I knew then, with the kind of crystalline certainty that arrives in those suspended moments before catastrophe and triumph collide—that there would be no holding back on this final round.
Lloyd had almost certainly discovered that I'd discovered his trick, had probably worked out during those few seconds of shocked silence that his carefully constructed algorithm had been cracked.
And based on his reaction—the way his confident mask had slipped before he'd wrestled it back into place, the slight tremor in his hands as he positioned them on the table, the tightness around his eyes that spoke of odds being frantically recalculated—he had no counter measure.
No backup plan. No emergency contingency for "what happens when someone figures out you're a cheating bastard and calls you out on it by winning anyway."
And more than that, I was fairly certain Lloyd wouldn't even bother activating his floor-spell this round—there was no point, really, not when I'd already demonstrated I could counter it, not when using it again would just confirm what I'd accused him of in front of the crowd. Better to let the algorithm sleep and hope that pure chance favored him instead.
Just then, both of us raised our fists in perfect unison, the motion so eerily synchronized it felt like we'd secretly rehearsed this dance a hundred times in some hidden corner of fate. The air between us thickened, crackling with tension so dense you could bottle it, slap a fancy label on it, and sell it to masochists who paid extra to feel this gloriously uncomfortable.
This round would come down to pure luck. Well, pure luck and a little help from magic. Yes, I know I'm a hypocrite, fight me.
I was already preparing to activate my arousal spell—planning to flood Lloyd's system with enough magical horniness to make strategic thinking impossible—when all of a sudden it happened.
Something welled up deep inside me, rising from a place I hadn't known existed until this exact moment, some hidden power that felt simultaneously foreign yet intimately mine. It pulsed beneath my consciousness like a second heartbeat—primal, raw, and utterly overwhelming in its intensity.
The sensation was visceral—not painful, exactly, but present in a way that demanded acknowledgment, like someone had just turned on the lights to a room I'd been navigating in darkness without realizing I couldn't see.
I immediately recognized it as Grisha's power.
The ability she wielded with such casual dominance, the one that activated the primal instincts of others through sheer presence, stripping away civilization's careful veneer to expose the animal beneath.
The power I'd stolen from her during our... extensive physical interaction, that I'd felt transfer across the barrier of intimate contact yet had no idea how to actually use.
It was calling to me now, pulsating from nowhere and everywhere at once, demanding to be acknowledged, to be wielded, and I had about three seconds to figure out how.
The countdown began, Lloyd's voice cutting through my internal panic with mechanical precision.
"Rock!"
I searched desperately for that well of invisible power, sending my consciousness diving inward like a spelunker exploring a cave system they'd just discovered beneath their basement. Where was it? How did I reach it? The sensation was there—undeniable, impossible to ignore—but also somehow intangible, like trying to grab smoke or hold water with your bare hands.
"Paper!"
I decided with snap judgment that it must be invisible to normal perception, undetectable through conventional mana-sensing, yet somehow still reachable if I adjusted my approach.
So instead of drawing energy from the environment like I did with excarnic magic, or channeling it through my muscles like incarnic enhancement, I sent power directly from my astral nexus—that core reservoir where magical energy pooled and processed—not into my body, but toward that hidden feeling of primal power lurking in the depths of my consciousness.
"Scissors!"
I found it.
Actually felt it, like plunging my hand into dark water and closing my fingers around something solid, real, and humming with potential.
The connection formed almost instantly, my energy pouring into that well of stolen power, filling it, activating it, bringing it roaring to life with an intensity that made my skin prickle and my breath catch in my throat.
"SHOOT!"
It activated in a rush that stole the air from my lungs.
Primal energy burst through me and outward in an invisible wave that couldn't be seen but was felt by every single person in the room—a pressure, a presence, something that bypassed conscious thought and went straight to the hindbrain where instinct lived and civilization was a thin coat of paint over ancient impulses.
I threw paper.
Not because of strategy, calculation, or the algorithm I'd so carefully decoded, but because some deeper part of me—the part that was half-succubus, that understood seduction and manipulation on an instinctive level—knew with absolute certainty what was about to happen next.
