Slightly Better Than a Psychic Ogryn

"Disaster!!"

"Misfortune!!"

"Black aura!!"

The blind witch let out a shrill wail and hurled the red shoe in her hand straight into Cicero's face.

"What are you doing?" Cicero cried out in alarm. The red shoe fell from his face, leaving a shoeprint behind.

The blind witch panted heavily, extending a withered finger as her sightless eyes stared emptily at Cicero.

Then...

"Eh?" The blind witch slowly turned her head, seeming to inspect Cicero. She rose from the booth's sofa, barefoot on one foot, and walked over to him.

Her twig-like finger moved close to Cicero's eyes. He could even see the grime beneath her long, deeply ridged nails, and smell the decayed, nauseating, fallen stench emanating from her body.

"What's wrong with Cicero?" Libo stood and walked over to the blind witch, frowning as he looked at Cicero.

But from his perspective, Cicero did not seem to have any problem.

Cicero had already received the God of First Cry's blessing before the altar. Though it was not much, only slightly enhancing his perception, luck, and thinking within a limited range,

a blessing was still a blessing. Even the slightest blessing was protection from the heavens. If anything had happened to him, Libo would certainly have noticed,

unless the God of First Cry had abandoned Cicero—but that was unlikely. Cicero's way of thinking aligned well with the God of First Cry's will. As long as he did not do something idiotic like insulting the God of First Cry, he would not be abandoned.

"Seems... there isn't any problem." The blind witch hesitantly withdrew her finger. "How strange. Why did I just see a black pustule on him? Sticky, greasy, and screaming... It was probably a hallucination."

Cicero stepped back in disgust, putting some distance between himself and the blind witch. He truly hated this ugly, shriveled old woman,

but he genuinely needed her witchcraft.

"What about you, Cicero? What happened?" Libo looked at Cicero. "How much has he lost?"

"More than ten thousand Denar," Cicero said through gritted teeth.

"More than ten thousand Denar? Has that idiot gone mad?"

Libo frowned.

"You and Tull should end the game quickly. The temple's money doesn't grow on trees..."

"He's already won more than ten thousand Denar," Cicero said, his throat working as his expression twisted slightly.

Most of it had been won from him.

"...Mad!" It took Libo several seconds to understand what Cicero meant before he cursed. "Wouldn't that mean he's paid off all his previous debts?"

"He seems to believe in some religion. His luck has become freakishly good." Cicero frowned tightly.

His luck had become freakishly good... Libo's first suspicion was not some religion or god's power, but Lucretius, Zhou Yun's teacher.

Libo looked at the blind witch.

"I'll handle it..." The blind witch pointed at Cicero. "Go back to the table."

Cicero nodded slightly, left the booth, and returned to the gambling table.

"Sorry to keep you waiting." Cicero lowered his head in apology to Tull and Zhou Yun.

Tull merely smiled and waved a hand at Cicero.

Zhou Yun, meanwhile, showed a slight smile. "You look a little constipated."

Cicero froze for a moment, then forced a smile. "That's what happens when your stomach isn't well."

"You could try changing toilets." Zhou Yun still wore that faintly teasing smile. "I've sat on a golden toilet before. The suction was incredibly strong. It felt like it was about to suck my soul out."

"Sure, I'll definitely try it if I get the chance." Cicero brushed it off. The cards in his hand flew out, landing before himself, Tull, and Zhou Yun.

Zhou Yun smiled slightly and pushed all the chips in his hand onto the table.

Eleven thousand five hundred Denar. One hundred and fifteen chips piled before Zhou Yun like a mountain, carrying considerable pressure.

He was being this bold? Had the blind witch already begun exerting herself?

A faint spark of hope rose in Cicero's heart.

He flipped over one of his face-up cards... It was a 6.

An unremarkable, relatively safe card.

Tull flipped over his cards at that moment as well. An 8 and a K, for a total of 18.

Tull waved his hand and did not ask for another card, instead turning his gaze toward Zhou Yun.

Zhou Yun folded his hands, smiling faintly as he looked at his two cards.

The first was an A.

Sweat began to form in Cicero's palm.

An A—if the next card was a J, Q, or K, Zhou Yun would get blackjack and win outright.

He knew there were no Jacks left in the deck, and only one Queen and one King remained, so the odds of getting blackjack directly were low. But... Zhou Yun's bizarre luck just now had truly frightened Cicero.

Zhou Yun flipped over his second card... It was also an A.

This subtle turn of events made Cicero breathe a sigh of relief.

But Zhou Yun shifted his gaze away from the cards, wearing an interested expression.

