Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2787: The Coward

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Gideon Grim’s Camp

Once I had control of the Desolate Dimension array, I fed my Limitless Celestial Blood Fate Rule domain into the pseudo-calamity soul gem, now the core of the formation. The change was immediate. The veil over Gideon’s camp flushed crimson, as if the array itself had begun to bleed. Space inside stretched itself endlessly until the entire camp shrank to a distant point.

From the inside, it would feel vast, endless, and directionless. From the outside, it looked like a small island, stranded in a boundless crimson ocean.

Almost immediately, I used my double domain to put his brainwashed army of card apprentices to deep sleep. That way, whatever hypnotic triggers he had planted in them wouldn’t activate.

With the array under my control, he couldn’t use the Devil Merchant Code to escape my clutches. And with his card apprentices asleep, he lost his brainwashed army before he even realized he was under attack. All because he trusted a mass-produced array from the Dark Realm to keep him safe in the card world.

From his vantage point, Gideon Grim wasn’t wrong to trust the array to keep him safe. In the card world, Desolate Dimension array formation was years ahead of anything used or being developed by card apprentices. Unfortunately, even after trying not to, he still underestimated his enemy. Me.

Also, Gideon’s brainwashed army of card apprentices didn’t make good guards. At best, he could use them as suicide bombers. His control, while absolute, only allowed him to implant a single, simple instruction in each victim. That alone made it strange how he had gathered so many here without accidentally triggering them. I wonder if that secret was why he decided to set up his camp so far from his allies’ encampment.

”Alright, let’s go,” I said, stepping aside like a gentleman and gesturing for my female employee to enter first. But, she refused the gesture skeptically.

”You go first,” Corey said, shaking her head. ”I’ve got your back, boss,” she added, pumping her fist in the air.

”Really?” I said, shaking my head at Corey’s distrust. I stepped into the array formation, and she followed about ten seconds later, keeping her distance.

’She has changed, alright,’ I mentally noted, watching Corey’s demeanor.

It was subtle, but clear. She suddenly developed this distrust and was critical about the tiniest detail. The distrust wasn’t just aimed at me, it extended to everyone. For example, one of her ego flames, Park. Earlier, while we were discussing the dark factions with the Field Marshal, Corey had been openly critical about Park for the choices she made in her past life.

Still, I appreciated how the Field Marshal handled it. Despite her experience and understanding, she didn’t rush to her own conclusions about the dark factions. Instead, she listened to everything we had to say before forming an opinion.

I guess her military experience had taught her that even if things look the same on the surface, local customs and perceptions can be entirely different. Dark factions sounded like selfish and greedy MNCs, but a closer look told a different story.

MNCs were driven by profit, willing to do or sacrifice anything and anyone for their ambitions. For the dark factions, though, it wasn’t just selfish and greedy. It was their way of life. A norm they had grown up with and accepted. Anything other than that didn’t make sense to them, it appeared odd and weird to them.

This difference mattered. MNCs were willing to sacrifice others for their ambitions, but rarely themselves. That made them easy to rattle. No matter how smart or prepared they seemed, when it was their life on the like it would make them fold. The dark factions were different. They didn’t scare easily. Hit them once, and they came back harder, better prepared, swelling up like a pimple you failed to kill the first time.

I soon teleported us straight into Gideon’s camp, now lost in that limitlessly stretched space. From a distance, it was just a point. Up close, it felt like a world that didn’t know where its edges were. When we arrived, we saw Gideon was already trying to escape.

Over and over, he activated his Devil Codex, each attempt impatiently, more desperate than the last. And every single time, it failed. Not because the Devil Merchant couldn’t pull him out of the Limitless Celestial Blood Fate–infused Desolate Dimension array. But because he couldn’t even reach the Devil Merchant from inside my domain. Every signal he sent... never left.

I was strong, but not strong enough to claim I could go head-to-head with the Devil Merchant Code itself. What I could do, however, was simpler and far more effective.

With my Limitless Celestial Blood Fate–infused Desolate Dimension array, I could cut off any Demon or Devil Codex from the Devil Merchant Code. Inside my double celestial rule domain, signals didn’t travel unless I allowed them to.

So it wasn’t that the Devil Merchant code wasn’t able to teleport Gideon Grim out my Limitless Celestial Blood Fate–infused Desolate Dimension array. It was that it never even received his request. And if the signal never reaches the other end... how could it answer? It was close to transcendence, but not omniscient. It couldn’t know what its countless devil and demon merchants wanted before they actually asked for it.

”Remember me, asshole?” Corey shouted at Gideon, whose desperate attempts to use the Devil Merchant Code to escape the card world only grew faster and more frantic.

He didn’t even bother to look at us. His eyes were locked on the Devil Codex in his hands, fingers twitching as he tried to contact Devil Merchant Code again and again, like a broken clock stuck on the same second.

Each attempt came faster than the last. Whatever composure Gideon Grim was known for had already cracked, and what stood in its place was raw panic. I guess this was his real face. Cornered, cut off, and with no way out, there was nothing left for him to hide behind. No schemes, no allies, no grand plans. Just a man hammering on a door that would never open.

He was a fucking coward.