While those who lost in whatever the participants were playing in that table, wailed in pain, those who managed to keep their bodies unscathed, paled.
"I-I want to give up, let me stay out of this!".
"Me too, this is not worth it!".
'Oh, so those bastards ended up here', thought Daimon who was observing everything from afar, the ones who were chickening out right now, were none other than members of the Eternal class of the Crimson Blood Academy, in other words they were members of noble vampire families.
As for the ones who lost a part of their bodies, they were humans who would have been subordinated to Adam, if he was still alive that is, besides them, there was one guy from each of the four enemies that were currently participating in the Global Raid.
Namely one magic beast in human form from Marcus's side, one of Ereth's guys who were in that strange state similar to undead after being corrupted by the same Nether that Karla used back at Kerrol to make the Ghouls go berserk with the difference that this side of Karla made improvements on it, so that they would keep their sanity, then a member of Skyfire's sect and last but not least the young master of the Arcarius family, Walford who was representing Arlion.
The eyes of all the participants fell on the one who was supervising the table, unlike the other majority of Nethereals observing the event, who were just body pieces connected by bones, a state that looked awfully similar to Skelefiends, the supervisor had a complete body, in fact half of it apparently belonged to the same poor bastard, while the other part was that of a much older person based on the disparity in the sizes, also he was radiating a middle stage Lord rank mana pressure.
"All right, participants number 4 and 6, I'll approve your leave, just pay the fee mentioned on the rules of the game and you are free to go", said the Nethereal with a sinister smile on his face.
All the participants frowned upon listening to that Nethereal, the ones who wanted to leave immediately raised their voices.
"What fee, you didn't mention anything like that when we were invited to this game!", said the first one.
"Yeah, I want to leave, let's see you stopping me when violence is forbidden within the castle!", added the second vampire as he stood up just to freeze the next second.
"According to the rules, the price for leaving without having won a single round, is losing a random part of your body to the house, thanks for your visit", with those words, the table lit up and then before those two vampires could react, their heads exploded in red mist.
With a sordid "thud", two headless bodies collapsed on the ground, the supervising Nethereal then snapped his fingers and the bodies were swallowed by the ground, before he added.
"How unfortunate for the two of them to "randomly" lose their heads, oh well, their corpses will be temporarily stored in the morgue for their direct relatives to claim them within 24 hours, otherwise they'll be disposed according to the rules stated by his highness Agrak".
The Nethereal who kept that creepy smile on his pale dead-like face, turned to see remaining participants to then say.
"Now, should we continue with the game, dear guests".
"Oi, what is the meaning of this, I already showed you the emblem of the Lord I serve, how come I didn't hear about those stupid rules, I want the item that was left in custody of the owner of this castle", said Ereth's subordinate.
"I want to see the one in charge of this place, this isn't what was told to me either!", added the guy from Skyfire's sect.
While those two complained, Marlene, the magic beast from the Maelstrom Sea that took human form and the pirate who came from Marcus's faction remained silent, the humans from Adam's academy were trembling on their seats as well, which was understandable, they were the weakest among all the participants being mere four star ranked mages.
"Did you hear that, those idiots are trying to use outside influence to win in prince Agrak's casino!".
"Keke, humans are one of the greediest races after all!".
The Nethereals who were watching the events taking place at the giant table, laughed and ridiculed the participants, it is clear that they were tricked to enter the game only to become entertainment,
Speaking of which, Daimon's attention was drawn towards the single skybox that was floating above the scenery, that's where the so-called prince and his target, should be.
"Nonsense, to get the chance, no, the honor to play against his highness, a participant has to completely strip the supervisor of every possession it has, no one has ever been able to achieve such a thing, now, are you going to continue or perhaps you want to try your "luck" and leave without having won a single round like those two!", said the Nethereal supervisor.
"Alternatively, remember that you won't die while playing even if you were to lose your head and if you manage to gather a total score of 40 you can recover everything you lost to the house and leave, at 75 you get the chance to play a special round against me and if you reach 100 a you'll get the item you requested before the game started, not to mention you can sell the points back to the house for a profit", he added.
Daimon who was observing from afar couldn't help but frown, this place wasn't a challenge perse, since those vampires and the humans didn't have an emblem, yet they somehow ended here.
'Still, it's being counted as a challenge for me since that little thig brought me here', thought Daimon, the only thing that didn't make sense for him so far, was why did Marlene agreed to participate on this whole thing.
He could understand that the others were blinded by greed, besides those two who were clearly related to Nethereals and had some connection to the owner of this castle, the other participants were for sure tempted by the treasures and other strange items hanged on the walls of the castle, which were all belongings of the ones who have died here, it didn't escape Daimon's eyes that he couldn't recognize some, which was worth mentioning, as he knew what the basic structure of the magic technology from the four galaxies, Neptune and Kerrol looked like.
