[It consumes your teammate's life? Hah, can this even be considered His game? If I'd known earlier, maybe I should have let that 'Life' fellow come instead.]

[You're 'Death', do you even have life?]

[Pleasure] weighed a sandglass in his hand, smiling as he looked at [Death] inside the adjacent black box and spoke.

However, [Death] showed no reaction whatsoever! He did not speak, nor did he even glance over.

"Your teammates cannot hear you speak."

Right at that moment, the Arbitrator spoke up with impeccable timing.

"In fact, their current state is very much like being dead already. They cannot hear, cannot see, in absolute silence and darkness. It's just that you on the outside can still see them."

"Their entire lives are now in your hands, within those sandglasses before you."

Countless people in the spectator seats, following the Arbitrator's explanation, kept shifting their gazes, looking at the twenty-five sandglasses on each side of the table.

Seeing the number of sandglasses was the same, Xie Antong couldn't help but feel a slight sense of relief in her heart.

Life converted into chips... she had initially worried that the other side might have a vast, overwhelming number of chips while she only had a few.

But if it's like this... then something else is wrong again!

The reason Lu Ce went to be the chip was also considering that his life level was much higher than hers, so the chips should be more numerous. But if the number is set to be the same...

Then the point of putting herself at the gambling table doesn't seem so significant anymore...

This was Xie Antong's key point for breaking the situation, the core problem she was pondering: why must she be the one to face [Pleasure] in the duel, or rather, why must Lu Ce be the one to become that chip.

Understanding this problem might be more beneficial for dismantling this game.

Her mind was exceptionally active. Sitting here, relying on only a tiny amount of information, she had already begun deducing the game's progression.

However, this kind of urgency was also born from the identity of the weak. On the other side, [Pleasure] had no such thoughts at all.

He held a sandglass, forcefully tilting it downward as if trying to accelerate the fall of the sand.

But the sand didn't fall at all, not a single grain!

Who knows what kind of thoughts [Death] would have if he saw this behavior of his...

[What's wrong with this thing? Is the sandglass broken?]

Hearing [Pleasure]'s displeased voice, the Arbitrator on the other side hurriedly explained:

"This sandglass is a chip, not real sand. Your teammate won't die just because you shake the sandglass in your hand."

[Hah, fine then. I was just playing around. That guy isn't so easy to kill anyway.]

Whether something like [Death] can even die is still a question.

[Pleasure] casually placed the sandglass in his hand on the table, smiling as he looked at Xie Antong and said:

"Little girl, this game has actually already given you a lot of leeway."

"A game of wits, you should be quite good at those, right? Giving you a chance to perform on this final grand stage."

"Shouldn't you thank us?"

Xie Antong remained silent. Actually, what [Pleasure] said wasn't wrong. This game was truly very fair, surprisingly fair compared to all the previous unequal treaties.

The Arbitrator looked left and right, then nodded and said:

"Alright, the basic settings of the chips are now clear. Next, you may begin your wager."

As he spoke, a deck of cards appeared before Xie Antong and [Pleasure] respectively.

"The gambling match is divided into five rounds. The chips are your twenty-five sandglasses each. The side with fewer chips at the game's end loses."

"Or, if someone loses all their chips before the betting is finished, it's the same defeat. The chip player dies directly, the gambling player suffers spiritual death."

"Your teammates will also play a role in this game. During the game's progression, if special events are triggered, they will have the possibility to influence the game's course and can briefly communicate with you."

"The rules explanation is over. If there are no other questions, then you two may begin now!"

Xie Antong's pupils instantly contracted. "Wait!"

That's it?

It seems like nothing was explained at all?

"What are we betting on? How will our teammates trigger special events? How is the progression influenced?"

This time, there was no need for the Arbitrator to answer.

[Pleasure] looked at her with a faint, ambiguous smile and said lightly:

[Little girl, are you joking? This is our game.]

[How could it possibly be so boring? Of course, these things cannot be told to us. That's also part of the game. We have to think for ourselves, guess for ourselves!]

?!!

Xie Antong's expression didn't change much, but her body was already beginning to tense up.

They had to gamble, but the rules of the gambling table actually had to be guessed by themselves?!

For a moment, Xie Antong felt the sandglasses before her weighed a thousand pounds. Each one was one twenty-fifth of Lu Ce's life.

Without even knowing the rules, how could she place bets? 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Involuntarily, she glanced towards the black box on the other side, only to discover that Lu Ce inside was smiling at her!

Couldn't he not see her?!

Realizing he might just be looking in this direction, Xie Antong still reined in her emotions and focused on the gambling match before her.

"Then, the rules explanation is concluded. The gambling match officially begins now."

As the Arbitrator's words fell, Xie Antong immediately cleared her mind of all distractions and intended to pick up the stack of cards before her.

But as soon as she reached out, she noticed something was off. Her cards... were clearly thicker than the opponent's.

The number of cards was actually different too? Why was that?

Just as she was thinking this, her hand suddenly jerked!

The All-Seeing Eye observed every detail on this gambling table. She had just seen that, among the twenty-five sandglasses before her, the one on the far left...

Had lost a grain of sand!

She whipped her head around to look at that sandglass, confirming she hadn't seen wrong.

At that moment, two more grains of sand fell from that sandglass. The grains didn't fall into the lower funnel of the sandglass but directly vanished, as if annihilated.

"What is this?" Xie Antong asked the Arbitrator.

"I believe I've already explained this before," the Arbitrator said flatly.

"Your thinking consumes your teammate's life!"

"Mental power is not an infinite resource. When you use your brain, the sand inside these sandglasses will be consumed..."

A loud *boom* echoed in Xie Antong's mind, as if struck by a heavy hammer.

Was that what that sentence meant? Then when she was deducing the game rules earlier, wasn't it highly possible that Lu Ce would have died before they even started gambling?!

Now, even thinking had become a luxury.