The blonde youth's words gave them goosebumps.

If this were truly to happen, then with the meager amount of money in their treasuries, they would all be forced to watch the massive amount of gold coins belonging to Cyrus and Kain overwhelm the total gold coin proportion. Naturally, the majority of resources would belong to the Egretta and Bethel families.

This was not just a strategic failure; it was the rise or fall of a family.

Because of this, they also realized Faith was right.

Instead of pursuing the robbery of Cyrus's treasury—which looked like an incredibly enticing fat sheep—investing in one's own treasury was safer from every perspective, provided they had abandoned the desire to be the sole victor in the game.

Even if one of the three still wanted to become the sole winner by robbing Cyrus's treasury, gambling that it was not a trap, they would have to consider another layer of restriction.

Yes, once again, the gold coin proportion.

Suppose Kain had 500 gold coins in his treasury and Cyrus had roughly the same amount, while the other players only had about 100 gold coins. In that case, robbing Cyrus's treasury would indeed bring enormous benefits. A single robbery could bring in 250 gold coins, raising the successful robber's total to nearly 400 gold coins—close to Kain's amount and, of course, far surpassing the other players.

But if there were three other players who also possessed around 300 to 400 gold coins, the benefit would no longer be that significant. Therefore, instead of wading through the immense risks of being unable to secure the reward, or the possibility that the reward was a fake... why not follow the simplest method that still yielded equivalent results?

The most important thing was to reduce Kain's gold coin proportion to prevent the Egretta Family from obtaining too much.

Anyone with reason who had been warned here would know which choice to make.

"As I said before, this game does not disclose the players' gold coin amounts."

"You can view this as just a normal rule of the game, or you can disregard it entirely because we can basically judge what the winner of the bid intends to do based on the corresponding fluctuations in gold coin amounts. But in essence, this is the best protective veil."

"This game always creates an illusion for us that we know a lot, but from beginning to end, that is only close to the truth, not the truth itself. Therefore, the way to make the most of this screen is to push yourself further ahead."

"Do you have any other opinions?"

…

In his private room, as soon as Kain saw the bidding data and saw that Cyrus, instead of bidding 30 gold coins, had bidded 20 gold coins, he knew everything was settled.

This game completely belonged to Faith; the entire thing had become Faith's chessboard.

In reality, Kain was not the pawn that would be promoted to a Queen.

Cyrus was.

Kain's true function in Faith's layout was not to be the heaviest blow against the Sword Family, but to be a dual-ended signal aimed straight at Cyrus.

What was a dual-ended signal?

Previously, during the Kanzax Academy tournament, they had done this once before. The visit from the two of them, with two identical offers, had caused Tolimus and Pegasus to "see through" their layout.

And it was the same here. In turns 1 and 2, Faith had sent Cyrus the first end of the signal.

In turn 4, Kain had sent Cyrus the second end of the signal.

The key to a dual-ended signal is that if the recipient only takes a single end—whether number one or number two—to examine, they will see nothing unusual. But if they combine both ends into a single piece of information, they will receive something very different.

Here, it was Cyrus "seeing through" Faith's layout based on the information obtained.

This construction, the existence of Kain... was only to make this truth plausible enough in Cyrus's eyes.

So why do this? And how could Kain know what Faith wanted him to do?

The answer was simple.

Faith's strategy, seemingly comprehensive, actually contained a loophole.

It might not necessarily remain hidden from Cyrus forever, especially as the game progressed later on, and especially when Cyrus reflected on Faith's behavior in turns 1 and 2.

Therefore, at some point, after seeing the truth, Cyrus might have made a peace-seeking move sufficient to destroy Faith's strategy—which was to stop pretending to be a sheep. He would have truly become a fat sheep, truly putting money into the treasury to ensure there was actual money when Faith successfully robbed it, while no one else would be strong enough to contest a Faith who had withdrawn all his treasury money for financial flow.

However, the discrepancy in "when Cyrus knew" was a whole other issue.

