Zenith Online: Rebirth of the Strongest Player

In the presence of that disorienting noise, Devil's Touch made a mistake. When he recovered, the winds told him so. They spoke of dread; they spoke unease—a chilling fate to behold for a master.

All those years of honing his craft... rendered useless by some infuriating noise he just couldn't understand.

Still, he flipped the card. It was his duty—the fate he had resigned to, so Devil's Touch couldn't go against them. He had to obey those set rules whether vehemently against them or ecstatically for them.

A 6 of Spades.

Confidence at the table waxed on one end and waned on the other. Listening to the faint whispers of wind generated by his subtly moving threads, the light in Devil's Touch's eyes grew harsher, likely devilish.

He did something he had not done in any rounds prior—Devil's Touch made a fist, shattering the numerous threads. Motes of strange energy remained on the table or rather the deck itself, swirling around it gently like a contained, tamed tornado.

Those zephyrs relayed a surge of information, revealing the position of every valuable and dangerous card in the deck without the dealer having to lay a hand—or finger thread—on it.

"You are showing a 16 in the Devil's Gambit. The odds and stakes are incredibly high for you, young man. Do you Hit… or do you Stand?"

Kieran contemplated.

The way the dealer was manipulating cards now was incredibly different. Difficult to understand and even harder to detect. Those stealthy winds that he had felt earlier had grown more covert.

Clandestine winds carrying cryptic secrets.

'This world of Inhumans is an interesting thing. I can't believe I was blind to it all before.'

The vastness of this new world left Kieran all too curious. The versatility, practicality, and malleability of this technique were fascinating. The applications were endless, and if Devil's Touch could refine his usage further, perhaps he'd be the world's most successful agent.

Or at least one of them.

His winds could only speak what could be tentatively revealed. It probably had a less than splendid effect on humans as opposed to its shocking value with inanimate objects.

"Hit or Stand…"

Kieran trained his laser-focused gaze on the deck while his hands beneath the table struggled to conjure a second thread of that dreadful power. His muscles strained, his bones vibrated, and his blood grew frenetic.

'Come on… Work with me here.'

Extracting that power within his blood was a hellish endeavor. Copious amounts of squeezing didn't seem to be enough to overpower its arduous rebellion. This was no game. Kieran did not have dominion over this energy like in Zenith Online.

Its obstinate defiance made the relationship almost untenable. But within that disobedience, Kieran felt a gnawing attraction. There, he recognized an unmissable weakness— a perfect infirmity to exploit.

So he did.

Scores of adrenaline pumped, and his heartbeat accelerated, growing loud and fierce like the beating of a war drum, the pound of a gong. The thread of dreadful energy thickened, and its vibrancy and intensity redoubled.

But with that came an issue.

Devil's Touch could now sense the origin of that energy. Though it didn't explain the noise, he now knew the culprit responsible.

"It's you."

Kieran smiled faintly.

He had been caught, but it didn't matter. The dealer had been exposed all the same. It now became a battle of who could manipulate the best, read the best, and turn one or the other into an unwilling puppet.

Underneath the table, Kieran slit his second palm with a nail of his forefinger. A trickle of blood leaked but didn't touch the ground. It seemed to want to return to its rightful place inside Kieran's veins, circulating through him.

It froze, however.

A result of Kieran's straining himself mentally, almost to his limits. If his forte weren't related to blood, he would have likely bust a few capillaries by now. The pressure was tremendous, an encumbering burden.

"…Hit."

Kieran groaned his words out, his tenor almost a grouse from the discomfort he felt.

Devil's Touch obliged, answering with a light touch. His fingers skated deftly across the table, a smooth and mesmerizing journey. The nearly undetected winds followed, but Kieran could feel it.

He had entered a truly Hypersensitive state, calling upon one of the advantages of being an Inhuman geared towards combat. His body had become akin to a well-developed sensor, primarily when he focused.

Kieran waited; he plotted, devising, and timing.

As expertly as Devil's Touch tried to hide his manipulation, veil his trickery and disguise his deceit… perfection was merely a temptatious myth. Holes existed in everything. It was simply a master's job to subvert the significance of those holes… weaknesses.

