Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 456 The Final Lever
The gambler's greatest faith

It's not probability, it's not an algorithm.
But in dire straits,

Throw the last chip into the darkness.

—From *The Abyss of Gambling: A Gambler's Notes*

The four fruit machines in the central area were as silent as tombstones. The gray paint was peeling off, the levers were loose, and the fruit patterns on the rollers were worn white—so inconspicuous that they couldn't even be considered "suspicious."

Si Ming stopped in front of the one furthest inside, glanced back at the large screen: Hack: 30200. He nodded: "This one."

Harker pushed the cart loaded with chips next to Si Ming and whispered, "More than 30,000, it's all here."

Si Ming sat down, as if he were personally setting a boat ablaze. He stroked his cold, hard face and gripped the lever.

"pat-"

The rollers roared, and fruits and numbers flew by. Empty.

The God of Fate silently tossed the ball again. Two, five, ten… He pulled the lever, nothing; he pulled the lever again, still nothing. Even the smallest two pairs of fruit wouldn't light up, like a well that never echoes.

By the 50th throw, Huck's back was soaked with sweat: "Hey, want to switch? This is the worst machine out there."

Si Ming didn't raise his eyes: "The intuition of the Lord of Fate tells me—no."

“Intuition?” Hack nearly exploded. “My intuition tells me it’s eating my money.”

More than a hundred more blanks. The chips dropped from 30200 to 25100. The reel seemed to be sneering, refusing to offer even the slightest "consolation".

On the high platform, Charlotte rested her chin on her hand, a candy in her mouth: "Well chosen, Mr. Autism. The least likely one out of five hundred, you just had to pick it. The princess is really amused."

Hark gritted his teeth: "Siming—change! Any one of the remaining three is better than this!"

A hand pressed down on Hack's shoulder.

Carlos appeared behind him unnoticed, his cigar embers flickering in the shadows. He exhaled a wisp of smoke and said calmly, "No trade."

Huck was stunned: "You've gone mad too?"

Carlos pointed at the machine: "The real empty machine is the best at sweetening things up—it gives you double kills and lights up from time to time to whet your appetite."

The jackpot machine before the threshold is the complete opposite: it ignores everyone. The 'silence' you just tested isn't a mistake; it's the answer.

He turned to look at Si Ming: "Continue."

Si Ming met his gaze for a moment, nodded, and dropped another one.

"pat-"

Still empty.

On the big screen, the time slid coldly: 3:42:19 remaining. Ten hours had passed, and more than six hours had already been swallowed up.

Charlotte casually twirled her delicate little knife in her other hand, her smile sweet but unable to suppress a subtle ripple in her eyes—for the past ten years, with her grandfather's tacit permission, she had entered and exited this "graveyard" many times.
They used mathematics and models to disassemble five hundred machines into pieces.

But the only thing she never truly confirmed was the "million-dollar machine": the cost was too high, the threshold was too far, and reason always told her it was "not worth it."

She frowned almost imperceptibly and gently raised her hand. The maid, Uesugi Nanako, understood and turned to connect the second communication line of the in-ear monitor.

"Please confirm," Charlotte said in a low voice, a smile still playing on her lips. "Does RNG, who are mired in the gambling abyss, necessarily reset their machines after each win or restart?"

Nanako nodded: "I'm requesting confirmation."

She turned around and spoke calmly into the headset: "Your Highness has asked a question. Please confirm the random reset mechanism and I will respond immediately."

The wheels in the distance were still humming, their clanging echoing through the hall. Si Ming pulled the lever again, but the machine simply swallowed it coldly, spitting out a silence.

Charlotte's smile remained unchanged, but her fingertips unconsciously tapped the armrest of her chair. She knew—this question was the key to victory or defeat.

An aged yet resolute voice came through the earphones, with a hoarse Russian accent:
"Yes, Your Highness Charlotte."

