Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2915: Underground Battle

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Sky Blossom City, Underground

”Aqualas, seriously?” Petra rolled her eyes while being violently dragged through underground water currents by the Ocean Supreme.

The two shot through subterranean rivers at terrifying speeds before finally emerging inside a gigantic underground lake spanning several miles beneath Sky Blossom City. Massive stalactites hung from the cavern ceiling while ancient rock formations surrounded the dark waters like the ribs of some buried titan.

The entire underground lake trembled from their mere presence.

”We tied above ground, and now you want to fight me underground?” Petra scoffed while standing atop the water’s surface as though it were solid ground. ”Aren’t you basically asking for a beating?”

”Are you really sure about that?” Aqualas replied with a dangerous smile.

The waters of the underground lake immediately began swirling around her body like a living ocean responding to its ruler’s emotions.

”We’re directly beneath the city right now,” she reminded Petra calmly. ”What do you think happens if you recklessly pull out a few support layers beneath it? Or if I turn the hardened ground supporting the city into mud and clay?”

The smile on her face widened further, as she remarked, ”Honey, you were never actually tying with me. I’ve killed you so many times over the millennia that I stopped bothering to count.”

Petra’s expression darkened slightly. She immediately understood what Aqualas was doing.

This wasn’t a concern for the city out of kindness. Aqualas was intentionally forcing Petra to hold back.

If they fought seriously beneath Sky Blossom City, Petra would be forced to constantly stabilize the underground structure supporting the city while simultaneously repairing any damage caused by Aqualas’s attacks.

Meanwhile, Aqualas could fight almost without restraint in an environment overflowing with underground water. In other words, Petra would be splitting her focus the entire battle while Aqualas attacked freely.

And the worst part was that Petra couldn’t ignore the city above them. Too many of Bloodette’s friends, people important to her, lived there. If the underground foundations collapsed, the entire city could sink into the ground.

Aqualas knew that perfectly well, which was exactly why she had dragged Petra down here in the first place. So what if Petra could stop her from bringing the ocean above ground? Then Aqualas would simply bring the ocean beneath it instead.

”You killed me twice. Since when did that become ’countless times’?” Petra corrected dryly before smirking confidently.

”Aqua, you seem to forget something,” she said while spreading her arms slightly. ”Ground is my domain. Which means...”

A deep rumble suddenly echoed throughout the underground world.

”The entire Card World is my domain.”

The moment Petra declared that, the cavern violently shook.

The massive layers of earth above the underground lake and the bedrock beneath it suddenly moved together like the jaws of some colossal beast snapping shut. Entire sections of the underground lake collapsed inward as mountains of stone compressed the surrounding water from every direction.

The water flooding the cavern was instantly forced into the microscopic pores and cracks hidden within the soil and rock itself. Even then, Aqualas’s form didn’t disappear. Her body simply dissolved further, spreading through the countless tiny pores hidden within the hardened earth.

To ordinary beings, such a prison would have been absolute. To the Ocean Supreme, it was merely another environment to flow through. Both Petra and Aqualas moved through the sealed earth with unnatural ease, though Petra clearly possessed the greater advantage inside her own domain.

Still, the ground itself could never completely stop water. Even if no pores existed, water would eventually create them through pressure, erosion, and time. That was part of the natural order governing the world itself.

”Still, that’s two more times than you ever managed to kill me,” Aqualas replied smugly.

The moment her voice echoed through the compressed underground layers, the countless traces of water trapped within the pores of the mud and stone suddenly began changing state.

Under normal circumstances, there wasn’t enough space or heat for such a transformation to happen naturally. But with Aqualas directly controlling both the water and supplying soul energy to them, the situation became entirely different.

She used soul energy to rapidly compress and excite the microscopic pockets of trapped water until they converted into superheated steam under extreme pressure. And she didn’t stop at one or two pockets. Millions of tiny steam pockets formed simultaneously throughout the underground structure beneath the city.

Petra’s expression immediately changed. She understood the danger instantly.

If all that compressed steam detonated at once inside the underground layers supporting the city, the resulting chain reaction would behave like countless explosions erupting beneath Sky Blossom City’s foundations. Entire support structures would fracture from within, causing massive cave-ins, sinkholes, and underground collapses across multiple districts or even the entire city.

Then Aqualas smiled after noticing Petra’s intentions.

Petra was planning to rapidly excavate a massive underground cavern beneath the city to redirect and contain the pressure from the steam explosions before they could damage the foundations above.

It was a smart solution. But Aqualas never intended to give her enough time to execute it properly. Before Petra could fully reshape the underground layers...

BOOM!

The first steam pocket detonated. Then came the second. And the third. And then thousands more.

The underground world erupted into chaos as countless miniature explosions rippled through the compressed earth like invisible landmines buried beneath the city. Shockwaves tore through layers of rock while fractures spread rapidly through the underground structure.

Petra instantly abandoned any thought of directly attacking Aqualas. Instead, she redirected most of her power toward defense and stabilization. Entire layers of earth shifted under her control to absorb the explosions while damaged support structures rapidly reformed themselves before the city above could collapse inward.

Massive stone pillars rose from the underground depths to reinforce weakened sections while collapsing tunnels were forcibly compressed shut.

Meanwhile, Aqualas continued moving freely through the moisture hidden inside the earth, deliberately targeting the city’s underground structural weak points whenever Petra focused elsewhere.

The battle had effectively become one-sided. Petra wasn’t just fighting Aqualas anymore. She was simultaneously fighting to keep an entire city alive above their heads.