<h2> </h2>


    Once more, Tom felt the flutter of excitement combined with the dread of failure. In front of him, the disk had come up with a one - for the fifth time in a row.


    Nine, he reminded himself. I need nine in a row.


    That was the number he had chosen before he had spent his fate and started flipping the disk, and he wondered if this was going to be the duel where he finally achieved victory without a GOD’s shield and claimed sixteen points. Two more flips came up positive, then an eighth toss did so as well. His stomach was doing mini-flips as he held the disk up.


    This is it. It is happening!


    One more successful throw, and then he would commit himself to his first life-or-death match. At least, in the competition proper. What he had done in the contenders’ contest didn’t count, since it had not been fought against elites. Besides, forgoing a GOD’s shield did not necessarily mean death if he lost. If his opponents were shielded, then he would be too. Each individual fight only had a low chance of actually being a death match, but if you played Russian roulette a hundred times, then eventually you were going to blow your brains out.


    “I wonder what having spatial storage again will feel like?” he asked, then grinned. It was such a naughty question. Basically, it was him spending the money before he had it, but if he got the coins that was what he was going to get. Then, possibly, if there was a sufficient amount left over, some weird affinity magical shield to give him a level of protection against ranged attacks; a type of spell that would be useful, but wouldn’t cannibalise his title development, because there was no way he was ever going to naturally develop a fire shield. Or, maybe he would get Chaos Bolt - it was likewise a spell he wouldn’t obtain through training, but was going to boost his offensive ability.


    Tom shook his head to clear it. Fantasising about the future was just plain silly. He would make those decisions once he had the coin to execute them, and that after getting advice from Corrine, Throm, and April.


    He threw the disk up for a final time, fists clenching in anticipation.


    It rolled across the ground and then fell flat.


    A zero pointed up at the ceiling.


    Tom stared at it in shock. After eight successes, it had come up as a negative. It was impossible to believe. He had been so certain and had almost been able to feel the prizes in his hands. Now, a single throw had taken that away. He was sick of squandering the opportunity that was this competition. He knew logically that the disks he was making for others were more important than any kills he could get with his spear and magic. The rewards for crafting were going to vastly exceed the winnings from successful duels, and then there was the wider impact they would have on humanity’s ranking points. It was easy to point at those facts, but he also wanted, no he - needed to get coins the traditional way. It was not just for pride’s sake - it was necessary to guarantee staying here until he hit fifteen.


    Annoyance flared through him. Why had it taken eight throws to get to this result? The zero could have come on the first toss and saved him all this trouble. Besides, why had he chosen to rely on nine throws instead of eight? If he had picked the lower number, then right now he would be earning his points.


    Or was there more to it? It was an insidious thought, and not one he liked. He was very aware of his last fight against the drone controller, and the unexpected win that had happened. It had been a similar situation to this one, where there had been a whole string of yeses followed by a single no.


    He picked up the disk and tossed it.


    Another one faced the ceiling. Another positive.


    Tom chuckled darkly. Nine out of ten - is that good enough?


    For what was basically a negative outcome, it was certainly an unusually high number of positives.


    He wondered.


    No, the disk itself couldn’t be at fault. Or could it? It was another one of those ideas which was hard to let go of.


    Was the disk weighted somehow?


    Were these a result of basic physics causing it to always land on the same side? He picked it up and examined it closely with his eyes, his sense of touch, and then by spinning it on his finger its balance. They were all negative, but he lived in a magical world, and could go one step further. By using his Living Wood skill, he could sense intimate details of the internal structure. The wood wasn’t perfectly symmetrical, but it was good enough that there was no way it was influencing the results.


    What he was seeing was just chance.


    Tom threw it again and again, until he had a second string of eight positives, and then the ninth was a one as well.


    It was too much.


    He paused and stared at the disk suspiciously. He was not great at mathematics, but the chance of nine successful throws had to be something like one in a thousand. What were the odds of what had just occurred? How likely was it that there was an eight, a single negative, and then nine consecutive positives?


    Spooked, he licked his lips and reassessed everything he knew.


    The previous fight had begun with a partial result like this. That had been for a fight that, while his victory hadn’t been guaranteed, had ended up in his hands. Today, he had flipped the disk eighteen times, and it had come up positive for seventeen of them.


    What were the odds of that being natural?


    He shrugged. He didn’t know, but it had to be infinitesimal.


    His fate had been in play, and it could be responsible for the observed outcomes. But if so, what was it saying? That zero circle suggested a firm no. But he remembered the partial success of the previous fight. Was that relevant here? Was this a stronger partial success?


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Tom glanced around.


    It was a very sterile and imposing, divine-looking kind of space. Where was he standing? Was he still in DEUS’s domain? Could this be malicious, or a thing of random chance, or his fate acting to create the unnatural outcome?


    He threw it again and frowned at the result.


    Angrily, he picked it up and tossed it over his head so that it struck the ceiling and then bounced to clatter loudly on the ground. That had to be a chaotic result. There was no way for his throwing style to have influenced the outcome.


    Then he looked at it in disgust. It was the same result as during the previous ten throws.


    “DEUS, please, protect me from outside influence.” He prayed. He was not sure it would work. It was definitely not something that would get a result in Existentia, but here, perhaps, here she could act.


    Slowly he went over and picked the disk up and examined it again. It was not perfectly symmetrical, but it was close. He tossed it up high with a lot of spin on it. It flew until it nearly touched the ceiling, and, when it hit the floor, it bounced off at a forty-degree angle, tumbling even more than it had with his own throw. Whatever it came up with was down to random chance.


    It was another positive result.


    It seemed like an impossibility.


    This was either his fate telling him something, or an active external intervention. He refused to believe it was random.