According to a complete computer calculation model of 60,000 iterations, the random number generation value of every machine that falls into the abyss of gambling will be completely reset when it wins a prize or restarts.

Rest assured, they will never 'accumulate rewards'; all the accumulation is an illusion.

Charlotte loosened her grip slightly, her index finger no longer gripping the chair armrest.

She leaned back in her golden chair, smiled sweetly, as if the slight unease she had felt moments before had never existed.

“Very good, Professor,” she replied softly, as if coaxing a child.
His gaze returned to the dilapidated machine that was frantically swallowing coins. "Then let it continue, let them perform."

Meanwhile, deep inside the main house.

Inside a luxurious research lab, separated by layers of barriers, dozens of computers and supercomputers were brightly lit and hummed softly.

A man in a white lab coat gently closed his communicator. Beside him, a dozen or so people dressed in research coats and secret service uniforms slumped over.
He collapsed onto the chair and the floor, still breathing, but already unconscious.

The air was thick with a pungent smell—a gas canister that had just been tightened was still hissing and deflating in the corner.

Another man stood up from under the table, still fiddling with the nozzle in his hand, and asked in a low voice, "She believed it?"

Sergei—the old man whom Charlotte had regarded as "the best mathematics professor in St. Petersburg" for the past decade—adjusted his glasses and a gentle smile appeared on his lips.

"Yes, she believed it."

Sergei's memories surfaced like a tide.

Ten years ago, he wasn't a professor; he was a "pawn" that Carlos had personally placed in St. Petersburg University.

Using a forged resume and several back channels opened up by Carlos in the underworld, he successfully impersonated a genius mathematician and thus entered the Harrens family's secret research team.

Charlotte is naturally intelligent, but overly arrogant. She needs "model results" to validate her intuition, and Sergei happens to be able to give her the answer she most wants to hear.

Over the course of a decade, he built an impeccable reputation through massive calculations and data:

His calculated probability distributions for the small and big prize machines perfectly matched Charlotte's experiment.

His prediction of a "pseudo-random trap" was repeatedly proven, which greatly boosted Charlotte's confidence.

Whenever an experiment failed, he could use complex mathematical explanations and diagrams to make everything seem reasonable.

Ten years of trust is not empty talk, but the authority built up from countless "correct" results.

But within this solid tower, he buried two lies:

1. The goal of one million machines
He had captured it in low-sample data years ago.

But he secretly deleted the experimental records, pretending he had never found them.

Charlotte always believed that even she and the professor couldn't be sure which one was the real million-dollar jackpot machine.

2. RNG's reset mechanism

He told Charlotte that all machines are reset after winning or restarting, and there is absolutely no "accumulation".

That's true—except for that one million-pixel machine.

During one test, its algorithm overflow anomaly exposed the truth: the more bets were placed, the higher the probability of winning, and it never truly reset.

But Sergei deleted the overflow data.

For ten years, Charlotte unknowingly threw her chips into that real "black hole" time and time again.

“Ten years,” Sergei muttered to himself, looking at the spinning wheel on the screen. “She personally fed the million-unit machine to the edge of the threshold.”

Inside the casino.

Si Ming continued to mechanically pull the lever. The chip count steadily declined from 25100 to 24600 to 23900.

The machine coldly swallowed all the chips, refusing to reveal even the smallest two-of-a-kind.

Hack's face was ashen, and his palms were sweaty: "It really is... a bottomless pit."

Si Ming stared at the rolling fruit pattern, but his gaze seemed to pierce through the sheet metal, seeing something much farther away.

He said softly, "A black hole... means it contains light."

Hack didn't understand, but felt a chill run down his spine.

On the high platform, Charlotte had already put on her sweet smile again, as if watching a group of fools making their last struggle.

The giant screen flickered coldly, and the chip numbers were mercilessly swallowed up.

21800→ 10000→ 5000→ 2000.

Hack's face was deathly pale, and his thick hand wiped his forehead, but he couldn't wipe away the cold sweat.