In other words, there is a high chance that people from other galaxies had ended up stranded here, just like it supposedly used to happen in the Maelstrom Sea in the past.
Anyway, Daimon knew that Marlene wouldn't be moved by those kinds of things, so there must be something else in all this that he is missing, luckily that was clarified the next second when an amused voice came from the sole skybox.
"Enough, no matter your identity or backer, here in my castle everyone is the same a "gambler" and must abide by the rules of the game in which they are currently participating, also don't forget the marvelous prizes that await those who win, information, treasures, power, support anything you want can be yours!", said the voice with grandeur.
The participants who were complaining earlier, clicked their tongues knowing that they were tricked by the owner of the castle, most had some kind of concern that was visible on their faces, with the exception of Marlene.
'That girl… when I said that there might be a solution for her clan's curse within the Global Raid, I didn't mean it like this, on the other hand she might have gotten a hint thanks to her lineage's ability', thought Daimon, she obviously wanted information on how to break the curse that has been tormenting her clan for so many years.
It was amusing that as besties, Marlene and Thea shared the fact that the Hydra system user was one of the sources of their clan's problems.
To be fair, her conclusion shouldn't be wrong, if the owner of the castle is a being on par with Ophelia, even in a weakened state, the curse casted on her clan has also diluted after so many years, Marlene being the perfect proof of it as she was able to breakthrough to the Stellar rank before, though she was now stuck as a Lord rank.
Back at the giant table, the supervising Nethereal smirked at the fact that no one tried to leave, to then skillfully shuffle a deck of strange cards, unlike the ones used for poker and other games Daimon knew, each of those cards were the size of a hand and had intricate designs on their backside.
"I take your silence as none wanting to stop playing, make your choice", said the Nethereal as he smoothly accommodated the cards on the table.
Daimon didn't interfere yet, he wanted to see what the game they were playing was like, besides, Marlene didn't seem worried at all, so she should be quite confident on winning, he has heard the other girls complaining that her cheat-like temporary luck boosting ability helps her win in board games more than half of the times after all.
The remaining participants hesitated before they placed their hands on a small crystal plate that was placed in front of each one of them, once the last one who was actually Marlene, did so, the Nethereal snapped his fingers.
"Closed, don't forget to double check that the number of cards you receive is the desired one", after finishing his sentence, some of the cards placed on the table moved towards the participants, it didn't escape Daimon's eyes that the numbers varied quite a bit, some received two, others three and then there was Marlene who received four, which made a couple of the participants glance on her direction.
'Well, I guess some of them don't know what is a "poker face", or maybe their result is bad enough to make them don't care to show they got a bad hand', thought Daimon.
"Hahaha, look at that guy, he is so pale, I bet he got at least one finger in there!", shouted one of the Nethereals that were sitting near Daimon.
"Those who wish to participate, make your bets", said the supervising Nethereal, then Daimon saw the ground in front of him opening and a small pedestal with a crystal plaque similar to the one that the participants used earlier, appear.
He placed his hand on it and then two options appeared in front of his eyes.
[Highest Value (The one whose sum of cards has the highest result)]
[Survivor (The one with the highest score who loses the least in terms of flesh)]
Daimon's eyes glowed behind his mask, he of course selected the second option and then a row of numbers for him to choose appeared, each participant was assigned one, originally there were a total of ten, but after those two vampires died a moment ago, only eight were left.
Without thinking too much about it, Daimon casually chose the number "3" which was of course assigned to Marlene, as for the bet, the options were actually quite interesting, it went from something as simple as a strand of hair all the way to complete limbs, organs and even mana circuits or one's magic core.
They all had a price assigned to them at which the house will buy back and also a different return ratio, hair, blood and skin had the lowest price and also the worst return, which was 1 to .05, so even if you won the earnings would be quite low, there was also a minimum quantity of it needed to participate.
'I know different races have different cultures but this kind of thing is of bad taste regardless of that', mumbled Evangeline.
'Well, they can survive without a body anyway, but I highly doubt that the owner of this place set this whole thing up, just to keep Nethereals from getting bored', said Daimon, he placed a bet and with that the floating menu disappeared, just in time for the supervising Nethereal to announce the end of the betting time.
"No more bets will be accepted from this moment onwards, now dear participants, reveal your cards".
With those words everyone placed their cards face up on the table, allowing the spectators to see the results, and as expected there were different reactions coming from all over the place.
"Ah damn it, that guy is worse luck than what I expected!".
"Nice, my bet paid off!".
"Noo, my earnings are gone!".
First the different Nethereals either cursed, cheered or shouted, something Daimon which would haven't caught Daimon's interest normally, if not for the fact that his infinity eyes could see small particles of energy that were being radiated by not only the spectators but also the participants.