Lloyd, feeling the full effects of this sudden primal surge washing over him like a tidal wave of distilled instinct, played on pure reflex.
All pretense of strategy, all his careful showmanship and calculated choices, washed away in a single heartbeat, leaving only the most basic, fundamental response that humans defaulted to when their higher brain functions went offline and the monkey-mind took the wheel.
He threw rock.
Like an amateur. Like every first-time player who'd never studied the game, who went with what felt strong, solid, and safe.
Paper covers rock.
I won.
The entire room went silent.
Not the excited silence of held breath before a reveal, but the stunned, disbelieving silence of people whose entire understanding of reality had just been challenged and found wanting.
Lloyd was sweating profusely now, droplets racing down his temples and soaking into his collar, his carefully styled hair beginning to lose its shape as moisture turned pomade into something considerably less photogenic.
His brown eyes were wide, his mouth slightly open, his chest heaving with breaths that seemed to require more effort than they should, and I could see the exact moment the reality of his loss crashed over him like a bucket of ice water dumped on someone who'd been enjoying a very pleasant dream.
I began to chuckle—so low it was barely audible, just a rumble in my chest that probably looked more threatening than amused—and then I couldn't hold it anymore.
I threw my head back and laughed, the sound bursting from my throat with such force it echoed off the low ceiling and most likely carried all the way down to the first floor.
I'd done it.
Gods above, saints preserve me, every deity that gave even a fraction of a shit about mortals and their ridiculous problems—I'd actually won.
The nobles began whispering, their voices rising in a susurrus of utter disbelief that rippled through the crowd like wind through wheat.
"He beat Lloyd..."
"That's impossible—!"
"Did we just see that? Did that actually happen?"
"A slave beat Lloyd Altera at his own game—"
"This has to be some kind of setup, some performance they arranged—"
"Look at Lloyd's face—that's not acting—"
Suddenly, cutting through the whispers like a blade through silk, a sharp clap and whistle rang out from somewhere in the crowd. Willow, no doubt, showing her approval with the subtlety of a fireworks display at a funeral.
The sound seemed to break some kind of spell holding the room captive, setting something in motion—first one person joined her applause, tentative but genuine, then another, then several more until the hesitation shattered completely.
The entire crowd burst into cheers.
Nobles who'd been whispering in shock moments ago were now shouting their approval, clapping so hard their palms had to be stinging, some even whooping and hollering like they'd just witnessed their favorite gladiator claim victory in the arena rather than watching a naked slave win at rock-paper-scissors through what was almost certainly magical manipulation they didn't understand.
Lloyd took a long, deep breath—the kind that suggested he was counting to ten in his head, possibly in multiple languages, definitely contemplating every life choice that had led to this exact moment.
I could see it on his face, clear as day despite his attempts to mask it. If he lost composure now, if he let the defeat show as the devastating blow it actually was, it would ruin his carefully cultivated image.
The unflappable showman, the gracious competitor, the man who made losing look like performance art—all of that would crumble if he couldn't stick the landing on this moment.
So instead, he smiled.
It was a good smile too, not the easy confident grin from earlier but something more genuine, edged with respect and touched with what might've been actual admiration.
He began clapping along with the crowd, the sound somehow audible over the general chaos, then gestured toward me with an open palm like I was an artist who'd just completed a masterpiece.
"Well!" he called out. The crowd began to quiet to hear him speak. "I have to say, I did not see that coming!" He laughed—not bitterly, but with what seemed like genuine amusement at his own defeat.
I stood slowly, letting the moment stretch, enjoying the weight of all those eyes on my naked form before I offered Lloyd a small, respectful bow. "You were a worthy opponent," I said, pitching my voice to carry. "Even if you were also a cheating bastard with magic circles hidden in the floor."
The crowd gasped—some scandalized, others delighted by the accusation dropped so casually.
Lloyd's expression flickered for just a moment before settling back into that same smile. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about," he said smoothly. "Though I appreciate your creativity in explaining away my previous victories. Very entertaining."
"Oh, I'm sure you don't," I replied sweetly. "Just like I'm sure all those perfect wins were completely legitimate and not at all suspicious when examined statistically."
