A moment later, a creaking sound echoed across the room, followed by a low, rustling rumble.
"Is the ceiling about to collapse?"
Larry narrowed his eyes.
Sure enough, the sound grew louder, chunks of dust and debris falling loose.
"So it's just the ceiling caving in? That's it? I was expecting something way more exciting," Larry said with clear disappointment in his voice.
Menchi blinked, looking up as well.
"Maybe it's because your five 'Great Fortunes' weren't that great after all?" she said after a moment's pause.
"Still… it's kinda scary to think this was just the beginning. If someone really stacked five high-tier fortunes, wouldn't the misfortune be on a whole other level?"
Larry said nothing, but a smirk tugged at his lips. The game had only just begun.
The rustling from above suddenly stopped, eerily quiet, like the calm right before a storm. A few of the more observant gamblers had already sensed something was off and quietly stepped back, watching Larry and Menchi with amused expressions, as if they were waiting for a show to start.
In a casino like this, where risk and chaos were daily entertainment, no one was really surprised. Most of them just saw this as part of the usual fun.
Then, without warning, a sharp crack tore through the silence.
Long, jagged fractures spread across the ceiling, and in the next breath, a massive stone chunk broke free. It plummeted downward with a deafening whoosh, slicing through the air like a meteor, heavy enough to crush anything beneath it.
A few people instinctively flinched, narrowing their eyes, expecting to witness something gruesome. But before the stone could hit, a surge of aura burst upward like a geyser.
The entire boulder halted mid-air, completely enveloped in a dense aura of glowing pink energy. It floated there, trembling slightly, as if an invisible wall had caught it. It wasn't falling anymore. It had been stopped.
Psychic Ability – Telekinesis.
A loud bang followed as the rock was flung aside by a powerful invisible force, crashing into the corner and kicking up a thick cloud of dust.
The casino fell into stunned silence. "...What kind of technique was that?!"
One player stared, slack-jawed, eyes locked on the fading pink aura. He sounded like he'd forgotten how to speak properly. For lower-tier Hunters, especially C-rank ones like him, seeing someone casually pull that off was like watching a god walk by.
They had all been looking forward to watching someone suffer under the "Great Misfortune" roll from the 'Risky Dice'. But what they got was something entirely different.
To Larry, the danger they feared so much had been nothing more than an afterthought. The power gap between them wasn't just large, it was unbridgeable.
At his level, even if he enter the world of final destination, he will survive with ease, there's nothing the death can pull that can kill him by accident.
Now that the effects of "Great Misfortune" had played out, Larry didn't bother rolling again. He'd already won big, and the spoils were enough to keep them comfortable for a while. There were more important things to deal with.
After cashing in all his chips, Larry left the casino with Menchi and headed for the outskirts of Dorias.
They arrived at an empty grassland, a quiet and isolated place, perfect for experimentation. Menchi didn't question him. She just followed quietly, trusting him without needing to know the plan.
A flash of white light burst in front of them, and a strange, toy-like creature appeared. It looked like a plastic duck, or maybe some kind of strange, digital balloon.
Menchi looked it up and down. She wasn't that surprised anymore. After seeing so many of Larry's monsters, she'd come to terms with the fact that he basically had an endless collection. But this one… it felt a little different.
It was smaller than the others, sure, but it also gave off an odd vibe. She couldn't explain why. It was just... off.
Larry didn't explain. He simply gave the order. "Let's begin."
At his command, Porygon-Z floated into motion. Its odd, wing-like limbs twisted slowly, and the inverted body added to its bizarre appearance. Then, pure white aura began to flow from its body, except it didn't look like normal aura. It resembled streams of glowing data, lines of code flickering into existence around it.
Data lines formed and vanished like holograms, swirling gently in the air. Menchi blinked in confusion. "What… is it doing?"
Meanwhile, far away, in the digital world, Ikshanpei, a resident of the virtual realm, was hard at work when he suddenly froze. His abstract, mask-like face lifted as his senses sharpened.
The world around him was shaking, subtle, but growing stronger. This wasn't a ripple. This was a rupture.
He had brought Larry into the digital world once before using a carefully controlled method, just a temporary breach between reality and the virtual realm. A short bridge that let a person or an object cross over, and only for a limited time.
But this… this was completely different. This was someone trying to crack into the online world from the outside.
It wasn't an invitation, it was a forced intrusion.
A brute-force hack on a dimensional level.
Even Ikshanpei, born of this world, didn't have the ability to pull that off. His heart sank.
'Who could possibly do this?'
Before he could process it further, his form blinked out of existence, vanishing instantly to investigate the breach.
Back on the grassland, Porygon-Z's actions were reaching their climax. The area around them began to flicker, like glass under stress.
Cracks began to form in mid-air, spreading outward. Shards of the world peeled away like fragments of broken glass, revealing something behind them.
A hole appeared, dark at first, then turning blindingly white. It stretched open slowly, revealing an endless white space inside. There were no landmarks, no ground, no sky, just pure nothingness.
Menchi instinctively stepped back, eyes wide. "What… is that?"
She couldn't explain the feeling in her chest, but that blinding white reminded her of something. That flash of light from the TV back at the Greed Island entrance, the one that pulled Larry inside. That same kind of light was now staring back at them through the rift in space.
She didn't know what Larry was doing. But it was definitely something no one else could do.
'Could it be…?'
Larry stared into the swirling white void, his eyes narrowing in thought. He compared what he saw to the fragmented images in his memory and confirmed it, this was the gateway to the online world.
Porygon Z had done it. It had really opened a direct channel to the digital realm on its own.
But that was only the beginning. Larry's real goal wasn't just to pass through. He wanted to see if Porygon Z could extract information from within.