    The question was, which one?


    He glanced at the three doors and focused on the full GOD’s shield exit. He knew that was the one he should take, but, out of the twenty-three flips he had twenty-two positives. That was no longer in the realms of casual chance.


    It was a message.


    “DEUS, if another GOD is doing this, it has to be against some rule.”


    There was no response, no answer, just as expected.


    He glanced between the two doors. Sixteen versus one point. Death versus no damage.


    Then he looked at the central door. That was a middle ground, but it was not the solution. It only became valid if you had a reliable way to kill yourself even under a mental assault strike designed to incapacitate you and prevent suicide. Something like instantly frying your brain, which would be restored when the partial shield kicked into action. Something absolute and instant like that.


    That was not the answer for him, at least not today, as he had no spell that could do that. It had to be one of the other doors. Death versus life. Profit versus nearly nothing.


    This is silly, he thought. A single zero meant he was supposed to immediately choose the full GOD’s shield door. He didn’t know why he had even flipped again, but…


    Fourteen consecutive ones after that negative one. Fate or an enemy - was that the only explanation? Could a foe affect him here against DEUS’s wishes?


    That, Tom realised, was the real question.


    Besides, did his fate expenditure allow for partial signals? And how did the two humans die? That concerned him. If an enemy could act in this space, then he could see someone being influenced, or, more precisely, tricked by a trap like this. When you relied on fate to guide you and then got fourteen positives in a row caused by an outside force, then it was easy to make a fatal mistake.


    “I don’t know what to do.” He called out hopefully, and silence greeted him. There wasn’t even a flutter in his emotions that might have been caused by an external influence.


    He flipped it again, and after bouncing multiple times while switching sides, it settled with the one pointing up.


    Tom looked at the two doors, then down at the disk. He was pretty confident he understood what was happening here, and clutched it to his chest. The answer was right here in front of him. Hope and righteous anger warred within him, as did a furious, unyielding resolve.


    There was no need to take anything on faith.


    He was not like the other humans, the victims that, he suspected, had been tricked when exposed to a situation like the one that he was in. It was easy enough to imagine. They just had to do what he had one. A single curious extra toss, and then getting sucked in by a sting of improbable outcomes.


    Tom held the disk and faced the door that had no GOD’s shield. This was a reckoning. Fifteen consecutive positives were an undisputable message.


    He psyched himself. The conviction settled deep into his core. He would walk through there. Enter the fight without a GOD’s shield and win.


    “You can do this.” he shouted the words like a drill sergeant.


    His feet didn’t move.


    “Come on, Tom. Two steps, and then you’ll be able to get spatial storage.”


    Doubts plagued him.


    But he knew better. He needed to do this. Even with time shenanigans happening in this place, he couldn’t delay forever.


    He was more capable than the humans who had died. There was no point in delaying - he just had to do it. Two steps was all it as going to take, and fifteen consecutive positives were not something to ignore.


    Determinedly, he took a confident step forward, and then doubled over in shock as the disk in his hands activated. The feeling of threat and doom that hung over his head was more intense than anything he had ever felt.


    He fell to his knees helplessly, overwhelmed by the warning that was being sent.


    He vomited noisily, but came up smiling.


    “I was right,” he whispered in triumph. It was a test, and he had succeeded.


    His guess had been correct, and he had called the bluff. He had made the fatal decision, and been validated by the disk reacting to save him.


    There was so much unknown about his previous life. The memory gaps worried him. The fact that entire species of natives were being sent to hunt him down personally terrified him. And that this had happened…


    But, while there had been personal experiences stolen from him, he knew all the rules of the competition. He recognised the breach. The GODs should not have been able to target him. Maybe it was another situation like with the bats, but he didn’t think it was likely. The idea that hostile fate from a mortal ritual could reach him in something named the Divine Champions’ Trial seemed absurd. Which meant there was only one explanation for the behaviour where he had tossed the disk those extra fifteen times.


    “Sprung,” he whispered as he stared up at the ceiling, a wild grin on his face. “Sprung,” he repeated. He had called the bluff to make sure there was no doubt. “I know a GOD just targeted me.” He declared. “This is against the rules of the competition.”


    He wasn’t sure why, but part of him was screaming at him that it was significant that he knew about the attention. In some bizarre way, related to those missing memories, him knowing was more significant than their actual actions. By stating that certainty out loud, he forced something significant to happen. He was inexplicably certain of that.


    Now what? The thought whispered in his head. What did breaching the rules mean? Were there consequences? There had to be, but how could he maximise the benefit?


    “SUPREME, I would like DEUS to determine the compensation, and maybe part of it could be used to solve the problem I’m facing in the real world.”


    DEUS was smart she would know exactly what he was referring to.


    “Thank you for listening. I’m going to go and fight now.”


    He stood up, turned around, and then walked straight at the safe door. The moment he did, he was encompassed by pure love. It was like fluffy pillows, warm sunshine and excitable puppies. For a lingering moment, that was all there was. Those feelings swamped out everything else. The terror that had accompanied his disk activating was gently pushed away, and even some of his anger at what had happened was dissipated. Then, after too short of a moment, the attention withdrew and left him with the impression of amused approval. DEUS was happy with what he had done, and she was going to get her pound of flesh.


    Despite his intentions, Tom found himself unable to continue. The moment had been too beautiful to wilfully ignore. For over a minute, he stood there, tears running down his face, basking in the afterglow of that contact. The risk had been worth it.


    Then he went through the door, ready to face the monstrosity that waited for him. The ritual he had created with fate guiding him, and now infused with over a hundred points of precognition affinity mana, was not going to be wrong. Fully protected with GOD’s shield, Tom was excited to see what a GOD had tried to trick him into fighting.