Chapter 520: Ring

Mr. Riddle paid the price of three missing life experiences to obtain three items that required sacrificing lifespan to activate. Xia De guessed the cost was "sacrificing lifespan" likely because he was merely an ordinary person. If a witch or a Ringed Shushi were conducting the gamble, it would most likely be sacrificing Spirit.

Therefore, although the Deck of Many Things could indeed play a huge role in the gamble, considering that each side of the gamble only had ten slots, using too many functional cards that required sacrificing lifespan like this was actually not the optimal solution to win the gamble.

It was just that Xia De and Mr. Riddle had no other choice.

"There are none left, and even if there were, I couldn't give them to you."

Xia De said. Currently, both sides were evenly matched, but if the last card was still the Deck of Many Things, it would mean the Black-Robed God's side would have an extra combatant out of thin air. If Mr. Riddle wanted to win, he could only use items again at the cost of his lifespan.

"Then the last slot..."

"This is your gamble, Mr. Riddle, so you must end it with your own experiences."

Xia De pressed his hand onto the other's shoulder again.

"But the experiences in the Fear Fortress cannot form cards. This card game is part of the Fear Fortress adventure. The gambling table has rules; the gamble itself cannot be used as an experience on the table, so the Fear Fortress doesn't count either."

Mr. Riddle said, but Xia De shook his head:

"What I want to say is indeed related to your current experiences, but it is not your adventure in the Fear Fortress, but this."

Mr. Riddle turned his head and saw Xia De pointing at himself:

"It is your encounter with me."

The middle-aged man's eyes widened slightly.

"At the final moment between life and death, you met me. You don't know who I am—a person, a ghost of the Fear Fortress, or a messenger of the gods. You don't even know if I truly exist, or if I am just a hallucination when you are near death. But with my help, you gambled with the gods and have reached the end. Mr. Riddle, I think your encounter with me can probably count as an important experience in your life, right?"

Xia De asked softly. Mr. Riddle nodded blankly:

"Yes, even if I forget what happened here after leaving the Fear Fortress, this experience will be permanently engraved in my soul, never to be erased until I step toward madness and death."

He reached out and placed his hand into the last slot on the table. After a long while, he took his hand away, and a brand-new card appeared as expected.

On the card face, Mr. Riddle's own upper body appeared from a perspective looking up from the table. The Mr. Riddle on the card looked upward, while the real Mr. Riddle looked downward.

Xia De's face did not appear on the card; only his hand was pressed on Mr. Riddle's shoulder. As for how he could be sure it was his own hand, it was because that hand was covered in golden cracks like burning embers.

The gold-stamped letters slowly appeared from the very top of the card like flowing liquid gold. The card name: 【Person of the Future】.

"So you are..."

Mr. Riddle turned his head abruptly to look at Xia De, but in the end, he did not say the answer:

"It's truly great, you really exist."

A thousand words finally turned into just this sentence. He sat up straight, preparing to welcome the end of the gamble.

The card shimmered with the radiance of the silver moon. After waiting for a moment, Xia De's figure indeed appeared completely on the card. This was Xia De's current appearance, his body covered in cracks of "Divine Radiance."

This made the real Xia De beside the table breathe a sigh of relief. He had originally worried that the one appearing would be his normal Second-Tier self. In that case, if this gamble didn't trigger those items that consumed lifespan, Mr. Riddle's side would have lost.

The god's last card was still a witch, but it was a witch who covered her face with a black veil, wore a black gauze dress, and had a somewhat terrifying temperament.

Xia De's phantom stood together with the demon, the dragon, and the sea monster. As twenty streams of bright light flowed along the table grooves toward the center, all the moving phantoms on the table rushed toward the center of the gambling table.

This was the most real and most terrifying battle so far. Although both sides had their wins and losses in the previous nine fights, the phantoms summoned by the cards would not produce real wounds on the images due to injuries.

And as all twenty cards appeared at this moment, it seemed that the gamble was only truly complete at this point. The two sides collided violently. The flesh and limbs of the witch, and the body fragments of the dragon, demon, and sea monster, even flew directly off the gambling table along with the flickering of spiritual light and the sound of violent explosions.

The table developed cracks due to the real effects of supernatural power. The scorching air and sharp wind pressure made Mr. Riddle beside the table almost unable to breathe. And once the person or monster corresponding to a card was injured, the card in the table slot would also develop cracks.

