Zenith Online: Rebirth of the Strongest Player

An air of increasing perversity and treachery loomed around Devil's Touch, fluctuating wildly with each syllable of his sentence. Most would perhaps choose to step away from the table at this time.

If they could.

The words of Devil's Touch carried a strange, almost hypnotic ambiance to them, inciting… forcing the players to want more. He preyed upon that addictive euphoria winning produced.

And the only way to draw this feeling out was to have them believe they were winning. Ironically, though, the dealer's proposal wasn't spurred by feigned losses. Kieran had begun to amass genuine winnings, warranting the call of a treacherous gambit.

A genuine decryption of the dealer's cunning trickery was ensuing.

Devil's Touch knew it and hated that he did. But he sensed a prideful, competitive fashion in how Kieran carried himself: a willing slave to challenge, a follower of thrill and triumph.

Gradually, Kieran's flat lips curved into something resembling a lighthearted smile.

"I'll do it. I'll play your game."

Off to the side, Weasel's green eyes burned with caustic vitriol. His fury seared his mind, charring his reason to indistinguishable ash.

"Don't count me out, damn you. I'm no pigheaded shit, you hear me? I am smart and intelligent. A genius! I deserve to be in this game. Don't you dare disregard me!"

Devil's Touch spared Weasel a contemptuous look of disgust, a dark, spurning scowl behind his mask. All hints of politeness vanished from his tone.

"Rodents should learn when to scurry away. I am speaking to this gentleman here, not you. Now, scamper off. Or… lose all your money. For this is a one-hand deal. A make it or break it round. And you—you do not have the remaining money needed to potentially make it or break it."

Weasel's expression became uglier and contorted further as many emotions stampeded rampantly through his mind. Hatred, embarrassment, envy—it was all there, flourishing abound.

Kieran intervened, proffering a solution to the weaselly fellow.

"I can sponsor him for this hand. How much are we talking?"

Devil's Touch analyzed Kieran's chips briefly, estimating its grand total with experienced accuracy. Tallied, his winnings amounted to slightly over $2,100,000.

"One million a hand. We are to play the Devil's Gambit. A game of absurdity. Shouldn't the odds, cost, and rewards be similarly absurd?"

A tempting speech and tempted Kieran was. He split his chips in half, sliding them to Weasel. His usual rage didn't occur. It was one million dollars, after all. He wouldn't scoff at the gift.

But Kieran wasn't done. He raised his hand, signaling for a casino tender. Usually, it was the dealer's job to bring additional trays of chips over, but Kieran took it upon himself.

Another move Devil's Touch didn't expect.

The confidence was all too suspicious of him.

It begged too many questions. Questions that partially unsettled the dealer, almost successfully throwing him off his game. Luckily, his experience took hold, and his demeanor as the casino's wily dealer returned.

Soon enough, another tray of chips landed on the table the value undetermined. Kieran had whispered it to maintain an air of mystery in this game.

And so, it began.

Devil's Touch shuffled the cards with blinding speed. Weasel rubbed his eyes at some point and looked to and from the dealer several times. Was this real? How in the hell was he supposed to calculate odds at this speed?

It was simply inhuman!

'Ah, he is Inhuman. Sometimes you just don't want to be right.'

The dealer continued to move his hands, cutting, shuffling, and reshuffling the deck. The movements produced an eerie breeze, the lightness whispering of inescapable defeat.

Was the wind talking to them? No, that wasn't possible.

Unless…

'Does his manifested ability have something to do with winds and such?'

It wasn't unthinkable. Kieran could see how the assumption made sense.

Daedric and Soulless manifested abilities that transcended common sense. An aura of wailing death encased the latter, and the former seemed like a walking mountain. The heft and sturdiness he brought to bear tracked.

But if engendering whispers through the wind was his ability… what the hell did the strings have to do with it?

Kieran pondered and thought. Half his attention focused on unraveling the remaining mysteries of Devil's Touch's ability, the other trained on memorizing and tracking those freakishly quick movements.

"This is insanity! Impossible. Slow the hell down."

Weasel slammed the table but then exasperatedly clutched his hair with teeming frustration. Kieran reckoned steam might come out of his ears if he worked his mind any harder.

The treachery of the dealer's movements only worsened. Each motion soon gave way to dizzying distortions that complemented the afterimages' perplexing nature.

