Chapter 50 Cyber Gambler

The title "Cyber Gambler" was something Snow obtained at level 50, and the reason he's used it ever since is because... its accompanying ability, [Bad Luck Magnet], is essentially a skill of causality.

This ability allows the user to alter the probability of certain events before their eyes, turning some extremely improbable occurrences into absolute certainties.

A simple example: roulette.

There's a saying that it's impossible to roll the same number twice in a row in roulette.

Naturally, this isn't accurate; it's not "impossible" to roll the same number twice in a row, but rather "almost impossible."

Aside from cheating and other human factors, that probability still exists. Maybe it'll happen once in a thousand spins, maybe ten thousand, or perhaps a hundred thousand...

Regardless of the actual probability, if you use [Bad Luck Magnet] to spin... twice.

As long as it's "theoretically" possible, that's what this ability can interfere with and control; so... how large is that "theoretical" value?

To use a coin toss as another example: before the coin is tossed, the space for this "theory" is still ample; the moment the coin is tossed, that space begins to shrink rapidly, and when the coin lands on the back of someone's hand, the "theory" completely disappears.

The area that [Bad Luck Magnet] can interfere with is within that space where "theory still exists"; once that space disappears, it's beyond the scope of interference, because it's no longer "controlling an uncertain probability," but rather "rewriting an already occurred reality"...

Right now, Snow interfered with the event before he was hit, changing the probability of Fearless's attack "missing" from 0.0000...1 percent to 100 percent... which is how he managed to escape.

Of course, there's a price to pay for doing so...

Since it's a "Bad Luck Magnet," it's bound to be accompanied by an extremely dangerous cost; any act of interference will bring about a corresponding "curse backlash," the severity of which is related to the original probability of the interfered event—the lower the original probability, the stronger and faster the misfortune that rebounds.

An event like "deciding heads or tails" only requires enduring the misfortune of about a 50% probability difference, which, after being materialized, is about the level of tripping while walking or choking while eating; while something like "drawing the ace of spades directly from a brand new deck of cards" would require bearing a misfortune equivalent to a 98.149% probability difference, which, when materialized, would be like falling down the stairs or getting hit in the head by something falling from a height...

Similarly, "letting Fearless's skill graze past" also has a price, which is to correct a 99.9999...9% probability difference. The misfortune that materializes from this is definitely fatal.

In a sense, it might be better for him to be killed directly by Fearless, because the misfortune triggered by such an extreme probability would be very outrageous... He could very well encounter an absurd "unlucky thing" like "being struck by lightning" or "choking to death on his own saliva" within ten seconds.

But, Snow happens to have a way to escape this kind of misfortune, which is—the [Devil's Dice].

The special effect of this spiritual energy weapon is also very interesting—[As long as you roll three "6s," you can offset the negative effects of a skill (whether released by others or yourself)].

The "rolling" here doesn't mean actually throwing them out; after all, this is a game world, so there's no need to be so troublesome. Players only need to hold the item in their hands to activate the "roll the dice" effect, and then the system will give a random number.

Seeing this, some people must have understood...

That's right, the numbers on the [Devil's Dice] can also be interfered with by [Bad Luck Magnet].

Thus, there's such an operation: Snow first uses [Bad Luck Magnet] on himself to get three sixes on the [Devil's Dice], then activates [Bad Luck Magnet] on Fearless to make her skill miss, and then uses the [Devil's Dice]'s special effect to offset the misfortune generated by using [Bad Luck Magnet] on Fearless.

In this way, the price to be paid for "making Fearless's skill miss" is converted into the price to be paid for "rolling three sixes on three dice."

Although this also has a probability difference of a full 99.538%, it's much better than the former... At least there won't be the kind of misfortune that leads to instant death; for Snow... this is enough.

All he needs is two minutes.

And half of those two minutes have already passed.

"Don't panic, kill her again!" After a brief hesitation, Fearless said in a deep voice, bringing Little Step back to her senses.