"Congratulations on your victory," Lloyd continued, smoothly redirecting before I could elaborate further on his cheating methods. "A deal is a deal. I'll be visiting your establishment to conduct my review, and should it meet my standards, you'll receive the full sponsorship package. My word on it."
"Great," I said. "I'll take it. When should I expect—"
All of a sudden, a scream cut through the celebration.
High-pitched, genuine terror, coming from somewhere at the very back of the crowd. It was followed immediately by several more—panic spreading like wildfire through dry grass, nobles who'd been cheering moments ago now shouting in fear, confusion, or both.
Something was happening.
I whipped around, my elven sight cutting through the steam and bodies to see what had caused such immediate chaos. Then my blood turned to ice water in my veins.
A slim man dressed in a white and red tuxedo had appeared at the entrance—appeared being the operative word because I sure as fuck hadn't seen him arrive. Two massive shirtless bodyguards flanked him on either side, built like siege engines given human form, their muscles so pronounced they looked anatomically improbable.
But it was the man in the middle who commanded attention.
His face was mangled—there was no other word for it. Half his hair was simply missing, the scalp smooth and scarred where follicles should have been.
His left eye had been replaced with something larger than a natural human eye, glowing a sickly orange that pulsed with its own internal light, thick black veins radiating from the socket like cracks in porcelain, spreading across his cheek and temple in patterns that were almost hypnotic if you stared too long.
He was smoking a fat cigar—the kind that probably cost more than most people's monthly rent—the smoke curling around his head in lazy spirals.
The nobles began whispering again, their voices tinged with fear now.
"Is that—"
"From the Pantheon—"
"What's he doing here?"
"We should leave—"
"Don't make eye contact—"
The Pantheon.
I nearly shit myself right there on the floor, dignity be damned.
The Pantheon, the top ten brothels in the city, the cream of the crop, the establishments that resided at the top of the Spire where representatives were rarely seen in public. These were the kind of people who made deals with officials, who influenced policy, whose casual conversations could shift the economic landscape of the city as a whole.
And one of them was here. In this room. Looking directly at us.
I staggered on my feet, stepping out of the way and toward the edge of the crowd. My instinct for self-preservation was screaming at me to disappear, to slip into my realm of shadows and wait this out, but curiosity and a deeply unhealthy need to know what was happening kept me visible.
Lloyd, caught in the sudden backward surge of panicking nobles, stumbled over his own feet before crashing directly into his massive pile of coins. They scattered everywhere, clinking and rolling across the polished floor in a cascade of gold that would have been comical under different circumstances.
The man in the white and red tuxedo took a long, deliberate pull from his cigar, letting the smoke build in his lungs before exhaling it slowly into the air above Lloyd's prone form. When he spoke, his voice was snively—high and nasal, with a sinister quality that made even casual words sound like threats wrapped in pleasantries.
"Lloyd Altera," he said, drawing out each syllable as if savoring them. "The great showman. The people's champion. The undefeated roshambo master who just suffered his first loss in... oh, what has it been? Three years?" He took another puff, the ember glowing bright orange to match his replacement eye. "I have to say, I'm quite disappointed."
Lloyd pushed himself up to a seated position, coins sliding off him and adding to the mess scattered on the floor.
"W-what—" his voice came out shaking, and he had to clear his throat before trying again. "What are you doing here, Silas?"
Silas—apparently that was the mangled man's name—smiled with lips that pulled too tight across teeth that seemed to be slightly off, too sharp in some places, too blunt in others, as if they'd been filed down or replaced after whatever catastrophe had taken half his hair
"What am I doing here?" he repeated. "Isn't it obvious? We have business to discuss, you and I. Important business that can't wait, despite the rather public venue." He puffed his cigar again, smoke curling like serpents around his mangled face. "Tell me, Lloyd—how do you feel about debts? Specifically, the kind that come due when you least expect them?"
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees.
Lloyd's face had gone pale beneath his sweat, his hands shaking slightly where they rested among the scattered coins.
"I-I don't know what you're talking about," he said, though his voice lacked conviction.
"Don't you?" Silas's smile widened. "Then allow me to refresh your memory."