'That is… Rita, ask those girls if they know anything about the arrays on the roof and walls', inwardly said Daimon to the undead head maid.
Back at the castle of the Black Night clan which he raided to reunite with Calvin and the others, those women made the ones who knew each other fight, whoever lost had to lose something, it was just a short moment but Daimon caught a glimpse of the array on the roof of that castle and it also seemed to collect some kind of energy.
Also, according to Michael who took note of everything unlike Calvin, the things they got cut after purposedly losing against their respective companions, were absorbed by the ground to never be seen again, the same applied to anyone who died.
Unfortunately, he couldn't properly decipher the meaning of the runes that composed those arrays as he didn't know that language, they weren't like the ones at the black stone corridor through which he arrived at Neptune, neither the ones in this castle were like them, however now he knew that the Nethereals were more spread than what he thought, each having their own language.
'They say that none of them had knowledge regarding the arrays, by the time they came to exist, the castles were already there for them to live in, the leader of the settlement never dared to be the one initiating a conversation with whoever they were created by when the time to offer their tribute came, so they simply limited to fulfill their orders of making those they captured fight', answered Rita the next second.
Daimon could hear the undead girl's apologetic tone and also feel that she was intensely glaring at those poor girls from the Black Night clan, as if she was blaming them for not being useful for her young master, which made him chuckle.
'It's fine, we'll get answers directly from the source, this casino offers information as a prize after all', said Daimon.
He returned to reality when he saw the results being projected above the giant table, so that all the spectators could see them.
[Highest Value: Participant number 5]
[Survivor: Participant number 3]
[Lowest Value: Participant number 7]
Daimon finally got to clearly see what the game was like, those cards had two different types of information on them, some had numbers from 0 to 5, while others had literal body parts written on it, the same that could be won or lost through the bets.
"Okay, with the results clear for everyone, time to pay", declared the supervising Nethereal, what followed were pained screams coming from two different people, one of the humans and the guy from Skyfire's sect respectively, the interesting part is that the one who got the lowest result which was Walford, also had to pay with something randomly, but he ended up lucking out and only losing a lock of hair very much to the displease of the spectators.
"Ahhh!".
"Crazy bastards give me back my fingers!".
Amusingly, despite the guy from Skyfire's sect being the one with the highest value, he also lost two fingers from his left hand, he chose three cards and while one was actually a four, the other two had the word "finger" written on them, so he got the highest score of the round but also lost something.
The human was the only other that chose to get three cards, he got a total of 3 but the last card was the word "intestine", and so he lost an organ, normally having an organ removed would cause more than just pain even for a mage like that guy, but the array here made it so that the ones playing wouldn't die nor faint no matter what, the pain remained though.
Walford who had the lowest score was unlucky enough to get two zero value cards, but he was lucky as the punishment was random and he lost a lock of hair only.
As for Marlene, she got four cards, and all of them were numbers, three had a value of one and the last one was zero, so she got the same score as the human but she didn't lose anything, the others got either one or two of score and didn't lose anything or lost hair, or some blood, nothing that really hurt.
After watching a whole round unfold, Daimon more or less understood the trick, the objective was to get the highest score and for that getting a high number of cards was the easiest way, the problem is that the chances of losing something important also increased, which is why the other participants thought Marlene was crazy for selecting four cards.
But it would be too easy if that was everything, with his infinity eyes Daimon could see that some of the participants were pulling their own tricks, and while the guy at the skybox could probably see through the vast majority, as long as the supervising Nethereal didn't notice it, then it wasn't against the rules, the problem is that the same applied the other way around.
'So, it's only cheating if you get caught, looks like your kind of game~', concluded Evangeline, to which Daimon limited to smirk.
With the scores the way they currently were, Marlene already had 15 points, while the guy from Skyfire's sect had 19, Walford was on the second place with 16 and then the pirate from Marcus's faction had 14, the rest had varied scores from 6 to 12, during the first rounds most probably just selected one or two cards at most.
"Does anyone want to stop playing?", asked the supervising Nethereal with a sinister smile, only to be glared and snarked at by Marlene and the others, after seeing those vampires dying, it was obvious that they could manipulate what they lost as "fee" or at least narrow the options down to something important, so the best option was to endure until getting 40 points, recover everything they lost and then get the hell out of the game.
You might think that then all this whole thing was pointless, but that isn't the case, between those who will leave in a moment of anger like those pirates and the ones just to die and who will chicken out midway, the casino will profit, but from Daimon's point of view the biggest benefit should be that energy which was being gathered by the arrays, the house never loses after all, or at leas that's how it is supposed to be.
Daimon leaned back on his seat, similar to what happened with Daphne, as long as others don't interfere, he wouldn't either, in a fair clash his teammates wouldn't easily lose against anyone.