Cards appeared on the table before Kieran and Weasel like a feat of magic. Two of the same numbers but of different suites. Of course, with each card bearing a unique distinction, they couldn't receive the "same" card.

Again, the next card appeared in an almost magical fashion. Weasel received a "3 of Diamonds" and Kieran a "King of Diamonds."

Unlike before, where they followed the order of the draw, Devil's Touch flipped his hands and made a move a conniving charlatan would.

"Either of you are welcome to go. The Devil's Gambit does not discriminate."

Weasel looked at Kieran while dripping with sweat. He seemed exhausted, overheated, and enervated. More than ordinary thinking should accomplish.

He started questioning whether Weasel's physique was a consequence of his mind. Was it something like his… but more uniquely specialized?

'Does he have a variation of the H-COS diagnosis? If that's true, Lillian would love to study him. He'd be another rare case. Maybe even the beginning of understanding how it affects people differently.'

"I can't… do it. I can't do it. It's just impossible for me. I don't know what to do. I don't…"

Distraught, Weasel began to murmur incoherently. His mind was being defeated, and he couldn't bear the shame. It consumed him, devouring him whole and plunging into a manic darkness.

Somewhat annoyed by it all, Kieran spoke.

"It's a game of choice and chance. Isn't that what you said? All you do is have to make a choice and not let the vastness govern you. Devil's Touch told you before: let him in your head, and you lose."

The game of chance had so many variables it could drive a person mad. It nearly happened to Weasel. The dealer's objective was to get the players to doubt and over-assess the trivial.

What if he manipulated the cards? What if he didn't? If he didn't, did that card abide by his calculations? If he did, how much were those cards manipulated?

The questions split into more questions, and those questions split again, forming an endless and expansive net to trap the mind while in a game.

That was the Devil's Gambit—a game of mental debilitation and thorough thought entrapment.

Kieran, though, ignored the labyrinthine difficulty of assessing chance. He paid attention to what remained stark and virtually unchanged.

The dealer's conduct.

Devil's Touch had only sacrificed the scope of his influence for speed and accuracy. Only a number of cards were truly manipulated with the guileful movements of his hands. Ten, to be exact.

Weasel ground his teeth, the pressure of choice weighing on him greatly. He gnawed his teeth hard, producing a jarring noise.

A noise that made both Kieran and Devil's Teeth flinch. The latter more than the other.

That reaction—the intensity of it—betrayed a weakness and strength. Kieran's confidence in his earlier assumption was redoubled. For a second, or maybe far less than that, the dealer's hands shook like a paralyzed cripple attempting to move.

No, like an anxious person experiencing a debilitating sensory overload.

Information was undoubtedly coming from those hands of his. Those masterful, unscrupulous hands.

Soon, Weasel screamed vulgarities and announced his choice. He had resigned himself. With that six showing on the dealer's side, it was too risky for him to Stand.

"Hit, dammit. Just Hit me!"

Devil's Touch gathered himself and moved with that sly, disorienting agility.

A "2 of Hearts" was flipped. A grand total of "15." Still not enough to beat the dreaded and realizable "16."

"Hit!"

A 10 of Clubs.

A disheartening outcome for Weasel, no doubt. He deflated in his chair, color, and energy all drained.

"Bust."

Once more, it was only Kieran and Devil's Touch.

Kieran did what no sane person would do before this dealer.

"Split."

Two playable tens are what he held.

He waited and focused, a war of wit occurring—oh yes, and duplicity.

"Hit."

Beneath the table, Kieran sliced his palm and focused on that dreadful energy he once wielded. Not its power, just its presence. That was all he needed. A red thread rose, and he squeezed and twisted, wrenching a harrowing noise from that string of dreadful presence.

A noise that interfered with the dealings of the Devil.

The interruption in his movement disrupted his dealing technique, resulting in the top card being dealt.

An Ace of Hearts.

One hand had reached twenty-one, seated comfortably as a victor.

The dealer's eyes searched for the culprit—the cause of that bloody noise. The grim horror of it. Those whispers of death of dudgeon.

Kieran called out, disrupting his search.

"Hit."

He was patient, prudent with his actions, waiting for the tell of Devil's Touch's finger when it found the worst and best card. Then, he let the wail sing its maddening song.

There it was again, that noise.

A thief of focus, a knell of a game's end.

And while the thief stole, another card was drawn.