Endless Path : Infinite Cosmos

Chapter 2081: Fortune Favors the Bold

Unless they were a subsidiary/affiliate of a much larger Community, the majority of Communities in the 6-7-Digit Gates had a very difficult time obtaining a 5-Digit classification. You needed to have at least three other Communities serving under you, and, more importantly, you needed to be able to host a Gift Game with at least 100 other Communities participating.

More often than not, lower-ranking Communities avoided high-profile Gift Games as, regardless of the outcome, they would invariably draw attention to themselves.

Contrary to what some might believe, not all publicity was good publicity. High-profile Gift Games garnered a considerable amount of attention. As a result, small and weak Communities often found themselves targetted by opportunistic groups once their weakness had been exposed. This made it remarkably difficult to convince a hundred other Communities to participate in a Gift Game as the risks, more often than not, far outweighed the rewards.

Put simply, unless they were specifically trying to draw attention to themselves, most Communities required some kind of incentive to participate in a high-stakes Gift Game. More often than not, this meant being paid off by the Community hosting the game. Other than that, the most reliable way to draw participants was to wager something of extreme value as the grand prize.

Due to the unique structure of the Divine Realm, it was possible to wager pretty much anything in a Gift Game. This included Gifts, people, years off a person's lifespan, Memories, 'Souls', and, perhaps more frightening than anything else, a person's identity. This last one only really came up when two parties possessed similar identities, but, every now and again, envious and opportunistic individuals would supplant themselves into the life and identity of another.

What made this so frightening was that memories related to the original would be overwritten with memories of their replacement. In other words, unless you had some kind of Gift that allowed you to perceive reality from a different perspective than others, you wouldn't even notice that someone you had known your entire life had been replaced by someone else.

Fortunately, the Central Network of the Little Garden recognized that few things were of equivalent value to a person's identity. Thus, unless it was a bout between two similarly named Gods or Heroes trying to establish themselves as the original, the Central Network wouldn't recognize the exchange as fair. There had been a few exceptions to this in the past, but, more often than not, the value of a person's identity was simply too great.

While this was undeniably a smart decision by the people in charge of the Little Garden, it was also where all semblance of fairness vanished. After all, as terrifying as it was to lose your identity, there were subjectively worse outcomes. You could find yourself someone's eternal slave, and, depending on the conditions agreed upon prior to the Gift Game, every aspect of your life could be dictated by another. There were compulsory agreements that would make you obey every single one of their requests without question, and, in some of the more extreme cases, there were even instances of individuals wagering 'love' as a prize...

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Hearing that a Pure-Blooded Vampire was being wagered as a prize in a Gift Game, countless rumors had spread through the East Side of the Little Garden. Vampires, prior to their fall from grace, were one of the strongest and most influential races in the Divine Realm. Pure-Blooded Vampires were exceptionally rare, and, more often than not, possessed the ability to bestow the Gifts of Immortality, Beastification, and Lesser Demonification.

Simply put, a Pure-Blooded Vampire was a tremendous boon to any developing Community as they could, quite literally, make each of their Gift Players immortal. It was virtually unheard of for a Pure-Blooded Vampire to be wagered as a prize in the higher-digit Gates, so, the moment people heard rumors of a vampiric beauty being offered as a prize, the news spread like wildfire. When they later heard that she was bound by a Vow of Eternal Servitude towards whoever became her Master, even lower-digit Communities began looking into the matter.

The only thing preventing people from readily volunteering their Community as participants in the impending Gift Game was the peculiarities associated with the group hosting it. They had effectively appeared out of nowhere, yet, despite having no feats to their name, they had managed to acquire a Pure-Blood Vampire? This was a major red flag, not just because they had managed to obtain her, but because they were willing to offer her as a prize. Nobody in their right mind would simply give up an immortal slave capable of turning ordinary people into powerful soldiers. Thus, while quite a number of Communities had taken the bait, the vast majority decided to observe from the sidelines. After all, it would be a lot easier to steal the vampire from the 6-Digit Community that claimed her than it would be to involve themselves with the mysterious organization that had offered her as a prize...

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"Leviathan's Tail? Talk about on the nose..."

Staring at the name carved into the colossal stone archway, Vahn couldn't help shaking his head as he joined the crowd waiting to schedule an audience with the Community's Leader. This garnered a considerable amount of attention, not because he was trying to stand out, but because the two girls flanking him were inarguably among the most beautiful the crowd had ever seen.

Annoyed by the lustful gazes of the crowd, Seraphina clicked her tongue before clinging tightly to Vahn's arm and asking, "Can't I just use my Balor Gaze to make these idiots get out of the way?"

Though she rarely agreed with Seraphina, Usalia, nodded her head and said, "They are even worse than Prinnies..."

Under normal circumstances, most of the people in the crowd would have been paying attention to Seraphina. Since she didn't want people to think Vahn was a pervert, however, Usalia had made the decision to appear as her markedly more mature self. She had also worn a form-fitting white dress with black fur around the collar and cuffs, so, while quite a number of people gawked at Seraphina, the eyes of virtually everyone in the crowd crawled over her shapely figure with unconcealed desire in their hungry gazes.

Nodding his head, Vahn stepped forward before anyone in the crowd could make up their minds to try and approach the two demonic beauties. Then, in a resonating tone that left absolutely no room for argument, he said, "Move or be moved."