He stared intently at the machine, which resembled a "black hole," and finally couldn't help but speak, his voice hoarse like sandpaper:

"Siming...is that enough? Let's switch to another one. If we can't get this out, we'll have nothing left."

Si Ming simply shook his head. His gaze was as resolute as if nails were driven into the machine.

"that's it."

Hack felt a tightness in his chest, and finally lost control, lunging forward and grabbing Siming by the collar, as if to pull him off the chair.

"It? How much more will it devour?!" Hack's voice ripped out.

"Two thousand? Twenty thousand? Or two hundred thousand?! Do you know what?! I only have one bullet left! I'm aiming it at my own temple!"
"Siming, I don't want to live to have my eyes ripped out by that madwoman and hung on her necklace!"

He roared until his voice was hoarse, and his eyes were bloodshot.

At that moment, he was not a casino mob boss, but a gambler driven to the brink of despair.

Heavy footsteps sounded.

Carlos walked over, embers from his cigar flickering between his fingers. He glanced at Si Ming and asked gruffly, "Are you sure it's this?"

Si Ming simply nodded.

Carlos laughed loudly, a rough and bitter laugh: "One hour left. Try another machine? Even a thousand tries might not yield results. My luck? I know it best."

He crushed the cigar into his palm, the lines on his hand turning black from the heat, but he didn't blink. He turned and stared at Huck, his eyes like a raging fire: "But Fatty, I'm the same as you."

Hack was stunned.

Carlos's smile grew even more sinister: "I'd rather die than be humiliated by that crazy woman."

His chest heaved, and he slammed his fist into his heart, as if pressing the last vestiges of his dignity into his very bones: "So—I surrender to you, Hack!"

The giant screen suddenly shook, and the numbers jumped.

Hack: 2,000 → 21,800.

Harker's breath caught in his throat as he stared at the numbers, his throat dry. That was Carlos's entire life, the last vestige of a thug's existence.

Si Ming reached out and gently stroked the machine's cold exterior. His voice wasn't loud, but it pierced everyone's ears like nails:

"Well, then, that's it."

He sat down again.

"Click—" A coin is inserted.

"Boom—" The lever was pulled.

"Click—" A coin is inserted.

"Boom—" The lever was pulled.

The Master of Fate's movements were mechanical and cold, yet they carried an undeniable resolve.

Hark stared at him, his eyes reddening, and growled, "Siming! If you dare to lose, you'll die with me!"

Carlos added coldly from the side, "Losing means death. Winning? Let her see what a real gambler is like."

Si Ming's lips slowly curled into a smile, his voice low and calm: "Heh... We lost, so what if we die together with you?"

The three people's auras intertwined, like three knives clashing in a raging fire, sparking the last sparks belonging to the gamblers.

"pat-"

The sound of coins being inserted was monotonous and cold, like nails being driven into a coffin one by one.

The Master of Fate's movements were unchanging: inserting coins, pulling levers, inserting coins, pulling levers, like an emotionless machine.

The chip count on the giant screen plummeted like a health bar.

Time also flows by coldly.

Remaining time: 10 minutes.

Sweat beaded on Hack's face, his Adam's apple bobbing as if he were suffocating. He stared at the number 3,723 on the screen, his steps faltering, muttering, "It's over...it's over..."

Carlos simply crossed his arms and stared intently at the all-consuming machine, his eyes sharp.

On the other side, Charlotte, on the high platform, crossed her legs, her pink skirt draped over the edge of the golden chair.

She picked up a gold manicurist and slowly began to manicure her nails, her movements as elegant as if she were at a ball.

Her eyes were filled with laughter, as if she could already see herself sitting on the throne of the family head.

Old Harrens leaned back in his chair, his eyes gleaming with a dark light. He coughed lightly and waved his hand, signaling the servants to prepare for the ceremony. "Decades of nurturing have finally yielded results."

