2026-04-03 04:54:23
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Chapter 061
The dealer placed a set of chips in the center of the table."Tonight we'll be playing Texas Hold'em with no betting limit." Aldous spoke in the tone of someone who had said the same sentence dozens of times at the same table. "Buy-in is a hundred million dollars per player. Chips have been prepared."No one questioned the number.One by one hands extended, chips changed hands, transactions completed quietly.Caelan took his chips.A hundred million to sit at one table. He noted that figure in his mind in a different way, not as an investment, not as a calculated risk, but as a non-negotiable entry fee for being in this room.Elara turned toward him with a tone that was light but not careless. "Are you familiar with Texas Hold'em, Doctor Voss?""Fairly familiar."A faint smile from Elara. "Good. I won't need to explain from the beginning." There was real relief there. Not arrogance, but efficiency. One less thing to deal with.From across the table, Harrison Blake's voice came through
Chapter 060
Caelan did not answer immediately. His eyes swept briefly across the floor below—the tables already set in place, the adjusted lighting, the staff moving with routines they clearly knew by heart.“I’ve never played in person before,” he said at last. “Only on my phone. A few times on a computer.”Elara nodded once.“Then this is the perfect time to try the real thing.”She paused for a moment before continuing in a slightly different tone—more serious, more weighted.“But before you sit down, there’s one thing you need to decide first.”“What is it?”“Your number.” Elara spoke in a way that was neither patronizing nor easy to dismiss. “Not the amount you want to win. The amount you’re willing to lose completely—without regret, without the urge to chase it back. Decide that before the first card is dealt, not after you’ve already sat down and started playing.”Her eyes drifted toward the tables below before returning to Caelan.“A gambling table never forces anyone to lose more than th
Chapter 059
Dorian raised his paddle. He, too, was interested in the sword.“Sixty million.”The head of the Sterne Family did not lower his paddle for more than two seconds.“Seventy.”From the right side of the second floor, the Holt Family’s paddle rose.“Seventy-five.”“Eighty.”The Sterne Family again. The same tone. The same pace. As though the old man was not bidding, but merely confirming something he had decided from the very beginning.Dorian stared at the sword for a moment through the glass case. The black blade streaked with gold was mesmerizing. He was prepared to spend every dollar he had brought tonight for that sword.“One hundred million.”No one on the lower floor said a word. The bidding had already crossed into territory where commentary no longer served any purpose.From her seat, Elara remained still. One hundred and fifty million had already left her pocket tonight. She was not the type of person to push herself beyond the limit she had set before taking her seat—not becau
Chapter 058
The black cloth was pulled away.And the entire Varen Auction House stopped breathing for several seconds.Inside the glass case, embedded vertically within a metal stand that supported it upright, was a sword.Its blade was black—not dull black, not the black of oxidation or ordinary forging, but a deep, absolute black, like darkness given weight.And running along the blade from base to tip were flowing golden patterns. Not engravings. Not paint. Not a coating. The patterns seemed to be part of the blade’s material itself, like veins growing from within, following asymmetrical curves that somehow looked perfect—like rivers seen from above, like cracks spreading through ice that accidentally formed something beautiful.The hilt was simple. No excessive ornamentation. Only the same material as the blade itself: black with thinner strands of gold winding around it in patterns that felt deliberate, yet impossible to prove.No stains.No rust.No scratches.As though the sword had been f
Chapter 057
Caelan looked at the oval object in front of him, then at Elara.“Didn’t you want this item, Miss Elara?” Caelan asked in confusion. “You paid one hundred fifty million dollars for it. Why give it to me?”Elara smiled. A faint, genuine smile.“No.” She shook her head lightly. “I’m not interested in this item at all. I only bought it because I saw that you were interested in it.” She looked at Caelan in a way that was neither condescending nor overly admiring, the manner of someone speaking about something simple. “Consider it my way of thanking you. You saved my grandmother. One hundred fifty million dollars means nothing compared to that.”Caelan looked at Elara for a moment.Then at the oval object on the table.Then back at Elara again.“All right.” His voice was brief. “I’ll accept it. But I won’t consider this a gift.”Elara raised an eyebrow slightly.“I’ll repay you in the future. I promise,” Caelan continued in a serious tone.Elara looked at him for a second, long enough to r
Chapter 056
Silence.Four seconds. Five seconds.No hands were raised.The object remained exactly what it appeared to be—oval, heavy, indestructible, and unknown. At least with the ceramic fragments earlier, there had been something hidden inside that could be revealed if they were broken apart.But this was different. There was no way to know what lay within it, or whether there was anything inside at all.For one million dollars, it was a gamble no one was willing to take.Then—“One and a half million.”Caelan’s voice rang out.One and a half million was not a significant number in a room like this. But who had spoken it turned it into something entirely different.Heads turned. Not toward the screen, not toward the podium, but toward the second-floor balcony where Doctor Voss sat with the same posture he had maintained since the beginning. Calm, unhurried, like someone waiting for his turn at a café rather than someone who had just bid on an object whose purpose was completely unknown.The r
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