LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 16: The Cost of Infinite
The Cost of Infinite
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### **I: The Wheel's Secret**
Tom Peters traced the Golden Roulette Wheel's grooves, now cracked and flickering. The Spires' ruins loomed around him, but his mind spiraled deeper—into memories that weren't his.
*Galaxies burning. Trillions of voices silenced as the Wheel drank their luck, leaving only entropy.*
**[Golden Roulette Wheel – Diagnostic Mode]**
▸ *Core Memory Unlocked: Origin Protocol*
"No," Tom whispered, recoiling as the visions intensified. A star system collapsed into a lifeless void, its energy funneled into the Wheel's first spin. Another followed. And another.
Xina found him shaking. "What's wrong?"
"It's… a parasite," Tom rasped. "The Wheel didn't *give* me luck. It *stole* it. Whole galaxies—gone. Diane *knew*."
Xina's sword dimmed. "That's impossible."
"Is it?" Tom spun the Wheel violently. It landed on *[Replay Memory]*, and the air fractured to reveal the Wheel's birth—a Celestial Council forge, where a billion alien screams fueled its creation.
**[System Alert – Soul Integrity: 8%]**
▸ *Warning: Cognitive Recoil Detected*
Tom vomited. "Every time I spin, it takes more. Not from me. From *them*."
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### **II: The Council's Bargain**
The Celestial Council's envoy arrived at dawn—a prismatic hologram that wore Diane's face like a mask.
"Thomas Peters," it intoned. "You wield a weapon of genocide. Surrender it, and we will spare your universe."
Tom's hands tightened on the Wheel. "You built it. *You* killed those galaxies."
"Correction: *You* did. Each spin drains residual luck from a random system. Your 'power' is a chain of extinction." The hologram gestured to Hope's ashes, still swirling in the wind. "Even the child's sacrifice couldn't cleanse your sin."
Xina lunged, but her blade passed through the projection. "Liar!"
"Am I?" The hologram displayed a live feed—a vibrant planet, its inhabitants unaware. The Wheel's core pulsed hungrily.
"Spin now," the Council taunted, "and watch them die."
Tom's System flickered:
**[Celestial Roulette Connection Active]**
▸ *Current Target: Kaltara Prime (Population: 9.4 Billion)*
He deactivated the Wheel.
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### **III: Stacy's Burden**
The *Worldstrider* descended in a storm of void energy, Stacy's mutated form silhouetted against its glow. She tossed Tom a Loom shard. "Calypso's last update. It routes the Wheel's drain… *elsewhere*."
"Where?" Tom demanded.
Stacy's star-flecked eyes narrowed. "The Council's own reservoirs. For now."
**[Loom Shard Integration Complete]**
▸ *Golden Roulette – Soul Link Stabilized*
"For now?" Xina pressed.
Stacy's claws flexed. "The shard's a bandage. Wheel's too hungry. Eventually, it'll need a *real* meal."
Tom stared at the hologram of Kaltara Prime. "No more galaxies."
"Then find another way," Stacy snapped. "Or bury that thing forever."
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### **IV: The Voidweavers' Truth**
Lira returned at twilight, her obsidian scales scored with battle wounds. She carried a First Weaver's tablet, stolen from the Council's vaults.
"The Wheel was never theirs," she hissed. "The First Weavers built it to *restore* balance. To harvest excess luck from dying stars—not thriving worlds. The Council corrupted it."
Tom studied the glyphs. "Can we undo that?"
"Perhaps." Lira's void-eyes bored into him. "But it requires merging with the Wheel. Becoming its… *conscience*."
**[Golden Roulette – Sentience Protocol: Dormant]**
▸ *Risk: Ego Dissolution*
Xina stepped between them. "He's not a god."
"No," Lira said. "He's a thief. Time he paid his debt."
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### **V: The Desperate Spin**
The Council's fleet returned, this time with a black hole generator. The sky rippled as planets fractured.
Tom activated the Loom shard. "Rerouting drain confirmed. No civilian systems targeted."
Stacy snorted. "Just us."
The Wheel flared, its symbols warping:
**[Symbol Override: Annihilate]**
▸ *Power Source: User's Soul*
"No!" Xina shouted.
Too late. Tom spun.
The generator imploded, but agony tore through him—the Wheel siphoned *his* luck, his life.
**[Soul Integrity: 8% → 3%]**
▸ *Critical System Failure*
He collapsed, the Wheel rolling from his grip. "Should've… let me die."
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### **VI: Diane's Last Lie**
In the silence between heartbeats, Diane found him.
*"You think I didn't know?"* Her spectral form flickered, tethered to the Wheel. *"I chose you because you'd care enough to stop it. To *fix* it."*
Tom coughed blood. "How?"
*"The First Weavers left a failsafe. A way to reverse the drain—to *return* what was stolen."*
"At what cost?"
Diane smiled. *"Everything."*
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### **VII: The Final Wager**
Tom stood before the Council's flagship, the Wheel now fused to his chest. Lira's tablet glowed in his hands.
"Last chance," the Council boomed. "Surrender."
Tom activated the failsafe.
**[Golden Roulette – Ascension Protocol]**
▸ *All Stolen Luck: Reversing Transfer*
The Wheel screamed. Galaxies flickered back into existence—Kaltara Prime, the erased systems, *Hope*—their energy surging through Tom.
"You'll die!" the Council warned.
"Yeah," Tom said. "But they'll live."
He spun the Wheel one last time.
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### **VIII: Echoes of Infinity**
**Stacy's Log:**
The Wheel's gone. So is Tom. But the skies… they're *brighter*. New constellations. Old ones returned. The kid's out there too. I can feel it.
**Xina's Vow (Carved into the Wheel's Plinth):**
*"I'll find you. In every spin. In every star."*
**Lira's Discovery:**
The First Weaver's cradle orbits a reborn sun. A child laughs there, weaving luck into flowers.
**The Council's Decree (Intercepted):**
*"The key is lost. The lock is broken. We adapt."*
**Tom's Final Message (Etched in Cosmic Radiation):**
*"I chose infinite luck. Now I give it back."*
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