At a table not far from the gambling table, the blind witch silently looked in Zhou Yun's direction.

Within those empty eyes, things that did not belong to the real world seemed to be reflected...

"No. There are no traces of the Empyrean on this boy. He's simply lucky."

The blind witch spoke with certainty.

"That useless Cicero." Upon hearing the blind witch's judgment that Zhou Yun was merely an ordinary mortal, Libo's face filled with disdain.

A mere mortal—and Cicero had received the God of First Cry's blessing.

His thoughts should have been quicker than an ordinary person's, and his luck better as well, yet Zhou Yun had still won more than ten thousand Denar from him.

"I'll interfere with his thoughts and make him commit a mistake."

The blind witch slightly raised her withered finger and pointed toward Zhou Yun. At the same time, she drew from her robes a coiled-serpent pendant forged of pure gold, set with amethyst snake eyes.

The six pure-gold venomous snakes on the pendant were exquisitely carved, long and slender, their bodies intertwined. Their heads all bore humanlike expressions, like six beautiful men and women engaged in intercourse.

The blind witch's branch-like fingers tightly gripped the pendant. The six coiled snakes upon it actually began to writhe slightly like living creatures...

"I offer worship to my Lord of Crying, I offer worship to my Lust Exalted."

"Lady of Pleasure, grant me joy."

"Dark Prince, grant me power."

"Indulge my six desires, let desire corrode the six senses."

The six coiled snakes on the pure-gold pendant writhed more violently. They opened their mouths, bared their fangs, stretched out their bodies, crawled up the witch's palm, and bit into the blind witch's wrist. Blood was drawn into the pendant, and the amethyst snake eyes began to glow faintly.

Obscene sounds of indulgence, intercourse, revelry, joy, and torment issued from the mouths of the six venomous snakes.

One of them slowly raised its head and aimed at Zhou Yun's back.

A venomous snake formed entirely from condensed psychic energy, visible only to the blind witch, emerged in midair and bit toward Zhou Yun...

"It's done." The blind witch lowered the pendant.

"It can—hm?" Libo's words caught in his throat halfway through.

The blind witch's body also suddenly trembled.

They saw it.

Zhou Yun, seated at the gambling table, slowly turned his head. With a smile on his lips, his eyes looked directly toward them.

"...Huh?" The blind witch let out a bewildered cry.

The snake only she could see, which had been lunging toward Zhou Yun, suddenly froze in midair as though Zhou Yun's gaze had pinned it in place.

Then the snake's body began to convulse and twist. Its head opened wide in a silent shriek before it suddenly exploded and vanished into the air.

At the same time, one snake's amethyst eye on the pure-gold pendant cracked open with a pop, and the gold forming its body rapidly dimmed.

The blind witch stared dumbfounded at the sight, her breathing growing heavy.

She raised her head, and her hollow black eyes met Zhou Yun's gaze.

The smile on Zhou Yun's lips remained gentle, while faint motes of light that did not belong to the real universe flickered in his eyes.

Within those eyes, the blind witch saw the shadow of terror...

He merely nodded lightly to the blind witch, then turned his head away as though he did not care about her at all.

Zhou Yun could not help shaking his head with a smile.

Why were there so many psychic country bumpkins on Macragge? It was unbearable.

This level of skill... Such simple, crude, conspicuous Telepathy School psychic power, so easy to break.

How was this any different from trying to smash the back of Zhou Yun's head directly with a rock?

And she had to shape it like a snake. What was the point? To make it easier to detect?

Zhou Yun was, after all, an expert in the Precognition School.

Unless he suddenly became a psychic illiterate like Roboute Guilliman, there was no way he could fail to notice such a clumsy attack in advance.

And when Zhou Yun discovered them, that blind woman had actually looked utterly confused, as though Zhou Yun noticing her was something extraordinary.

Was she really that confident in her psychic skill?

Honestly, based on what Zhou Yun had just felt, the blind woman's psychic power was at least above Level 9 Theta, somewhat stronger than Zhou Yun's.

But her psychic power seemed to come from extreme stimulation, forcibly awakened and enhanced through intense emotion. She did not have much control over it, either.

And her technique was simply laughable. She was only marginally stronger than an Ogryn with psychic talent.

In a world like Macragge, where everyone's psychic powers were suppressed, that little advantage in psychic strength could not bridge the gap between her crude techniques and the psychic techniques the Inquisition had continuously refined over ten thousand years.

Zhou Yun returned his attention to the card table.

"I want to split," he said with a smile to Cicero and Tull.