A Gamble with Life

The girl asked doubtfully, "Gamble on it?"

"Mm."

Ji Xun nodded. His eyes shone like torches, and his tone was certain yet calm. "Gamble on whether my deduction is correct."

"..."

Hearing that, the girl truly could not understand what her teammate was thinking.

He sounded so calm that there was not a trace of fear or unease in his voice.

Instead, she heard an eager anticipation of gambling with his life.

He actually wanted to gamble with the monster?

Was this guy not afraid of dying?

At that moment, only one word came to her mind: insane.

Perhaps it was because of the fluorescent powder, or perhaps Ji Xun's cursed mouth.

Not long after the two stopped, a wave of stench suddenly swept over them, and a dog-headed monster instantly appeared before them.

Face-to-face, the terrifying pressure of an A-Class Calamity felt almost tangible.

Moreover, a Curse Type monster carried an infinitely mysterious terror, as though one were facing an abyss.

However, the monster did not choose Ji Xun. It stood before Mechanical Arm Girl instead.

The girl's expression abruptly changed. Her face darkened as she cursed inwardly, "What terrible luck."

With so many people around, it had still come for her. She could only blame her bad luck.

Even so, she was not truly out of options yet.

The mercenaries had no way to deal with this calamity, but that did not mean she did not.

She carried an Ancient Relic capable of forcibly teleporting her out of the instance. Once activated, she could leave immediately.

The only drawback was that after using that treasure, she would not be able to take anything she had obtained in this space with her.

That included the Witch's Pituitary Gland she had acquired earlier, a rare and invaluable find.

If she missed this chance, she had no idea whether she would ever find such suitable class material again.

Unless it was absolutely necessary, she did not want to give it up.

But staring at the dog-headed monster's vicious, hateful face, she was already cornered.

There was no choice left.

Mechanical Arm Girl felt a wave of despondency. What a pity.

At the same time, she felt guilty. Once she left, her teammate would certainly die. She had clearly promised to do her best to protect him.

Yet this was not a situation she had the power to change.

Sigh.

She let out a faint sigh.

However, before she could decide whether to use that special relic to forcibly leave the instance, something unexpected happened.

To her utter surprise, a provocatively challenging voice suddenly sounded beside her ear. "Do you dare gamble with me?"

The girl's eyes widened as she stared at Ji Xun, who had spoken beside her, disbelief filling her gaze.

For a moment, it was as though her thoughts had frozen.

After a brief stunned pause, she understood what Ji Xun had done.

This guy...

He was provoking the monster?

He was provoking the monster!

Sure enough, how could that monster endure such an in-your-face taunt?

For a gambler, there was no such thing as a bet they dared not take.

It immediately abandoned its current target, turned toward Ji Xun, and revealed a mocking smile on its dog-like face. "Which card is the Ace of Spades?"

As that absurd scene unfolded, Mechanical Arm Girl was completely dumbfounded.

Her eyes were filled with confusion. This guy had actually saved her?

But why would he do that?

Even if they were cooperating, there was no need to go that far.

At that moment, the girl finally understood what he had meant by "we" earlier.

He had said before, "If we get chosen," and told her to run first.

In other words, no matter which of them the monster chose, he had already prepared himself to face it?

But...

No one had ever survived before the Gambling Dog. Why would he do this?

Mechanical Arm Girl simply could not understand. Looking at Ji Xun, she suddenly felt a subtle, complicated emotion toward this temporary teammate.

Had Ji Xun been possessed by some saintly impulse, sacrificing himself for another?

No!

It was absolute rationality that had allowed him to clearly analyze the situation.

If this bodyguard teammate died, Ji Xun was one hundred percent certain that he would not survive either.

Those well-equipped mercenaries had an extremely low chance of surviving, much less him.

Any random minor monster could pose a fatal threat to him.

So running away now would mean nothing except living a little longer.

If he could not kill this dog-headed monster, he would die in the end anyway.

Besides, there was an even more important factor.

He needed to verify a hypothesis.

He had already gathered enough intelligence. Bit by bit, the clues had linked together in his mind like beads strung into a curtain.

He had understood part of the "game rules" of this Alternate Dimension.

That was where his confidence came from.

The instance's Exploration Progress had only reached thirty percent. Only by verifying those hypotheses did he feel that he might truly have a chance to clear the instance alive.

There was no denying that this verification process did involve an element of gambling.

But to Ji Xun, if he still hesitated over a judgment he was certain of, how dull would such a mundane life be?

Besides,

A restless impulse in his heart had long since become impossible to suppress.

He truly wanted to gamble.

Tsk, tsk.

What was there to gamble on

That was more thrilling than gambling with one's life?

"I choose."

Ji Xun wore a composed expression as he deliberately stalled for a little time.

Seeing the struggle in the girl's eyes beside him, he could guess that his teammate was probably going through some complicated inner turmoil.

But staying here was not a good choice.

He raised a brow and gave her a look telling her to leave quickly.

Mechanical Arm Girl's expression tightened with conflict. She seemed to feel that it was dishonorable to abandon him after he had saved her.

But when she saw Ji Xun's urging gaze, her eyes hardened. She knew there was no point in lingering and said, "Take care!"

As soon as she spoke, she quickly retreated into the depths of the corridor. In the blink of an eye, her figure vanished.