Even now, both sides could attack the altar, the temple, the cannibal house, and the rune sword in the demon's hand, so all the cards appeared with cracks of varying depths.

Even Xia De had never seen such a meat-grinder-like, reckless, and brutal battle.

He shifted his gaze to the very back of the table on Mr. Riddle's side and found that the phantom representing himself did not join the battle but walked toward the three Deck of Many Things cards.

He waved his hand at the silver moon floating above 【Deck of Many Things: Silver Moon】. The gambling table item, which could only be touched by Mr. Riddle, actually flew toward Xia De's phantom.

"I have lost ownership of the gambling table item! It has become equipment similar to a rune sword!"

Mr. Riddle was even more surprised than Xia De.

Xia De, holding the silver moon, walked toward the center of the gambling table in the middle of the battle but still did not join the fight. He suddenly raised his right hand behind the relatively huge body of the sea monster, letting that silver moon come above his head.

The silver moon, which had originally only emitted a faint light, suddenly brightened. Before Mr. Riddle could react to what was happening, a feeling of extreme danger suddenly arose in Xia De's heart:

"Bad! Duck!"

The miniaturized real battle itself made Mr. Riddle feel dangerous. The moment Xia De gave the warning, he shrank directly under the table. Of course, he didn't forget to keep his hand pressed on the stool to prevent the gamble from being judged as paused.

Because there was no other place to hide in the room, Xia De also squatted down. Neither of them looked upward, but their eyes observed the next second, the silver moonlight that swept across from the center of the table like a sun explosion.

Even for Xia De, it took several seconds for the stinging sensation in his eyes to subside.

Mr. Riddle groaned while covering his eyes. It took a full minute before he let go, but Xia De still saw his eyes were red, swollen, and tearing.

After helping Mr. Riddle with some treatment, and with no other movement above, the battle seemed to have ended. Xia De and Mr. Riddle cautiously poked their heads out from under the table:

"Is this... over?"

The table had returned to calm. All the phantoms were gone, and only those streams of light flowing along the grooves were still emitting a faint glow.

Mr. Riddle cautiously sat back on the stone chair, and Xia De also stood up, brushing the dirt off his body.

It was seen that among the twenty cards on both sides, the three Deck of Many Things cards were automatically ejected from the slots and scattered on the table. Among the other seventeen, only 【Person of the Future】 remained intact, while all the other cards shattered into fragments.

It seemed that the burst of moonlight from Xia De's phantom just now had indiscriminately damaged all targets on the table except itself.

"May I ask, God, have I won?"

Mr. Riddle asked cautiously. Xia De waved his hand, and the three cards automatically flew into his hand.

"Yes."

This was the black-robed god across the table speaking for the first time since Xia De saw Him. He used the same language as Mr. Riddle, and the voice was a man's voice. Because it was just a two-syllable word, it was impossible to judge more information from the voice.

"You said that if I won the gamble, I could make a wish?"

"Yes."

The voice still came from under the black robe.

"I want to leave here! Leave here with all my memories!"

"Choose one of two. Leave here, or keep your memories."

This was not a voice from under the black robe, but the answer given in unison by the corpses of varying degrees of decay leaning against the wall.

When Xia De first came here, they also used this way to inform him of the vague rules of the 【Life Gamble】.

"Alright then, I choose to leave here."

Mr. Riddle said with some frustration, turning his head to look at Xia De:

"Sir, I am truly glad, truly glad to have met you here."

He reached out his hand to Xia De very formally, and Xia De also grasped his hand with relief. Although it was somewhat inexplicable, the card game had finally ended:

"Mr. Riddle, it is also my honor to have crossed a thousand years of time to meet you and complete this gamble together. I admire you, admire your wisdom, and admire your experiences."

He didn't say much more, not even introducing his own name.

"Compared to wisdom, I actually think courage is more important."

The ancient prophet said softly. He looked at Xia De earnestly, as if wanting to imprint his appearance into his soul:

"I don't know the purpose of your appearance here, nor do I know what the future looks like. But I will try my best to remember everything here. If possible, I will try my best to study the Deck of Many Things. I hope this will give you some help as my meager token of gratitude."

"Don't worry, from my perspective, you really did it."

Xia De said. Mr. Riddle was startled, and then a smile appeared on his face:

"Look, I knew it, I would definitely be able to do it. You told me, I reminded you, this is also a kind of 'Ring'. This is the blessing of my Lord, 【Mr. Ring】!" ===== CHAPTER 521 =====