When people think of gambling cities, most immediately picture Las Vegas in the New World.
Nine of the world's ten largest casinos are located in Las Vegas.
Coincidentally, Las Vegas sits in the southeastern corner of Nevada, very close to Area-14.
Just 130 kilometers southeast of Area 51—even closer than the containment zones of Area-14—Las Vegas was easily reachable. Luoshu and Peter boarded a Black Hawk helicopter and arrived in under half an hour.
As the world's largest gambling hub, Las Vegas naturally had more dice than anywhere else on Earth.
So when Peter mentioned that Stubborn Six had breached containment and appeared in Las Vegas, Luoshu wasn't surprised at all.
The city's nine major casinos—along with countless smaller ones—hosted hundreds of thousands of gamblers daily, with dice rolling nonstop, 24/7.
In this environment, Las Vegas was a natural breeding ground for Stubborn Six containment breaches.
All it took was a single die rolling six sixes in a row—specifically on its 216th six—for Stubborn Six to manifest there.
So it was only a matter of time before the anomaly showed up in Las Vegas.
And it would keep happening unless gambling was banned outright.
Originally contained at Site-19 due to Luoshu's influence, Stubborn Six and its containment specialist had now both ended up in Nevada, making it Hammer Down's problem.
Given its difficulty to contain, the O5 Council was considering reclassifying it as Keter—meaning it could no longer stay at Site-19.
It would likely be contained at Area-14 instead.
But first, they had to recapture it.
With Luoshu around, that wasn't the issue.
The real problem was that Stubborn Six had gone too far this time.
Las Vegas was paradise for the anomaly.
When it breached containment and appeared on a gambling table, disaster struck the city.
After the first wave of forced dice rolls, panicked gamblers—unaware of the danger—carried Stubborn Six's copies beyond the 6.66-meter radius of its main body.
This triggered wave after wave of forced rolls, spreading uncontrollably.
Within moments, all nine major casinos were overrun.
Thousands of gamblers exploded into gore.
It was the deadliest day in the New World since the pandemic—comparable only to a certain September day two decades prior.
The incident became known as The Las Vegas Massacre.
Under the Foundation's intervention, CNN—the New World's largest news network—blamed it on terrorists. Once again, the public was kept in the dark.
In truth, the tragedy in New York twenty years ago had also been caused by a Keter-class anomaly, later pinned on terrorists.
By the time Luoshu and Hammer Down arrived, Las Vegas was under lockdown.
The casinos were empty.
But the problem wasn't solved.
With forced dice rolls occurring across all nine casinos, Stubborn Six's copies and the remains of exploded gamblers were everywhere.
The main die was nowhere to be found.
This was why Luoshu had to be called in.
Other containment specialists—even if they knew the procedures—would be helpless in this situation.
How could they identify the main die among tens of thousands of dice spread across nine casinos?
How many lives would it cost?
To the Foundation, Stubborn Six was now as dangerous as SCP-165 (Insatiable Sands) or SCP-940 (Puppet Spiders).
So whether the Area-14 security director—or the O5 Councillor above him—trusted Luoshu or not, they had to send him in.
Others feared Stubborn Six.
Luoshu didn't.
The first effect of his Anomaly Namer milestone:
"You unconditionally become the anomaly's natural counter. In your presence, it cannot activate."
The first effect of his Anomaly Discoverer milestone:
"You can sense anomalies within a five-meter radius."
With these two abilities, recapturing Stubborn Six was just a matter of time.
But he couldn't make it look too easy.
As a prime suspect under Area-14's scrutiny, displaying unnatural abilities would only bring trouble.
He had to stay low-key.
So Luoshu abandoned the idea of using his milestones to cheat and opted for a more tedious approach.
"Peter, gather all surveillance footage from the casinos. Sort it chronologically. I need to see the order of the forced dice rolls to locate the main body."
After analysis, Luoshu narrowed it down to the MGM Grand.
If Las Vegas was the world's top gambling city, the MGM Grand was its crown jewel.
Its casino floor was as large as four football fields.
Pinpointing Stubborn Six here was still a massive task.
But for a genius like Luoshu, it was just a math problem.
(Of course, he could still secretly verify with his Anomaly Discoverer ability.)
Other specialists could calculate it too—but without a way to confirm, mistakes would cost lives.
Stubborn Six had triggered over a dozen waves of forced rolls in the MGM Grand, creating overlapping zones—a complex topological puzzle.
Even Luoshu needed three rounds of calculations to find the main die.
For others, without knowing the first two attempts were wrong, they'd have to risk lives to test—triggering more forced rolls.
After hours of work, Luoshu finally located the main die on one of the tables.
But before containing it, all copies had to be destroyed—another monumental task.
Luoshu handled the core zone personally while Hammer Down cleared the outer areas.
By the time all tens of thousands of copies were destroyed, over ten hours had passed.
Exhausted, Peter made a suggestion:
"Luoshu, is there any way to improve containment? We can't keep doing this every time it breaches. It's too much."
Luoshu's eyes flickered.
"There might be a way..."