Had it been anyone else, most of the crowd would have sneered in response to Vahn's words. They were bold enough to participate in a high-brow Gift Game that would be publicized throughout the entire Little Garden so there was no way in hell they would back down in front of someone they had never met. At least, this was what they thought. Instead, with the exception of a few outliers, people that had gathered to observe the situation play out, everyone in the crowd parted as Vahn escorted Seraphina and Usalia to the front of the queue.

"Inform your Master that the Leader of the Sage Dragon's Hearth has come to pay him a visit. I will wait three minutes before entering of my own volition..."

Without waiting for the burly guardsman to reply, Vahn teleported him to the front entrance of a large castle in the distance. This stunned those who were gradually beginning to recover from his compulsory order, and, while it didn't deter everyone, most of the people who had been thinking about challenging him to a Gift Game quickly changed their mind.

"Hey, asshole! Who the fuck do you think you are!?"

Though Vahn was intending to handle things himself, his words got stuck in his throat as Seraphina promptly pulled out a pistol and shot the arrogant-looking individual in the face. This didn't cause any actual damage but it was more than enough to send the man stumbling backward and crashing into several others.

"The next words that come out of your mouth better be an apology. No one is allowed to insult my man. Try it again and I'll sew your lips together."

Extending his hand, Vahn lowered Seraphina's pistol as he whispered, "Calm down. I understand your feelings, but this isn't the Netherworld. You can't just go around shooting people in the face..."

Like an obedient little wife, Seraphina readily stowed away her pistol before smiling radiantly and saying, "If you say so, Da-na-sa-ma~."

Smiling wryly in response to Seraphina's affectionate teasing, Vahn was about to caress her head when the same man from before bounced to his feet and shouted, "That's it! I challenge you to a Gift Game!"

Furrowing his brows, Vahn turned his attention to the bronze-skinned man and asked, "What could you possibly offer that has any value? Stop speaking nonsense."

Gritting his teeth, the man pulled out a vibrant green Gift Card and stated, "If I win, you and that bitch will kowtow and apologize to everyone here. If you win, I'll spend the rest of the day with my head pressed to the pavement. What? Are you afraid?"

Rolling his eyes, Vahn gestured for Seraphina and Usalia to stand behind him before asking, "And what are the conditions of this Gift Game? If it's something stupid, expect a punishment when you lose. I don't have time to humor prideful fool who conceals their envy behind bravado..."

Though he might have been able to fool others, Vahn could see the green and yellow hues in the man's aura. He might have taken offense to being forced to move aside but that wasn't the reason for his outburst. If he was more confident in his victory, he might have asked for a lot more than a simple apology. Instead, he was trying to make himself look like the good guy by challenging him on behalf of everyone else.

Producing a Geass Roll out of thin air, the man explained, "It's simple, really. We take turns rolling dice while the other person attempts to determine whether the sum will be evens or odds. The first to guess correctly three times will be declared the winner. As for-"

Cutting the man off before he could continue, Vahn said, "Just hand me the scroll and let's get this over with."

Grinning in a manner that implied he had already won, the man promptly handed over the scroll before looking towards Usalia and saying, "No hard feelings. Okay, babe?"

As if she hadn't heard the man's words, Usalia continued to stare off into empty space with a bored expression on her face. This caused the man's smile to cramp up until Vahn promptly smacked him in the face with the scroll and said, "Roll the fucking dice."

Though his expression had turned livid after being smacked in the face, the man still produced a set of three dice. Instead of the traditional set, however, the die in question possessed four, eight, and ten sides respectively. As for the face values, the four-sided die had prime numbers ranging from 2-7 while the eight and ten-sided die had values as high as 99.

While others might have accused the man of trying to cheat, Vahn just rolled his eyes and called out, "73, odds." before the man had even rolled. This caused the crowd that had just started to get excited to fall completely silent.

"What the fuck? I haven't even rolled and-"

Without waiting for the man to finish, Vahn smacked a silencing spell on his mouth before asking, "How much longer are you going to keep wasting my time?"

Since the scroll hadn't forbidden the use of magic, the bronze-skinned man had effectively screwed himself over from the start. Because of it, there was a functionally infinite number of ways in which Vahn could win the competition. Thus, with the guardsman from before already on his way back, he had already lost interest in this particular Gift Game.

Glaring like someone who had just walked in on their wife having an affair, the bronze-skinned man threw the dice before activating his Gift Card, [Fortune's Favor]. It wasn't a particularly high-ranking Gift but it drastically improved his luck when performing feats related to gambling. In the past, this had allowed him to scam a number of people as Gifts related to luck and probability manipulation were among the rarest and most valuable. Thus, unless they had a specific counter, he was virtually guaranteed to win the deceptively simple game.

Unfortunately, the man had never come across an existence quite like Vahn. The moment he threw out the dice, they simply hovered in place for a brief moment before spinning to display values that equaled 73. Then, under the stunned gazes of everyone present, they gently landed on the ground.

"It appears that today isn't your lucky day..."

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(A/N: Alternate Titles: 'Identity theft is not a joke! Millions of families are affected every year...!','Pigs coveting the flesh of swans...','Oof...')

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