, am I right, castle owner?".
The supervisor raised his head to look at the skybox, waiting for Agrak to give his verdict, what Kail said was true, so this round was his win anyway, however the rules could be modified if the castle owner so wished it with a bit of "persuasion".
"I'll allow it, however as far as I know, there is no such a race in Neptune, so I want to know from where did that clan came?", said Agrak.
Kail didn't bother to hide it, the mission that was given to him was to increase his boss's reputation, if he managed to reach an agreement with the owner of the castle, then he will be rewarded.
"This is the "Blessing" that my boss granted me in exchange for my loyalty, I who used to be a mixed-race ordinary magic beast now possess the incredible ability of regeneration of a magic beast that has the potential to reach the peak of the Stellar rank!", the pride behind Kail's words was evident and while the spectators didn't show any reaction towards his words, Daimon could see a slight tinge of mockery on the eyes of the supervisor.
"Oh really, that sounds interesting, in that case I hope to see a nice performance from you", said Agrak, though he didn't show disdain with his words, Daimon could tell the guy was laughing at the narrowness of Kail's view.
He couldn't blame him for that completely though, for the natives of Neptune, the Stellar realm was the peak of existence, it's what every sentient being aspired for, however what did make Kail a laughing stock was the fact that he was bragging about the Stellar realm in front of beings that were capable of more than that.
There wasn't even a need for the Nethereals to show a combat prowess that surpassed the Stellar realm, to know that they were capable of more than that, the array that kept the participants alive despite losing their heads, or other vital parts was more than enough to prove it.
At least there was nothing like that back at not only Neptune, but also the four galaxies or Kerrol.
'Being a frog at the bottom of the well is really a sad thing', thought Daimon, ever since that day back at the mountain, he was well aware of how weak he was in the bigger picture, that's why he will never compare himself with those in the same realm or age as him, his target is those that are older and stronger realm-wise.
Leaving that little episode aside, the supervisor gave the green light and the round started, Marlene picked first, this time she picked four cards, Kail selected four as well, despite he acting all proud about his lineage, he only picked four cards this time.
Although he called his ability regeneration, it was more appropriate to call it "regrow" since the body parts he created weren't the same as the ones he lost, but new ones that were weaker and untrained, in other words he had to get used to them and enhance them with mana or battle aura all over again.
As amazing as regrowing body parts sounded, it can be easily done with the respective elixirs back at the four galaxies, and the result will be similar to Kail's ability.
To recover a body part in the exact same state as the rest of the body was a complete different case though, the ingredients and knowledge for that were on a different level, to put it in perspective, there alchemists capable of making such a high ranked elixir back at the four galaxies could be counted with the fingers on one's hands.
And the only one who put such elixir up to sale was the Greenwich Sage, alternatively there were incredibly rare magic herbs and other resources that could achieve that same effect, but they had rank, affinity and even race restrictions, all the previous contributed to Daimon's happiness when he obtained Mythic Regeneration, he could do all the previous with just providing energy.
The bests immediately came and once the period was over, the supervisor shouted.
"Reveal!".
Kail moved first, the first three cards were numbers 2-4-4 to be exact a pretty decent result but not what he wanted, specially because the last card was "eye".
Marlene followed right after, a small smile appeared on her pretty face as she showed her result, 5-5-1-0.
"Tsk, so you still had some luck remaining", said Kail with an angered voice.
"Pay", with a single word, the scores updated and Kail lost his left eye, at this point he and Marlene were tied with both of them having 70 points.
"The next round starts… now!", the supervisor gave the greenlight and not even a second later, Kail had selected nine of the ten cards.
'Let's see you win this one bitch!', he inwardly swore.
Under the eyes of all the spectators who felt attracted to the face off between Kail and Marlene, the angelfish princess chose the remaining card.
"Damn, I was planning to go all in on that woman but now…".
"Ah whatever, I'll go 50-50, that way I'll win regardless".
And similar comments came from the grades, the supervisor waited until the spectators placed their bets, not out of kind of course, Daimon could see that the particles of energy that the array gathered, were being produced at an insane speed at this moment.
"Time is over, reveal", said the supervisor.
"I hope you don't hold it against me, you didn't lose anything anyway, if you agree to join us, I can ask the boss to help you with whatever you needed from the owner of the castle", said Kail.
"Did you not know that counting the chickens before they hatch is a sin for those who gamble", casually answered Marlene, she turned her sole card up and it turned out to be a 5, meaning that she has gathered 75 points, however if the opponent surpassed her score, she will be the one to lose.
"Hpmh, I refuse to believe that my score will be lower than yours…", as Kail was saying, he saw the result of his first four cards and he nearly break his teeth due to gritting them too hard, 0-0-0-0, he got four zeros straight, now imagine his blood pressure going up when the next four cards were 1-1-1-1, meaning that he now had 74 points and one card left to reveal.
"No way!".
"You've got to be kidding me, I went all in into that guy!".
The Nethereals started cursing as Kail showed his last card, which was a poetic "mouth".
"Bam!", Kail stood up and smacked his hand on the table to then point at Marlene.
"She is cheating, there is no way that I could get such a bad result, are there even that many zeroes and ones left on the deck to begin with!", he shouted.
"There are twenty copies of each card in that deck, you were "lucky" enough to get last remaining four of both zero and one", said Marlene.
She knows it better than anyone, that luck isn't absolute, which is why she has never considered to solely rely on it, that's something she understood since she was a little girl who no matter how much luck she stole, couldn't bring back an older girl who was bitten by a magic beast in time to where the elders were, so she could get treated.
As to why she didn't mind to reveal the fact that she had counted the cards, is that she knew that the last round will for sure be different than the previous, also this is essentially a casino, she isn't the first nor will be the last one to do that, but she certainly was skilled enough to follow the results on all the tables as well as the actions of the supervisor, to accurately know how many cards of each number the deck contained.
"Time to pay", and with those words, Kail's fate was sealed, his mouth was ripped off his face and while he managed to hold his screams back, the angered expression and the fact that he had to break his own arm, leg and mouth once again to use the free recovery pass given by the casino, since he had already regenerated what he lost, to avoid having to start training them from zero, nearly made him have an attack.
The other finalist was none other than Walford who beat the guy from Skyfire's sect, with a snap of the supervisor's fingers, a single table remained and now Marlene found herself in front of Walford.
"As I previously stated, the last round will be optional, the objective is to reach a hundred points or to be the one that endured the most, the rules are simple, you'll both be given two cards and will have to give one to your opponent and keep one to yourself, the previous is to prevent any participant from trying to brute force its way to victory, any "regenerative" abilities will be prohibited and all the cards that had been used will be returned to the deck immediately, I want a nice bloody show for my spectators after all", said Agrak.
"Of course, a reward akin to such difficulty will be given to the winner, you'll get to ask me whatever you want and also make a "reasonable" petition to me, not to mention you will be able to choose one thing from my private treasury", Agrak's words sounded sweet, but there was a big trap in them, still both Marlene and Walford nodded and then the last round started.
Or so would have been the case, if Walford whose face paled didn't suddenly close his eyes to then shout.
"I surrender!".
"…", a sepulchral silence fell on the room, the supervisor was already about to place the cards, the Nethereals were ready to bet and the guy in the skybox was ready to have a nice laugh, but everything soured in a single second.
The only one who was enjoying the show was a silver haired masked youth.
'Now, what will you do Nethereal lord', thought Daimon.
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