In the center of the green felt tabletop, three ivory dice lay quietly.
The finely carved cubes glowed with a warm luster under the candlelight, each pips inlaid with black jade.
The surface around the table was divided into densely packed betting areas, marked with words such as Big, Small, Triple, and Surround Dice.
“Bet on Big.”
Anne pushed a stack of gold coins toward the area marked with the character for Big, her voice soft yet exceptionally clear.
“Bet on Small.”
The Stranger placed his chips on the opposite position without the slightest hesitation.
The Sic Bo table between them was instantly divided into two sharply opposed camps.
On the surface, this was nothing more than a simple game of guessing big or small.
But reality was far more complicated than appearances.
If anyone observed carefully, they would notice the Stranger’s left index finger tapping lightly and rhythmically against the edge of the table—a subtle action that only appeared when he was under extreme tension.
This Dragon Priest who had dominated casinos for ten years now felt his heart surging like stormy waves.
Over the past decade, the Stranger had received all sorts of people—from jewel merchants of Kuttenberg to down-and-out nobles of Iberia, from smugglers of the Northern Continent to secret agents of the Papal State.
Countless gamblers had gone down in defeat before this very table.
The moment he enjoyed most was watching those gamblers who had lost until their eyes turned red tremble in absolute despair.
Yet tonight’s situation was entirely different.
Sitting opposite him was Anne, the third princess of Carolingia.
That composed and unhurried bearing of hers made the Stranger feel as if thorns were pressed against his back.
As a key target under close monitoring by the church order, he knew every piece of information about Anne by heart.
Thirteen years ago, after that bloody struggle for the throne had ended, the new king Robert had stabilized the overall situation through political marriages, yet royalist forces in various places still rose and fell one after another.
After several years of cruel purges, the family properties and fiefs of the rebels had all been confiscated, the quantity of which was enough to make one’s jaw drop.
Everyone in the court and the countryside believed that this enormous wealth would be used to strengthen the power of the two princes.
The eldest son commanded the Heresy Inquisition Bureau, while the second son was a Steam Knight of the Order of the Hundred Flowers.
Whichever of them obtained these resources would hold an absolute advantage in the struggle for succession.
Yet to everyone’s surprise, the calculating Robert had actually assigned all these revenues under the name of his youngest daughter.
According to rumor, Princess Anne had used these industries scattered across various places to weave a network of intelligence and wealth that covered the entire continent.
The Stranger knew full well that in terms of surface status, Anne might be the most inconspicuous of the three, yet in terms of actual influence, she might be the most terrifying existence of all.
As the number one wanted criminal of the Papal State, the Stranger had originally thought this princess would maintain the proper vigilance toward him.
Yet the gaze Anne directed at him was unusually calm, as if she were looking at a complete stranger with no connection to herself.
When she picked up the dice cup and prepared to shake the dice, her movements were elegant and composed.
That attitude of regarding him as nothing made the Stranger feel a humiliation he had never experienced before.
What annoyed him even more was that Anne’s gaze would occasionally glance toward the dice on the table.
That scrutinizing look made him feel uneasy.
“Is there a problem?” the Stranger could not help but ask.
Anne picked up one of the dice and toyed with it lightly in her hand, saying thoughtfully, “The craftsmanship of these dice is truly exquisite. Every face has been polished so smooth.”
“Of course. These are top-grade ivory products imported from abroad.”
“They really are quite special.”
Anne placed the die back in its original position and smiled.
“I noticed that the center of gravity of these dice seems a bit… unique.”
The Stranger’s heartbeat suddenly accelerated.
Had this woman noticed something?
Impossible.
His dice had been carefully designed; even experienced gamblers would find it difficult to discover the secret within.
“You are overthinking it,” he answered, forcing himself to remain calm.
Anne nodded and said no more, yet a sly light flashed through her eyes.
The Stranger knew full well his secret weapon for victory.
The internal center of gravity of this specially made set of dice had been precisely adjusted.
Combined with a specific shaking method, it could greatly increase the probability of particular numbers appearing.
More importantly, after years of practice, he had already become able to control the force and angle so that the dice would stop in the expected direction.
But now, facing Anne’s meaningful gaze, he began to suspect whether his secret had already been exposed.
The Stranger gripped the dice cup tightly and began to shake it in his usual manner.
His technique appeared casual, yet every movement had been carefully designed—first three clockwise rotations, then two counterclockwise ones, and finally a sudden jolt.
This set of movements could make the modified dice stop in the expected direction.
“Open!” He slammed the dice cup down onto the tabletop, already eight-tenths certain in his heart.
When the cup was lifted, the three dice lay quietly: two, two, and three, totaling seven points.
A perfect small result, exactly as he had expected.
The Stranger felt secretly pleased.
This result proved the excellence of his skill.
Yet when he raised his head to look at Anne, he discovered that she was watching him with a strange gaze, as if she had already completely seen through something.
“An interesting technique,” Anne said softly. “Your set of movements is quite regular.”