Unfortunately, that was difficult when the master themselves attempted to make their actions too perfect, too precise… too fastidious. They worked harder to hide their weakness, that extra effort becoming an obnoxious beacon.

'It's like you're inadvertently telling me where to focus.'

But there was also another possibility. It could all be another trick—a deceitful tactic to make Kieran believe Devil's Touch was showing his unique tells.

Was it? Was it not?

Kieran had to ask himself these two questions.

Not yet, though.

He exercised startling patience, looking for uniformity in how the dealer's fingers moved. Namely, a pattern that could form a disparate motif in the masterful tapestry of his lies.

Those movements gradually revealed secrets Devil's Touch desperately wished to keep hidden. An almost machine-like precision in the way he avoided four cards in particular.

'The fives…'

Those were the only cards valuable enough to make Devil's Touch amateurishly weary. It set Kieran's perfect hand in stone.

When Devil's Touch reached, stealthily manipulating the winds to assist in his duplicitous dealing technique, Kieran rotated his palms and slowly separated them.

The thread of metallic crimson wailed and screeched, the ear-piercing frequency enough to make many cover their ears beyond the walls. It reached a whine, so shrill trickles of blood seeped from uninvolved parties beyond.

Devil's Touch's finger twitched then spasmed involuntarily, the card attached to a piecemeal thread pulled from the deck. By the time he regained his wit, it was all too late. The card had been drawn, twirling on the table until it fell face up near Kieran's split dealings.

The 5 of Hearts.

An ironic card considering the heart-wrenching pains it gave Devil's Touch. In a game of deceitful handling… he had been defeated by a young man. He still had his turn but could not overcome that daze from the shrill cry.

And Kieran wouldn't let him off easy. Though Weasel bordered on the edge of unconsciousness, he was still lucid enough to understand that Kieran had arrived at a winning hand.

A look of incredulity shook Weasel's eyes.

Then, he fainted.

Devil's Touch moved his hand weakly, muttering something.

"Please don't use that power again. It is an odious thing. I don't know exactly what I felt… but that thing portends a gruesome and bloody death. I don't want to experience that ever again."

Kieran glanced at his hands, watching the slits stitch together with new flesh. It was a gradual process, but it was discernible.

'He saw something from this power? Then, why can't I see it?'

Questions sprouted in Kieran's mind. His main concern was the true origin of this power and how it was unlocked. Had his body linked with Argexes, a being of dark tales in a world as plain as this?

Well… with the presence of X-hancers, was it really that plain?

'No, not really. It isn't. But it certainly is not as fantastical as Xenith.'

As it stood, Kieran knew his body was being strengthened at an alarming rate. He didn't know how it compared to other Inhumans, but he was becoming incredibly resilient, starting from his blood outward.

What would be the next step in this course of refinement?

The questions had no answers for now, but he would search and arrive at them soon enough. For now, all he needed was the unconscious man beside him. Oh, and those winnings as well.

Without the cunning assistance of his abilities, Devil's Touch lost the Devil's Gambit. What started as a sparse amount of chips had become a grand night. Though it was not as large as it could have been, thanks to Weasel, it was enough.

After cashing out his chips and being given dark glares by many of House Laviosha's tenders and dealers, Kieran wrapped Weasel's arm around his shoulders, hoisted him up, and brought him to a lounge area where he splashed cold water on his face.

Weasel woke in a startled fright, gasping and about to shriek, but Kieran's marred palm covered his mouth.

"Haven't you caused enough scenes for the night? Now, I think we should perhaps talk. Shouldn't we, Weasel of the Net?"

Hearing his entire sobriquet of the Underworld announced so, trepidation and crushing fear gripped Weasel. He squealed what he could manage.

"H-have I stole from you?! Please don't kill me; I am extremely sorry for whatever wrongs I have done toward you. I'm too young to die. I'll give back anything I took—allegedly, of course. No, I'll return… more? You'll like that. Won't you? Please tell me you will! Oh… don't chop off my hands."

Kieran chuckled, light but also somewhat dark. A suffocating pressure bore down on Weasel but vanished instantly.

"Chop off your hands? Nah, nothing like that. I just… want you."

"Sir… I don't like men!"