At the same time, she herself also suddenly increased her strength, swinging her spear again and advancing, chasing after Snow, who still hadn't gotten up, with a second wave of strikes.

This time, Snow couldn't resist using the same trick as before; although [Bad Luck Magnet] has no cooldown time, the [Devil's Dice] does; if he doesn't use the [Devil's Dice] to offset the negative effects, he still can't escape death if he activates [Bad Luck Magnet].

However, he still activated it after all...

If he doesn't activate it, he'll be killed instantly by one hit; if he activates it... he'll be killed by misfortune a few seconds later; it's a bitter choice, but it's still clear how to choose.

*Duang~*

Two seconds later, Fearless's pursuit missed again, hitting the sand.

That bizarre sound is actually the noise generated by the attack being interfered with by a causal skill. Her weapon has lost its original properties after deviating from the target, so the power it produces is about the same as an ordinary girl poking the ground with a stick.

"Tch..." Fearless wasn't too surprised when this second attack missed. She naturally understood... the opponent must have used some means to interfere with her, but Snow's information was too scarce, and she didn't know what he had done.

*Whoosh—*

Just as Fearless's strike missed, Bu Tiange also flanked up from the side, the shuriken in his hand creating a sharp whistling sound as it aimed at Snow's head and slashed down fiercely.

"Ah... let's just leave it at that..." At this moment, Snow really gave up.

He was originally a frivolous, indifferent, and even cold-blooded person, and even if he occasionally lost his composure, it was only when dealing with Jue-ge; for a person like Snow, expecting him to break through some kind of limit or unleash a counter-kill in this situation... that's not "almost impossible," but "absolutely impossible."

*Hiss—*

The next second, in the wind and sand, the sound of a gentle breeze brushing against willows arose.

The wind was the blade, the body like a willow, blood its sound.

When the blood sprayed out and sprinkled on the sand, the expression on Bu Tiange's face seemed somewhat wooden.

He stared blankly as his body was diagonally unfolded from his left shoulder to his right rib, divided into two sections... Until the two sections of his body collapsed and turned into light and disappeared, he didn't know what had happened.

"Wha..." The Fearless girl who witnessed this scene was afraid...

A chill instantly swept through her body, and the word "fear" flowed through her blood vessels like adrenaline.

But before she could feel that fear, her body was severed like Bu Tiange's... The only difference was that she was cut in half horizontally.

Just as the audience was looking at the incomprehensible situation in surprise and doubt, another change occurred!

A flash of lightning streaked across the depths of the clouds, and with a "boom," a thunderbolt struck Snow, who was lying on the ground, turning him to ashes.

Now... even the commentators didn't know what to say.

Within a short five seconds, all three people on the field were dead. Two of them had their bodies severed inexplicably, and one was struck by lightning. No one would know what to say about this.

At this moment, the only known and certain information was—the score became 2:0, which meant that the system determined that the "mid-tier battle" was won by [Hell Front].

…………

"What... happened?"

At the same time, in the [Order] conference room, Wu Si Can Xuan moved his gaze away from the screen with a face full of doubt, and looked at Gui Xiao.

Not only him, but also the other team members in the conference room, as well as the staff members who came to watch the battle together (because [Order] had a bye in this round, the studio's data analysis team also came to watch the live broadcast with the team members) all cast questioning glances at Gui Xiao.

"Hmm..." Gui Xiao's expression was also grave at this time. After pondering for a few seconds, he replied, "I only saw a little bit..." He paused, "There's something very fast... um... maybe it's a person, if it's a person, then it should be [Wang Tan Zhi]..." He bit his fingernails and thought for another two seconds, "In short... there's such a thing, at the moment when Bu Tiange was about to kill Snow... it ran over from a distance, and killed Bu Tiange in passing... Then, it continued to run forward, leaving the range that the screen could capture. A second later, it turned back from the direction it left, and killed Fearless in passing."

"Hey hey..." Zui Wo Changran put on his half-smiling expression, "What do you mean 'in passing'? If it was really done by Wang Tan Zhi, then it should be called a surprise attack."