If it were the middle of the game, Cyrus would accept the truce because doing so would result in the least damage. Sunk costs would make him afraid to cause a disturbance.

But what if Cyrus knew about Faith's strategy before his own strategy was even deployed?

Would he be willing to make such a peace-seeking move?

After all... Cyrus was not yet imprisoned by sunk costs; why would he have to seek peace?

So what could be done in this situation to neutralize Faith's strategy? Or more accurately, to neutralize its impact on Faith himself?

Indeed, the answer was to create a tastier sheep for Faith to eat.

And the two perfect targets were the two players from the Zento alliance who had been pushed into the light.

That was the reason why, upon seeing that Cyrus's bid was equal to those two in the previous turn, Kain knew Cyrus had officially been promoted to a Queen, and this game was within Faith's control. While "ordinarily," Cyrus should have bidded 30 gold coins to officially transform into the fattest sheep.

But he didn't do that, partly to reduce his own weight and partly to find an excuse to lure those two players into becoming his scapegoats.

And the appearance of those two was not accidental; it came directly from one of the cores of the game they had calculated from the beginning—it is easier to pull others down than to push yourself up.

Wasn't the presence of those two players the "restriction" move against other players deployed by the Zento alliance? Naturally, it was always within Faith's calculations.

When that Zento fellow learned the new information, he would come up with a wonderful idea, a money-sharing strategy that didn't need to rely on Cyrus's treasury, with countless accompanying benefits, and he would follow through with it. Simultaneously, he would set a trap so that he would be the one to benefit most, completely unaware that the prey he chose—one of his allies—had taken inspiration from Cyrus's fat sheep strategy. At this point, the true "empty treasury" would appear, the empty treasury used to trap the representative of the Zento Family, which was exactly what Faith wanted, regardless of whether he won or lost the contest. Naturally, it was always within Faith's calculations.

What if Cyrus knew this? It didn't matter, because Faith's intention—and later Cyrus's as well—was simply to create a treasury that appeared "full" on the outside for him to rob, provided there was no money inside. Since it didn't affect Cyrus at all, why would he care? He could even stand aside and gloat. Naturally, it was always within Faith's calculations.

Of the two alliances, the Zento alliance did not know of the existence of the Faith alliance, while the Faith alliance knew of the Zento alliance. For both sides, as long as there were no cross-attacks—such as a member of the Zento alliance being attacked by a member of the Faith alliance—then both sides would assume "the other side" was not a faction but that they were "attacking each other." But in reality, those instances of "attacking each other" were actually putting money into the treasury, hitting two birds with one stone, a black veil no one wanted to tear down.

And so, both alliances perfectly hid each other, maintaining this situation until the end. Naturally, it was always within Faith's calculations.

The players would all focus on filling their own treasuries instead of pulling others back; even Cyrus, after escaping Faith's "shackles," would do the same instead of following the original fat sheep strategy. Suppose he still didn't know Faith's true goal; he would still put real money into the treasury to guard against the possibility that Faith might still choose him, and if he wasn't chosen, he would rake in a fortune. And if Cyrus already knew Faith's true purpose, he would be even more certain about putting all his money into the treasury, as that would maximize benefits while the risk of being robbed had hit rock bottom. Naturally, it was always within Faith's calculations.

Faith didn't just want one or two finishing blows; he wanted nine finishing blows! The Sword Family only being shared 1% of the resources? This was already too much.

This was Faith's true chessboard, his stage, where all the pieces and puppets were dancing under Faith's graceful fingers. Even Kain, who seemingly saw through everything, was still like a puppet that had its eyes opened, only watching without doing anything to resist the puppeteer.

Because Faith had placed the shackles of Myra upon him long before the game even began.

In front of Kain—or rather, in his imagination—a somewhat faint golden silhouette appeared, facing him with a chessboard between them. The golden silhouette rested its chin on one hand, while the other hand wove threads of causality toward the unknown, smiling at him.

"Checkmate."

"Alright, you win this time, Faith."

"I hope we can have a rematch..."