With his teammate gone, the last possible factor that could cause an accident was gone as well.

At that moment, Ji Xun had nothing left to worry about.

It was as though the beast within him had awakened, and an exhilarating rush of blood surged through his veins.

He looked at the monster without the slightest fear. Instead, the corner of his mouth curved into a provocative smile.

Like a clown walking a tightrope, even though one misstep would send him plummeting below, he still wore a bizarre grin.

The monster looked back at him, its face full of mockery.

"I choose this one."

Ji Xun slipped one hand into his pocket and made his choice.

He casually picked a card and flipped it over.

That seemingly casual draw was, in truth, a choice between life and death.

Then something incredible happened.

The flipped card bore the symbol of the Ace of Spades.

The Gambling Dog across from him still wore its mocking smile, but its expression had frozen, as though it were saying: How is that possible?!

In an instant, the Gambling Dog seemed to understand something.

It seemed to have lost one second of memory just now: its mind had been interfered with!

But rules were rules.

The established rules of Curse Arts had never had any such thing as being changed.

At that moment, like every gambler, the Curse Gambler tried to seize its last straw and survive.

But the curse backlash had already crashed down upon it like an overwhelming tide.

Ji Xun narrowed his eyes slightly, looked at the dog-headed monster before him, and flashed a brilliant smile. "Looks like my luck is pretty good. I guessed right."

The dog-headed monster had no time to say anything. The life in its eyes rapidly faded.

This gamble had been for their lives.

The monster had lost the gamble, and the curse backlash killed it on the spot.

Ji Xun looked at the calamity's corpse as it crashed to the ground and let out a relieved breath.

At that moment, the morbid pleasure brought by the thrill made him feel as though even his soul had been elevated.

Although Ji Xun was good at poker, he was not arrogant enough to think he could compete with an A-Class Calamity in gambling skill.

Just as the monster could cheat, he had also used a slightly underhanded method.

What he held in the hand inside his pocket was the Witch's Gaze skill card he had obtained after hunting the Fallen Witch.

After activation, it could inflict mental hypnosis on targets within range.

The Curse Gambler on the Third Floor was far more threatening than the Fallen Witch on the Second Floor.

But in terms of Mental Power, the latter was most likely stronger.

If the monster did not resist the spell, it would suffer at least one second of forced hypnosis.

When Ji Xun had drawn the card just now, he used that hypnosis and gave the dog-headed monster no chance to cheat before flipping it over.

His luck was good. He picked the right card immediately.

Even if he had not, the time would have allowed him to flip another card.

Sure enough, he had won.

And it confirmed his hypothesis.

Once the calamity died, a cluster of green light slowly condensed over the monster's corpse.

Seeing the card floating within the light, Ji Xun confirmed that hypothesis once more and murmured, "Just as I thought."

Gambler's Severed Hand

Quality: Silver

Details: A one-time Mystic Type Curse Arts skill card; after activation, casts a curse on a single target below Second Rank whose Mental Power is no more than 100% higher than the user's; has a 50% chance to trigger instant death; if it fails, the curse backfires, and the user suffers equivalent damage.

The monster had dropped another skill card: the strange Curse Life Gamble Technique.

A forced 50% Mortality Rate. It was powerful!

And nearly impossible to counter!

Ji Xun carefully read the card's effects, a sharp gleam flashing through his eyes.

At that moment, he finally confirmed something.

This truly was a gamble.

But what was being gambled on was not the luck of a two-choice guess, nor the skill of cheating. It was one's understanding of the Spatial Rules.

Since Martial Prowess could not kill the boss, only rules could.

That was what Ji Xun had wanted to verify.

On a deeper level, he had understood the thinking of this Alternate Dimension's designer.

After the A-Class Calamity Gambling Dog died, the curse power inside its body lost control. Ji Xun stood beside the corpse as Revelation appeared once more.

Curse power has gone out of control. You have suffered contamination erosion. Constitution -0.02.

There was also a glowing substance in the corpse's chest. It had probably dropped another extraordinary material.

But Ji Xun did not have one of those miraculous spatial Containment Cards.

Even if he cut the material out, it would be too dangerous to handle.

Just then, a figure slowly emerged from the corridor's distant corner.

It was his teammate, her face full of disbelief.

The monster could teleport to find people, so there was little point in running.

Mechanical Arm Girl had hidden in a ventilation shaft nearby earlier. This was the limit of her perception range.

She had originally planned to flee once she sensed her temporary teammate's presence disappear.

But after waiting for a moment, instead of sensing her teammate die, she sensed the calamity's presence suddenly vanish?!

Though she could hardly believe it, the truth was right before her eyes.

Seeing that she had returned as promised, Ji Xun smiled lightly. His teammate was quite loyal after all.

Mechanical Arm Girl looked at him, then at the corpse on the ground. Her expression changed several times.

A guy dozens of times weaker than her had actually killed that Curse Type A-Class Calamity by himself?

It truly felt like a dream.

P.S. Please vote! Begging for support in every possible way~

Thanks to Zhu Muyan's Dad for 500, The One Who Felled the Gods for 500, 20211109091511327, Su Muzhe Misty Rain, and 20190604222456725 for their support and tips. Thank you.