A chilling smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

last minute.

Si Ming paused for a moment, looking at the remaining chips—1,000.

He finally changed his rhythm.

"This thousand can no longer be gambled away slowly."

He whispered as he divided all the chips into ten portions and pushed in one hundred at a time.

"Thud—" It's in.

"Boom—" The lever was pulled.

Numbers danced in the air. Cherries, bells, and bars flashed by.

failure.

"Thud—" The second time.

failure.

"Thud—" The third time.

failure.

Hark's breathing was erratic, his fists clenched tightly around his hair, and his voice was hoarse: "Siming! Stop! We're finished!"

The God of Fate ignored him. His actions were swift and decisive.

"Thud—" The seventh time.

"Thud—" The eighth time.

The entire arena fell silent. Only thirty seconds remained.

The last three hundred.

"Thud—" The ninth time.

failure.

Only one hundred remain.

the last time.

The air seemed to freeze, and everyone stood up, their eyes fixed on the unremarkable slot machine.

Si Ming slowly pushed in the last hundred chips, placing his finger on the lever.

He closed his eyes, exhaled, and suddenly pulled down.

"Boom——!"

The rollers spun rapidly, the clanging of metal like the sound of war drums.

The first square came to a slow stop.

—— 7.

Hack held his breath, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets.

The second square gradually slows down.

—— 7.

Charlotte's smile faltered slightly, and the ruler between her fingers hovered in mid-air.

The third square... continued to jump wildly. The numbers switched between 9 and BAR, like the Grim Reaper's scythe swaying in the air.

Everyone held their breath, as if their chests were being squeezed.

Old Harrens' pupils shrank to pinpoints, and he almost stood up from his chair.

--"bite!"

The last frame slowly came to a stop.

—— 7.

777 is fully lit.

A moment of silence, followed by a deafening roar!

The machine roared deafeningly, lights exploded like thunder, and gold coins gushed out like a fountain, raining down from the sky.

—They've won!
The numbers on the giant screen skyrocketed, and Hack's brand name soared all the way to the top of the list!

Gold coins gushed forth like a tidal wave, the clattering sound almost drowning out the entire hall.

The mountain of chips piled up wildly, overflowing from the machine's opening, spilling over the feet, and splashing up a torrent of metal.

The numbers on the giant screen skyrocketed, and the red light was blinding:
Hack: 1000100 → First.

—The winner has been decided.

Huck froze for three seconds, then suddenly threw his head back and burst into a maniacal laugh that ripped through the hall.

"Hahaha! We won! We won!"

His enormous body plunged into the pile of gold coins, the metallic sounds mingling with laughter, like a madman.

Charlotte stood frozen in place, her face deathly pale.

Her eyes were vacant, and the gold ruler in her hand fell to the ground with a "clatter," her fingertips still in the position of manicuring.

Suddenly, her face changed.

The girl's voice was soft, sweet, and cloying, like a pure fairytale princess at a ball:

“Fat brother...do you still remember Charlotte? When we were little, you held my hand and took me to the family ball.”

She turned to look at Carlos, her voice soft and chuckled, sickeningly sweet:

"Brother Carlos, have you forgotten? How many times have I led the troops to clean up the mess you caused outside?"

But all she received in response was indifferent silence.

Hack stared at her with a cold smile, remaining silent.

Carlos, with a cigar between his fingers, exhaled a puff of white smoke, his eyes as cold as stone.

Charlotte's lips trembled, and she finally looked up at the second floor, her voice shaking:

"grandfather……?"

The second floor was empty; there was no one there.

Old Harrens has long since disappeared.

He didn't even want to take one last look.

The princess's face was completely shattered.

Charlotte collapsed to the ground, her frilly dress disheveled and her crown slipping off.

But she suddenly looked up, her eyes blazing with a final madness and resentment.

"I... haven't lost yet!"