Now it was Anne’s turn.
She took the dice cup and began to carefully observe the three dice.
What surprised the Stranger was that she actually rearranged the positions of the dice, turning a particular face upward.
“What are you doing?” the Stranger could not help but ask.
“Just confirming my observations,” Anne said with a smile.
“If I am not mistaken, the centers of gravity of these dice all lean toward a certain face, correct?”
The Stranger could no longer maintain his composure.
This woman had not only discovered his cheating method, but even more terrifyingly, she seemed to have already understood the principle behind it.
Anne began to shake the dice, yet her method was completely different from the Stranger’s.
She first rotated the cup gently, then suddenly changed direction and force.
At the final moment, she performed a wrist rotation that was almost imperceptible.
“Open.”
The three dice were revealed before everyone: five, six, and six, totaling seventeen points.
Big, and quite a high big at that.
The Stranger’s eyes widened.
He could not believe the result before him.
According to his design, those dice should only produce high numbers under a specific shaking method.
How had she done it?
“Impossible!” he blurted out. “How could this…”
Anne elegantly arranged her chips and said indifferently, “Your dice were indeed carefully designed. The internal centers of gravity lean toward specific faces. But you made one mistake—you believed only you knew how to exploit this characteristic.”
“How exactly did you discover it?” The Stranger’s voice carried a tremor.
“It was simple,” Anne chuckled lightly. “First, I noticed that every time you shook the dice, your technique was exactly the same. That is unreasonable under normal circumstances. Second, although your dice look exquisite, I discovered that their trajectory when rolling on the table was slightly abnormal, which indicates an uneven distribution of weight.”
She paused for a moment and continued, “The most critical point is that I observed you always placing the dice with certain specific faces upward. That exposed your expectation of the result. Once I understood the characteristics of your dice, the rest was simply using the opposite technique to obtain the result I wanted.”
The Stranger was completely stunned.
He had calculated everything possible, yet never imagined that the cheating tool he had carefully designed would become the weapon for his opponent’s victory.
Even more terrifying was that this woman had not only seen through his trick but had also mastered a countermeasure within a short time.
“So that was it…” he muttered to himself, finally understanding how thoroughly he had been defeated.
This was not a matter of luck, but a contest of wisdom, and he had lost completely.
“Mr. Dragon Priest,” Anne stood up, her bearing composed, “it seems the result of this contest is already quite clear.”
The Stranger’s face instantly turned as pale as paper, and his entire body began to tremble involuntarily.
It was not hard to imagine that the expression beneath his mask must have been extremely ugly.
Flora silently applauded for Anne, yet completely failed to notice that all the attendants and the black-clad accountant surrounding the gambling table had already quietly slipped their hands into their clothes…
“You are not a true gambler,” Anne said calmly. “A true gambler shows no change in expression from winning the entire table to losing the entire table again. My father is such a person. What you enjoy is the pleasure of crushing others by relying on an advantage. I know you never intended to pay out those gold coins. You can also order them to make a move right now, but that would only prove you are unworthy of calling yourself a gambler. At best you would merely be a pretentious actor, one who does not even have the courage to bear defeat.”
Cold sweat seeped from the seams of the Stranger’s mask, like ink marks soaked by rain.
His eyes had turned a dark red, his knuckles white from clenching, and the words stuck in his throat. “You people…”
Before the words finished, the black-clad men around the gambling table had already moved.
Pistols and short blades slid out from their bosoms.
Cold metallic light flashed in the dimness, instantly weaving a net of death around Anne and the princess.
More than a dozen gun muzzles rose at the same time, killing intent slamming onto faces like shards of ice.
The city defense soldiers in crimson armor roared as they charged forward, yet they could not stop those triggers about to be pulled.
At that very moment, the men who had drawn their weapons suddenly felt a searing pain in their palms.
In the instant they looked down, they saw the iron weapons deforming—the gun barrels bent into strange arcs like wax softened by the sun; the edges of the short blades drooped downward like melting strands of sugar.
Red-hot metal liquid dripped through the gaps between their fingers, scorching sizzling black marks onto the floorboards.
The gun bodies and blades continued to soften and sag, finally turning into a pile of twisted scrap iron that fell to the ground with a dull thud.
No one clearly saw Anne’s movement, perhaps only the instant her eyelashes trembled lightly.
Fire element condensed into an invisible net at her fingertips, wrapping those iron weapons in extreme high temperature.
This was not an explosive blaze, but a burning precise to the extreme.
It appeared effortless, yet it contained the most profound secrets of fire magic.
Fire element was regarded as the most violent among the four elements.
Only the most outstanding sorcerers could precisely cast fire magic, just as a top-tier martial artist slowly swings a sword and everything the blade’s edge encounters silently snaps.
This perhaps explained why, aside from factors of personality, old Robert valued Anne so highly.
“Just as I guessed—an actor who has immersed himself too deeply in his role. When he wakes from the play, he discovers that he is a coward,” Anne looked at the Stranger’s bronze mask and said slowly.