Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2992: Sovereign Rights To The Dark Realm

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Dark Realm, Gelid Alps, Snow Elven Region, Frosell District, Frosnow City

Since the start of the mass immigration, I had kept a close eye on all of the Frosell District’s neighbors. The surrounding geopolitical landscape was highly volatile, and any sudden counter-offensive could disrupt the entire exodus. Naturally, my primary focus was on the Snow Capital, the beating heart of the territory where the Snow Elven Royalty resided.

So, when the spatial fabric began to violently warp, I was surprised to sense a wave of turbulent, chaotic energy erupting directly within the Capital. It appeared a massive, high-tier battle had broken out in the very center of the Snow Elves’ power.

Intrigued by this sudden internal collapse, I immediately attempted to have the Devil Merchant Code teleport one of my clones directly into the Snow Capital to act as my eyes and ears.

However, I couldn’t.

The spatial coordinates locked up instantly, refusing the command. I quickly learned that sneaking into the heart of their empire via the Code was not possible; the Snow Elven royalty and nobility had paid an astronomically high price to the Devil Merchant Code to explicitly block its invasive functions. They had purchased absolute privacy for the Snow Capital, alongside a few other high-income and strategic districts and cities under their banner. It was a mandatory survival expense. Otherwise, their regional rivals or Ruler-class enemies would just use the Code to teleport directly into the royal palace and casually assassinate the Snow Elven Empyrean in his sleep.

What truly astonished me, though, was the sheer financial scale of this protection. Even a powerful, established Semi-Ruler class force like the Snow Elves couldn’t afford to pay to buy the privacy of their entire territory from the Devil Merchant Code’s invasive functions.

The cost was simply too steep, steeper than buying right to the newly discovered realm.

At least buying the sovereign rights to a newly discovered realm was a straightforward, one-time payment. This privacy shield, however, was like a predatory, high-end subscription model requiring a continuous, unimaginable drainage of high-grade soul stones, rule stones, and various rare, exotic tributes just to keep the Devil Merchant Code’s block active.

Well, it was completely understandable considering that no single party could ever fully own the sovereign rights to the Dark Realm itself. As the literal home realm of the Devil Merchant Code and the permanent residence of more than a third of the entire devil merchant population in the myriad realms, making the Dark Realm an ultimate ultra-luxury land and justifying the Devil Merchant Code’s predatory fees.

From a certain perspective, these predatory fees made the Devil Merchant Code seem like an omnipresent landlord, levying exorbitant taxes on both space and information as though it possessed absolute sovereignty over the entire Dark Realm.

That is, until you look closer and realize that the true Ruler-class forces are completely exempted from such predatory fees, or they simply pay a massive, symbolic one-time fee to secure their entire territories permanently. After all, not all ruler forces were equal.

There was a staggering, unbridgeable churn between a Semi-Ruler class force like the Snow Elves—who still have to scramble and pay a continuous subscription just to protect their palace—and a true, apex Ruler-class force the Infinity Library that commands enough absolute authority to dictate terms directly to the Code itself.

Because of that exorbitant, tiered upkeep, the Snow Elven nobility could only afford to shield their absolute crown jewels. They were forced to leave the rest of their vast, freezing borders fundamentally vulnerable to the Devil Merchant Code’s invasive functions.

I, for one, was incredibly thankful for that limitation. It was the exact security flaw that allowed me to bypass their entire outer network and arrive at Frosnow’s city hall at my absolute whim. If they had extended that subscription to the borderlands, I would have had to plan a long, strenuous, and highly covert journey across hundreds of leagues of hostile terrain just to slip into the Frosell district and enter Frosnow City.

The only reason the Elven high command hadn’t spent the fortune required to add the Frosell district to their list of protected sites—despite it sitting right in their backyard—was their own supreme arrogance. They had already spent centuries manipulating the population of snow spirits inside the district to monitor the Froslings. With their network of spies firmly established, they felt it was redundant to pay extra to keep out invaders.

Besides, from a conventional military standpoint, they figured anyone trying to launch an attack on the Snow Capital through the Frosell district would have to be completely suicidal.

The terrain was already naturally punishing, frozen solid, and entirely surrounded by high-tier districts that were constantly on high alert for any signs of a Frosling rebellion. Their strategic rivals would have to be incredibly stupid to plan an invasion through a heavily policed, resource-stripped slave colony.

They thought they had covered every single base. They prepared for traditional armies, political rivals, and rogue factions marching across the ice. But their calculations never accounted for a master who didn’t want to conquer their borders—someone who just wanted to completely hollow out their empire from the inside, leaving them with an empty district.

Since I couldn’t use the Devil Merchant Code to slip my clone into the Snow Capital because of its high-end subscription block, I bypassed their restrictions entirely using raw, overwhelming force.

I summoned a Pseudo-Primordial Calamity Soul Gem and used my brute strength to hurl it like a meteor directly along the trajectory of the Snow Capital. The capital’s high-tier defensive arrays would most likely intercept and stop the projectile, but I didn’t need it to level the fortress. As long as it reached the city gates, my clone could slip right through the blind spot during the confusion.

With that taken care of, I turned my attention back to the primary threat.

A tremendous, suffocating force was bee-lining directly from the Snow Capital toward Frosnow City, moving with enough sheer velocity to visibly tear the fabric of the Dark Realm’s space in its trail. One had to understand that as a high-tier realm capable of producing Ruler-class existences left and right, the spatial fabric of the Dark Realm was remarkably stable. It couldn’t be broken or fractured by simple brute strength like the fragile space in the Card World or the Lil’ Red Storm realm. The fact that this incoming entity was physically ripping the atmosphere by the sheer speed of its flight meant they were a lot stronger than .

Realizing the danger, I immediately handed full command of Frosnow City’s final evacuation logistics to Sansa and rushed forward to intercept him before he could cross the threshold into the Frosell District.

I knew exactly what the incoming Elven King was planning. His objective wasn’t to hunt down individual Froslings; it was to disrupt the entire mass immigration by systematically destroying the local space within the Frosell District. If he shattered the spatial fabric of the region, the planar pathways would collapse, instantly rendering our teleportation hubs useless without him having to spend time finding and destroying them individually.

Wearing my master crafter mask back on, I ignited the thousand-plus curses raging within me and hurled myself at him with everything I had, as though my very life depended on it.