Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2754: Imperial Guard Captain’s Lin, Jiangya, Xiao Cheng, & Mo Ming

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Zhongguo (China), Liaodong Province, Shuntian Prefecture, Shenyang City

”Thanks!” Coryn said, almost cheerfully, thanking Captain Lin for repeatedly giving her a way out of the dark belly of her scary-ass martial spirit.

With Reven handling the calculations, Coryn used Conjoin to launch the four throwing knives back toward Captain Lin at incredible speed. At the same moment, the twins propelled themselves forward, using the repulsive force produced by Conjoin to shoot ahead as fast as they could.

They were right. The moment the light from the conjoined particles appeared, Ying Jing reacted. As it swallowed the radiance, the darkness expanded, subtly shifting everything within it and the shade-scape itself. Captain Lin avoided the incoming knives without even trying, as her position was displaced by the expanding darkness.

However, while her attention was drawn to the knives, it was too late for her to notice that Corey the Second had already closed the distance between them.

Once Captain Lin was within the last reach of their fading mental strength, the twins acted. They used conjoin directly on her body.

But Captain Lin’s mental field was far stronger than they expected. Because of that resistance, the twins were only able to affect roughly a tiny part of her body cells. It was not enough to kill her, but it was more than enough to collapse her body and send her into a deep coma for who knew how long, as some of it had been her brain cells. No, she was brain dead, just in coma until lost cells were replaced by the body. It was better than certain death.

Once Captain Lin collapsed, Ying Jing dissipated like a snuffed candle, and the suffocating darkness vanished. The twins found themselves standing once again in the corridor before the entrance to the Imperial Palace’s inner court.

For a brief moment, the hallway fell into stunned silence.

The other Guard Captains stared in shock, their gazes shifting back and forth between the twins and Captain Lin, who now lay unconscious on the stone floor beside them. Even the faint sound of their breath and heart beating in their chest seemed loud in the stillness.

In a heartbeat, before the Imperial Guard captains could react, Coryn moved. Using the repulsive force of her Conjoin, she launched the remaining two throwing knives in her hand at the nearest captain at incredible speed. The knives pierced through his mental field the moment he raised it, the impact cracking it apart like thin glass.

The captain immediately tried to retreat, scrambling backward to escape the reach of Coryn’s mental field. But he was a step too slow. The moment the mental field’s boundary crossed his body, his similar cell began to conjoin. In an instant, his body disintegrated into fine dust that scattered across the corridor.

”Jiangya!” the other middle-aged captain shouted in grief. The elderly captain, however, did not let the shock linger. His voice cut through the corridor like a command blade. ”Snap out of it, Xiao Cheng. Don’t let her break your mental field.”

However, instead of heeding his colleague’s words, Imperial Guard Captain Cheng activated his martial spirit and lightning burst across body. In the next instant, he vanished from where he stood. He rushed at the twins with a speed so great that even their mental field failed to keep up.

Before they could realize, his attack struck. Their mental field shattered on impact, breaking apart like glass into countless fragments. In that same instant, a hand punched through their back and burst out of their chest, warm crimson blood spilling across the corridor floor.

Coryn stared in shock at the hand protruding from her chest. She had never seen it coming. In truth, she had no idea what had just happened. The entire exchange had unfolded too fast for her mind to follow. By the time the pain finally reached her senses, everything was already over.

Captain Cheng pulled his hand out of their back and kicked the twins’ falling body aside, sending it crashing against the wall before it hit the floor. He kicked it again and again, five times in raw disgust that the comrade who had fought beside him for years had fallen to this nobody.

He still could not believe it. Breathing heavily, Captain Cheng finally turned away and kneeled beside the tiny pile of ash that had once been Jiangya. With trembling fingers, he gathered a handful of it and carefully stored it in his satchel, uttering with red eyes, ”I will end her entire bloodline and friends to accompany you in death, my dear friend.”

”Captain Cheng, I know you are grieving the loss of a friend,” the older Imperial Guard captain said coldly. ”But do not forget that the Emperor’s blood flows in her veins.”

His gaze hardened as he warned in a stern voice, leaving no room for argument, ”This time, I will overlook it. But make sure there is no next time. Otherwise, I will personally present your head to His Highness and beg forgiveness on your behalf, so that your family and friends may be spared.”

Even in grief, disrespect toward the Emperor’s bloodline was not something the Imperial Guard could excuse. Realizing his lapse, Captain Cheng bowed his head slightly, saying, ”My apologies, Captain Ma Ming. When I spoke of her bloodline, I meant the one responsible for that devilish red hair and those clear blue eyes. After all, His Highness has never acknowledged her existence.”

”Captain Cheng, no disrespect to the Empress,” Captain Ma Ming said carefully, lowering his voice. ”But the whole of Zhong Guo knows the Thirteenth Concubine was the Emperor’s favorite. He mourned for three days and two nights after her death. There is no guarantee he will never change his mind about the Seventeenth Princess.”

He spoke as respectfully as he could. After all, even repeating court gossip about the imperial family could be considered a crime.

”It doesn’t matter now. She is dead,” Captain Cheng sneered, casting a glance at Coryn the Second’s body lying in a pool of her blood on the cold corridor floor.