Chapter 201: What a coincidence — turns out I'm also a b

What a coincidence — turns out I'm also a b...... standard 【Fate】 believer in this round too.

Cold, damp, musty, reeking of urine, tinged with blood.

His consciousness had not yet awakened, but his sense of smell revived ahead of schedule; the mingled stench flooding his nostrils made Cheng Shi instinctively shudder.

He had only taken one breath before realizing that the air of the place where this trial was set was thoroughly foul — very much like being in the sewers beneath some city.

As his hearing gradually returned, a cacophony of muttering and curses and wails — some near, some far — poured into his ears. He focused and listened for a moment, and arrived at a laughably absurd conclusion:

A prison.

The place beneath his feet was a prison.

What a fateful coincidence — back in a prison again. So could the identity for this trial possibly be that of an imprisoned criminal?

Well now — 【Order】 couldn't manage to try and sentence me into prison, but 【Chaos】 went and delivered me right in.

The two of you really make quite the team.

Within a few seconds his limbs too gradually began to feel sensation. He felt that his head was very heavy, his neck very sore; the pressure transmitted through his cervical spine made him feel as though someone had clubbed him from behind with a blunt rod.

He wanted to raise a hand to rub his neck, but he suddenly and unexpectedly felt a great iron lump beneath his fingers.

"?"

Cheng Shi's heart jolted, and he snapped his eyes open.

But what came into view was not the prison cell he had anticipated — it was a pitch-black iron visor, and a few bright little holes bored into that iron face.

!!!

What is this thing?

A prisoner's helm?

What on earth did I do to have to wear such an enormous iron helm?

Cheng Shi blinked in bewilderment, then suddenly understood that the pressure on his neck was not from pain or injury, but because a massive steel prisoner's helm had been locked onto his head!

He reached out and pinched the iron lump, and found that the helm was hard in texture with no trace of seams — it did not look like any ordinary instrument of punishment.

There were seven holes on the helm, corresponding to his two eyes, two ears, nostrils, and mouth. Looking out through the slit-shaped eye-holes, he could see that he was locked inside a smallish iron cage.

And besides himself, there were five other prisoners dressed just like him — iron helms and red prison garb!

These five identically dressed prisoners might just be his teammates for this round.

Apart from the six of them, this single glance took in a prison vast beyond measure, packed wall-to-wall with cages. The other prisoners also wore prison helms of the same standard issue — or rather, every single person in this prison wore a prisoner's helm; only the color of the prison garb differed from prisoner to prisoner.

Cheng Shi swept a rough glance over the scene and managed to make out a few patterns.

The number of criminals wearing the same color of prison garb was not large — some had three or four, some seven or eight, but never more than ten. Moreover, these same-colored criminals were locked up together in sequence, and conspicuous wooden number-plates hung on their cages.

Cheng Shi could not see his own, but by observing the numbers on the others it was not hard to determine that the number of his cage was...... six.

He was the last number among the six red-clad prisoners — that very number six he had despised at the starting point of his path.

6.

Still can't escape this...... magnificent Fate!

Just as Cheng Shi was looking around, the other five players in red prison garb finally reacted — they had awakened, and were quickly shocked by everything around them.

Although he could not see their expressions, their stiffened limbs and taut backs unmistakably betrayed the astonishment and disbelief in their hearts.

These teammates, just like Cheng Shi, had tried to take the helms off their heads the instant they woke — but try as they might, they could not succeed.

Cheng Shi silently observed everyone's movements, while at the same time pricking up his ears to begin gathering whatever intelligence he could hear nearby.

His current identity was no longer that of a swindler with the "Master of Deception" talent, but that of a gambler holding a true die of fate. So if he wanted to seize the initiative in the exchanges and cooperation to come, he had to establish an advantage in advance.

And intelligence advantage was precisely the most important piece of that.

The six players' cages were not lined up in a row, but arranged in a circle. Such ring-shaped structures were numerous in this harsh prison — every cage holding same-colored prisoners was formed into a ring.

The rings varied in size, so that nearly every prisoner could see his same-colored "teammates."

