2026-03-07 16:43:33
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Chapter 314
Evan did not move his hands. "I have fifty gold tokens," Evan said, his voice dropping an octave. "And I bet my life."The crowd around the table gasped loudly.In the Rust Pit, betting your life was a blood oath. If you lost, you did not just go into debt. The winner owned your body. The winner owned your soul.Vargas stopped laughing. His eyes narrowed. He looked at Evan’s fierce, determined face. Vargas licked his lips greedily."Your life?" Vargas whispered. "I accept. Deal the cards."The dealer’s hands were shaking violently. He shuffled the deck.Evan fought the terrible pain in his skull. He slowed time for one final, agonizing second.He watched the dealer’s hands. He saw the scuff marks. He read the top four cards in the deck.Evan snapped back to normal time. He gasped, gripping the edge of the wooden table to keep from passing out. Blood poured freely from his no
Chapter 313
"Place your bets," the dealer said nervously. Vargas tossed a gold token into the center. The other men matched it. Evan pushed his single, free gold token into the center of the wooden table. The dealer handed out the cards. Two cards face down for Vargas. Two cards for Evan. Evan did not even look at his own cards. He did not need to. He had seen the dealer’s thumb slide over the top card. He had seen the tiny smudge of grease. He knew he had a Ten. He knew his second card was an Ace. He had exactly twenty-one. Perfect Blood-Jack. "I will stay," Evan said, leaving his cards face down on the table. Vargas laughed loudly. "You do not even look at your cards, boy? You are a fool."Vargas flipped his cards over. He had a King and a Nine. Nineteen. It was a very strong hand. "I stay," Vargas grinned, showing his silver metal teeth. "Beat nineteen, street rat."Evan slowly reached out. He flipped his two cards over. Ten of Clubs. Ace of Spades. Twenty-one. The men at the table ga
Chapter 312
The dealer, a thin, nervous man wearing a dirty white shirt, was shuffling a deck of real, physical paper cards. The sound of the cards snapping together was sharp and crisp.Marco stepped up to the empty chair across from Vargas. "Is this seat open, gentlemen?" Marco asked loudly. Vargas slowly looked up. His silver metal jaw glinted in the dim yellow light. He looked at Marco’s dirty clothes. He looked at Evan’s torn suit. He let out a harsh, metallic laugh. "This is a high-stakes table, old man," Vargas said. His voice was deep and terrifying. "We play Blood-Jack here. The minimum bet is one gold token. If you do not have gold, go back to the garbage bins outside."Marco did not flinch. He leaned his one good arm on the table. "My young boss here wants to play," Marco said, pointing his thumb at Evan. "We just arrived in the city. We heard Vargas was the only man brave enough to play real stakes. But maybe we were wrong. Maybe you only play with children."The other men at the
Chapter 311
Evan, Marco, Rell, and little Glitch walked through the lowest, dirtiest parts of Neon City. The bright, blinding neon lights of the upper merchant streets faded away. Down here, the only light came from flickering, broken yellow bulbs hanging from rusty pipes. The air smelled strongly of sulfur, cheap alcohol, and old sweat. They walked in silence. Evan kept his head down, hiding his white hair under the collar of his dirty blue suit jacket. Marco limped heavily, his breathing sounding wet and painful. Glitch held tightly to Evan’s hand, terrified of the dark shadows. "We are here," Rell whispered. She stopped in front of a massive, heavy iron door. The door was set deep into the concrete wall of an old, abandoned water reservoir. There were no signs. There were no lights. Standing in front of the iron door was a man. He was not a normal man. He was a massive, terrifying cyborg. His entire left arm and chest were made of thick, bolted steel. He held a massive, heavy kinetic sho
Chapter 310
Evan stared at the burning black pad on the floor. "The fifty million years," Evan whispered. "It is gone.""It is frozen," Marco grunted. The wounded grifter limped over to Evan. Marco held his broken ribs tightly. His face was gray with pain. "If the Board froze the account, that money is dead to us. We cannot touch it."Marco lifted his heavy boot and stomped down hard on the burning black data-pad. CRUNCH. The glass shattered into a hundred pieces. The red light died. The tracking signal was broken. Evan looked at the smashed pieces of glass on the floor. He felt a crushing, terrible weight fall onto his shoulders. He had fought so hard. He had bet everything. He had won the game. But the Bank simply changed the rules. The Bank froze the board. "We have nothing," Evan said softly. His voice sounded broken. "We have no money. We have no magic. We cannot use digital accounts because they will track us and drop armies on our heads."Evan looked at Marco. The core struggle inside
Chapter 309
The world slowed down to a perfect, silent crawl. Evan Kennedy knelt on the cold concrete floor of the freezing warehouse. In the slow-motion gray world of his Chronos Perception, the three massive metal wolves hung in the air. Their silver metal claws were stretched out. Their glowing red laser eyes were locked onto his face. They were jumping straight at him. They were the Financial Watchdogs. They were machines, but their power came from the digital stock market. Evan looked down at the black data-pad in his hand. He had fifty million years of life in his fake account. He did not look at the wolves. He looked at the digital chart for Apex Security Solutions, the company that owned the wolves. He searched for the brown rot. He searched for the probability decay. The company was worth twenty billion years. It was a giant. But Evan saw the truth. The company was spending too much power. It had bought the warehouse doors. It had bought the heating grid. It was using all its physic
