Sovereign of the Ashes

The massive roulette wheel spun wildly.

It was just one of many seemingly ordinary gambling machines in this huge casino.

Aside from Sein, who stood before it, there were only seven or eight other extraplanar creatures gathered around.

Sein spotted a few powerhouses from Magus World nearby, but most were knights. Rank Four and above mages like him were rare in this place.

The roulette wheel kept spinning, finally slowing after about 360 full turns.

Everyone's eyes were locked on the pointer in the center, watching intently as it came to a stop.

This particular wheel had sixty slots in total. In theory, every player had a one-in-sixty chance of winning.

Sein was the only one who bet on "30", while the others each picked their own numbers.

If they lost, their entire wager would be gone. But if they won, they would earn triple their original bet!

As the pointer inched toward "28", a short, green-skinned dwarf—barely 1.4 meters tall—let out an excited cheer. He had bet on "28".

But before the cheer could last more than a couple of seconds, the wheel rolled just a bit more... and stopped firmly on "30".

Under his mask, Sein exhaled quietly.

All the other chips on the table vanished.

A moment later, six red chips materialized in midair and dropped neatly into Sein's hand.

He could not tell what they were made of. Some rare alloy, maybe.

Both sides of the chips were engraved with complex magic arrays, the kind that made counterfeiting nearly impossible.

But it was not just the difficulty of copying them that kept others from trying.

Much like magicoins, the real deterrent was the sheer power behind the people who ran this casino.

Anyone daring to break the rules had better be ready to pay the price!

In the history of the Magus Alliance, there was once a low-level world civilization known for its alchemy that tried to counterfeit magicoins in hopes of making a huge profit off the alliance.

And then... that civilization ceased to exist.

Word had it that their leader, a seemingly clever Rank Five being, ended up preserved as a specimen, on display in the laboratory of a grand mage as part of his private collection.

The sheer purchasing power and universal acceptance of magicoins were obvious to everyone, and some people happened to be fearless.

To this day, a small stream of counterfeit currency still managed to make its way into the Magus Alliance each year.

That was why the alliance had established a dedicated enforcement unit to investigate this matter.

In that round of roulette, there were eight players, including Sein. One of them, a paunchy Rank Four foreign god, had placed an even larger bet than Sein.

But only Sein won that round.

Judging by how the roulette mechanism worked, it was obvious that the house—the casino—never really lost.

The total bets placed by the rest alone were enough to cover Sein's payout.

The only scenario where the casino would actually take a loss was if at least a third of the participants also picked the number "30" like Sein.

But according to some of the data relayed by the Faceless Mask... if two people picked the same number, the odds of hitting "30" dropped to 31.7%. If three did, the chance dropped all the way down to 11.18%!

So, even with the Faceless Mask, Sein could not win every time.

All he could do was win more often than most gamblers.

As the six red chips landed with a crisp clink in front of him, a few of the other players shot him envious looks.

But when they noticed the Magus World mage robe he was wearing, their envy quickly faded into quiet respect.

Even if this casino had no visible enforcers, no foreign deity would be foolish enough to mess with a mage from Magus World.

The chips Sein held were not the lowest denomination here, nor the highest.

The smallest chip in this casino was worth a hundred magicoins, which meant this was not a place where an average Rank One or Rank Two being could afford to gamble.

A Rank One mage in the Magus World could usually only earn a few hundred magicoins at most after fighting hard in an interplanar war.

Knights of the same rank might earn even less.

The high-denomination chips here were worth ten thousand or even a million magicoins.

This was truly a playground for the rich.

Even though Sein had been promoted to Rank Four and managed to save up a bit, he still could not afford to splurge here.

Sein ran his thumb over a red chip, and it instantly transformed into nine orange chips and ten yellow ones.

Yellow chips were the lowest denomination, so Sein casually flicked them toward the beautiful attendants by his side.

They gave him wide smiles and bowed respectfully in thanks, though maybe a little too deeply, offering Sein an unobstructed view of their cleavage.

Still, their excitement was understandable.

After all, even knights and mages in an interplanar war might not make as much as these women did.

And for extraplanar beings, earning magicoins was several times more difficult than it was for Magus World mages and knights of the same rank!

These women had been the ones to explain the casino rules to Sein, who was here for the first time.

Sein always believed in equivalent exchange. After raking in tens of thousands of magicoins so easily, he had no problem giving these fairly attractive women a small tip.

Tossing the rest of the chips in his hand, Sein made his way to the next gambling table.

***

Sein was no gambling god. He only specialized in elemental laws and had never explored anything related to gambling.

So, as he continued his tour of the casino, the wins did not keep coming. Instead, he started to lose a few rounds.

The Faceless Mask was powerful, but not omnipotent.

Honestly, Sein was not even sure if strange "gambling laws" existed in the Astral Realm.

In the past, he would have confidently said they did not exist.

But now that he had reached Rank Four and gained a deeper understanding of the nature of laws, his perspective had shifted.

Things that once seemed impossible now felt within reach. He no longer set hard definitions on any field.

Even gambling, in his eyes, had become an area of expertise.

The casino Black Oblivion brought him to turned out to be way bigger than he expected.

Between chatting with the attendants and exploring on his own, Sein realized this place was more of a "gambling city".

It was a massive complex with at least three hundred floors, and he was only currently on the third floor.

"We're not allowed to go above the hundredth floor of the casino, but we can take you down to the underground floors if you want to have a bit more fun," one of the braver young women said softly, flushing as she shook her snow-white feathers.

"No wonder Black Oblivion is hooked on this place," Sein muttered with a shake of his head. "Even a Rank Four deity could waste two hundred years here without ever leaving."

By now, he had racked up about a hundred thousand chips in his hands.