Behind Cheng Shi were five prisoners in white prison garb, their five cages forming a smaller ring. At this moment a fierce quarrel was erupting among those prisoners.

They seemed to be fighting over a woman.

"Bullshit, you're all full of shit — I'm Dolly's man! I won her at the Drama Grabbing Grand Ceremony! She's mine!"

"Scum — tui — got the guts to fight me one-on-one? I'll show you who's the top of the Drama Grabbing Grand Ceremony!"

"You dogs, all of you eyeing my woman — just you wait, just you wait! I'll soon hack every last one of you to pieces in the arena, not one left, just like I won all the way through at the Drama Grabbing Grand Ceremony!"

"Cut the crap — if you beat me, Dolly's yours. Do you dare take that?"

"Dolly is mine! You disgusting beasts! Come on, let's fight!"

Cheng Shi focused and listened for a long while but couldn't pick out anything useful; his only thought was that he really wanted to know just how beautiful this Dolly was, to make five grown men fight over her like this.

A little farther away was another ring of seven cages, inside which the yellow-clad prisoners were also arguing, but their voices were drowned in the enormous din and not so clear.

He could only faintly catch scattered words like "memory," "chaos," "order," along with curses of extremely high maternal content.

Quite a few prison guards carrying long whips patrolled around the area; whenever the shouting from some cage grew too loud and annoyed them, they would give the sinners inside a vicious flogging.

Watching the leather whip fall and leave streak after streak of wounds across the body, watching the prisoner curl up on the ground in agony and wail loudly, he could not help but think of a certain — ah no, a certain...... filthy thing.

Ugh, bad luck.

Cheng Shi shook his head to shake that terrifying figure out of his mind, and just then one of the teammates in front of him finally spoke up.

His voice sounded strange, but was unmistakably male; in fact, it was clear that this trial had no ladies in it.

Each person's voice, muffled inside the iron helm and resonating with it, had its timbre "contaminated" — threaded through with a faint, murky hum that made it hard to hear clearly.

"Every year has its novelties, but this year really takes the cake.

Never in a million years did I expect to be a prisoner again — this familiar feeling is truly nostalgic.

Why are you brothers so silent? All of you mute? It's been so long, at least pipe up."

"Squeak." Cheng Shi, very graciously, replied with one.

"......"

The one who had just spoken was the teammate from Cell 5. He looked at Cheng Shi and laughed heartily, shooing away the rats at his feet while tapping his own "iron head."

"This iron-skin hood is interesting—I actually can't take it off. Looks like there's something tricky going on inside it. Is it... the power of 【Order】?"

Not bad, indeed it is 【Order】.

Actually, the instant Cheng Shi had seen the prison guards around them, he had already caught a glimpse of 【Order】. These guards wore the standard-issue knight uniforms of the Great Adjudication Court, which meant this trial should be taking place in a prison in some city of the Great Adjudication Court.

Fine, real fine.

The 【Order】 trial had somehow sent him to a 【Chaos】 arena by accident, and now 【Chaos】 had come knocking, only to forcibly drop him onto 【Order】's turf.

You two going at it like this—love-hate, kill-and-kiss—if you don't get married it'll be hard to wrap things up.

The moment Cell 5's teammate finished speaking, the Cell 1 teammate on Cheng Shi's left responded, his tone slightly solemn:

"There's a problem with this prison helm. My prophecy tells me that no one can open this 【Order】 'shackle' except the one who put the prison helms on us."

Everyone turned to look at him in unison, utterly stunned.

"A prophet? You're a prophet—what did you roll, is it accurate?"

"Heh, 【Fate】."

"Oh, bold brother, how many points you got to play your hand face-up?"

Cheng Shi also raised an eyebrow, looking at this "prophet" with a broad smile.

Fellow traveler, what a coincidence—I happen to be a standard 【Fate】 believer in this round too.

Even before the trial, I was once a prophet!

And the prophecy I saw was: I won this trial.

Although the number I rolled was 1, my talent tells me this outcome is bound to happen.