She gritted her teeth and propped herself up, flicking her wrist, and all three Mysterious Cards shone brightly at the same time.

Snow White emerged from the snowflakes, her breath sealing off the path with ice crystals.

The ethereal image of the Little Mermaid Princess floated in the air, her song both hypnotic and sorrowful;
Sleeping Princess's long black hair cascaded down like a tsunami, attempting to tear open a passage for escape.

The dark fairy tale instantly transforms into a blood-red stage, with three "princesses" surrounding Charlotte, vowing to protect her to the death.

however--

"Humph."

Carlos coldly exhaled a puff of smoke, the red glow of his cigar flashing.

The smoke rings transformed into menacing chains, churning and binding the three illusions, before the black smoke suddenly tightened—

"Crack!"

Snow White's neck is broken, the Little Mermaid's image is shattered, and Sleeping Princess's long hair is torn to shreds in the smoke.

At the same time, Huck reached out his hand, and gold rose from the floor, instantly forming a magnificent golden carpet that stretched straight down to Charlotte's feet.

She gasped in surprise, only to find that the carpet had suddenly twisted and turned into golden iron bars, which then whooshed shut—

boom!
Charlotte is trapped in a golden birdcage, suspended like an exhibit.

"Miss!"

The maid, Uesugi Nanako, suddenly turned red in the eyes, and her katana was drawn, its blade flashing sharply.

But before she could even move her neck, a chilling glint of light touched her.

The black scythe blade pressed against her throat, carrying the chill of death.

That was Riddle's life-system mystery—Anubis, the god of death who judges sins.

Riddle said coldly, "Don't move. Otherwise, your head and body will separate."

Nanako froze on the spot, her hands trembling, the tip of her knife slowly drooping.

Charlotte's shoulders trembled, finally losing all possibility of resistance.

Carlos laughed wildly, smoke swirling around his shoulders: "A full star at twelve, still a full star at twenty-two. Charlotte, you're trapped in the cage of the 'Full Star Mystic,' afraid to take that step out."

He suddenly stretched out his arm, the ash from his cigar illuminating the twelve star patterns on the back of his hand.

Riddle and Hack stood side by side, each displaying their own star patterns, the cold light intertwining in the air.

“Three fully-fledged twelve-star Mystics,” Carlos grinned coldly, “are already on par with you. Charlotte, you’re nothing but a princess who dares not step into the Star Calamity.”

Harker's gaze was icy as he uttered a single sentence:

"She's just a whore."

He glanced around the hall, his smile cruel:

"Alright, Charlotte, let's choose a dignified way to die. Who agrees? Who disagrees?"

Carlos? Are you soft-hearted?

Carlos, with a cigar dangling from his lips, impatiently spat out two words: "Not interested."

Hack looked at Siming again.

"What about you?"

Si Ming pushed up his glasses and said calmly, "I'm just waiting for you to deliver on what I want."

Huck laughed loudly: "Alright! Let's do it that way then—"

Suddenly, a deep voice rang out:

"I object."

Charlotte looked up abruptly, her eyes lighting up with surprise, thinking her savior had arrived.

However, it was Riddle who stepped out from behind Carlos.

His face was cold and stern, his eyes burning with the fire of revenge.

Harker grinned. "I'd really forgotten about you. Fine, Riddle, you win. She's yours."

Riddle knelt on one knee, placed his right hand on his chest, and performed an ancient salute of allegiance:
“Riddle, I am ready to serve you, Master.”

Then, he slowly raised his head, staring at Charlotte with a sinister grin.

"Thank you for your generous gift, Master."

“I will make a delicate doll—a doll as delicate as Miss Charlotte.”

Charlotte's face was completely contorted, a mixture of sweetness and fear, like shattered glass.

When the dark fairy tale came to an end,
The princess lost her crown.
All that's left is the qualification to be made into a 'doll'.

—Harrence's Inheritance: The Final Chapter

(End of this chapter)