The underground was more than just a battleground—it was a crucible, a place where only the most disciplined survived. Those who played here weren't merely gamblers; they were tacticians, warriors in a different kind of war. Every move was sharpened to perfection, every gesture a calculated deception or a masterstroke of control. Here, the slightest hesitation meant ruin, and hesitation was something Veyne had long since abandoned.
She had once been like the rest, clawing her way up the ranks, struggling to outmaneuver players who had spent lifetimes perfecting their craft. But then, she fell. A single crushing defeat had erased her name from the stage, her dominance shattered. For years, she disappeared, her name fading into whispers.
Now, she had returned. And this time, she was untouchable.
Her plays were impossibly precise. She read her opponents with an unnatural clarity, catching every flicker of doubt, every micro-expression betraying their intentions. She moved like a force beyond human, predicting not only the cards but the very choices of those around her. It wasn't just mastery—it was something else.
Ryen watched from the shadows as she systematically dismantled every challenger. Each victory was surgical, devoid of hesitation, as if she were following a script she had already seen play out a hundred times before. The crowd murmured in awe and unease.
"I never see her make a mistake," one player whispered.
"She's not human anymore," another murmured, his voice tinged with something close to fear.
And Ryen agreed. The Veyne he remembered was brilliant, but flawed—someone who played on instinct, who made miscalculations and adapted. This version of her? She was too refined, too controlled. It was as if she had stripped away every ounce of humanity for the sake of perfection.
Then came the final game.
The room fell silent, the air thick with something almost oppressive. Veyne's last opponent sat across from her, an older man, his expression unreadable. He had been in the underground for decades, his name whispered with reverence. If there was anyone who could test her, it was him.
The match unfolded like a story written in blood and sweat. Every round built upon the last, every move a counter to another. But Veyne remained unshaken. She moved without doubt, executing her plays with a mechanical certainty.
And then—something happened.
A flicker. A hesitation so brief it was almost imperceptible.
It was small, but it was enough.
The old man saw it. He adjusted, pressed forward, and suddenly, the game shifted. For the first time in years, Veyne was on the defensive. The audience leaned in, sensing the unraveling of something invincible. And then, in the final decisive moment, she made an error.
A single miscalculated move.
The room fell into a stunned silence.
Veyne had lost.
And with that loss, every debt, every grudge from past defeats, came crashing down.
Ryen remained still as the enforcers stepped forward. He saw her expression—blank, not with shock, but with a kind of distant awareness, as if she had expected this outcome all along. They grabbed her arms, dragging her away, and she didn't resist.
The underground devoured its own, and tonight, it claimed her.
Four Years Earlier
Veyne knelt in the dark, her hands trembling over old parchment. She had heard the legends, but she never truly believed them until now. The Tome of Frozen Chime lay before her, its pages filled with knowledge that should not exist.
The tome was not a strategy guide, nor a record of gambling techniques. It was something far worse. It chronicled the existence of those who had pushed themselves beyond human limitations, those who had abandoned the self in pursuit of ultimate skill. It spoke of individuals who had stripped away their emotions, their fears, their very identities until only the game remained.
And now, she understood.
The greatest players didn't win because they trained harder. They won because they became something else.
She traced the inked letters, absorbing the process described within. It wasn't a simple technique. It was a transformation. A method of self-erasure so complete that the player no longer played the game—they became the game. They silenced every distraction, every unnecessary impulse, until their entire being resonated with the rhythm of play.
But there was a price.
Those who walked this path always reached the same end. A final match. A loss. And then—disappearance.
Veyne did not hesitate. She had suffered defeat once, and she would never let it happen again.
She took the knowledge from the tome and hired a mercenary, someone to track down those who had followed this path before her. She needed to know what happened to them, how far they had gone before they vanished. What she discovered was chilling.
The greatest players had not simply trained—they had surrendered their very selves to the game. They had forsaken their identities, their emotions, until they no longer existed outside the act of playing. And when they lost, when that single flaw emerged, they had nothing left to fall back on.
They had become their skill. And when that skill failed, so did they.
Veyne accepted this fate.
She trained. She erased every distraction, severed every tie to her past. She became the best. And she won. Again and again, until no one could challenge her.
But the fate written in the tome was inescapable.
And on that final night, when she faltered for the first time, she understood why.
Present Day
Ryen stood alone in a cold, stone courtyard. The echoes of that final game still resonated in his mind. He recalled the years when the underground celebrated flawless play, when every match was a testament to human potential pushed to its extreme. Now, he saw the legacy of those days: players who had reached beyond their limits, only to lose themselves in the process.
He thought of the Tome of Frozen Chime, of the path it revealed.
He thought of Veyne.
"They played so well before… so flawlessly that their very essence was altered. But in the end, no amount of skill can defy fate. When you try to be more than human, you risk becoming nothing at all."
His voice was quiet, swallowed by the empty night.
The underground would move on. New players would rise, new legends would be written. But the cycle would repeat. Because in the end, the game had never been about winning.
It had always been about how much you were willing to lose.