"No... it's not like that." Gui Xiao said, "Accurately rushing towards a target, killing them, and then turning to another target, that's called a 'surprise attack'; reaching out and cutting them open while 'passing by' the target, that's called 'in passing'..."

"Huh?" Zui Wo Changran used an interjection to indicate that he didn't understand.

"It's still hard to say now, after all, the live broadcast camera has been staying on the three people in the battle just now; we'll have to wait for the recording file to come out and determine what happened through Wang Tan Zhi's own perspective, but... if, I mean if... that 'thing' just now was really Wang Tan Zhi, then... in future competitions, he will become a very tricky existence even for us." Gui Xiao also said in a rare, serious tone, "The 'ability' he showed in this match, once used in a 2v2, even if I'm there, we'll still lose..."

As soon as these words came out, everyone in the conference room really couldn't sit still.

"What exactly is going on?" Ye Zhi, who was sitting next to Gui Xiao, said with a frown, "What exactly is his ability?"

"I told you, I only saw a little bit..." Gui Xiao replied with squinted eyes, "And... what I saw wasn't Wang Tan Zhi in motion... or anything else, what I saw was just the traces left behind after this thing moved..."

"I didn't see these 'traces'..." Chan-ge interjected at this time, and raised his eyes to scan the people around him, "Besides Gui Xiao, did anyone else see them?"

"Of course you can't see them." Gui Xiao said, "Because that thing moves too fast, the various mediums in the physical world don't even have time to react to its passage, and it's already gone... However, from a pure data perspective, you can still see a trace, like a very, very thin silk thread, undetectable unless you look closely."

"So... what you mean is..." Wu Si Can Xuan tried to understand and summarize the matter, "What happened just now is very likely... that Wang Tan Zhi, at a speed that no one can see, 'in passing'... cut down those two from [Jianghu]?"

"Yes, it's like you're sitting on a speeding train, sticking a sharp blade out of the window, and cutting someone standing next to the tracks." Gui Xiao replied.

"Then..." Chan-ge then continued, "Can I infer that... Wang Tan Zhi abandoned his teammates and ran away alone before the barrier disappeared in order to hide in the distance and prepare to activate this ability?"

"That's what I think too." Gui Xiao replied, "But whether it's true or not, we'll have to wait for the recording to confirm."

"Hmm..." Chan-ge thought for a while and took a gulp of wine, "You really can't deal with this move?" He paused for half a second and added, "Even if it's extreme speed, it may not be impossible to overcome, right? For example, using time-space abilities, or at the moment of ukemi..."

"There is no such thing as a 'moment of ukemi'." Gui Xiao directly interrupted Chan-ge and continued, "I said... the various mediums in the physical world don't even have time to react to its passage. When the system feeds back the 'ukemi' state and activates some kind of special effect on us, we're very likely to have been divided into two sections like those two from [Jianghu]."

"Wait." Hearing this, Sheng Yu Pian suddenly thought of something and quickly continued, "If what you said is true, then those two from [Jianghu] shouldn't be dead... Their bodies shouldn't have 'had time to react and provide feedback to the fact that they had been cut', right?"

"Finally, there's someone who can understand a little bit of what I'm saying." Gui Xiao replied, "You're right, the result of encountering that kind of attack should be... 'the molecules that make up them didn't even realize that they had been cut, so no changes occurred'."

"Therefore, I suspect that Wang Tan Zhi had already been going back and forth on this battlefield countless times before we 'saw' these two kills happen. Unfortunately, my attention was also focused on the battle between Snow and the others at that time, and I didn't notice any 'traces' around me.

"And in the process of those countless 'back and forths', Wang Tan Zhi must have also discovered that he couldn't harm his opponents. So, he tried various methods, and finally... found a solution."

Speaking to this point, Gui Xiao paused for a second and said in a deep voice, "In short, he used some means to make himself 'slow down' at the moment he made his move to cut people... thus completing the kill."