Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3007: Mass Migration Complete

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

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

“You are in no place to make demands,” the clone sneered, his voice dropping an octave as a cold, superior smirk returned to his pale face.

The moment those words left his mouth, the sky violently warped. The oppressive aura of the Devil Merchant Code flared across the horizon and I sensed five heavy, unmistakable Ruler-class soul signatures crashing into the Frosnow city’s airspace.

I raised my eyebrows beneath my mask in genuine surprise. Since when did the Snow Elves have so many Ruler-class beings hidden up their sleeves? The empire’s known roster definitely didn’t boast numbers like this.

But as the spatial distortions cleared and their physical figures stepped into the freezing sky, the truth became instantly obvious—even before Sansa’s panicked update echoed through the Hive Spirit.

Apparently, the Crown Prince had emptied a massive portion of the royal treasury to contract an inter-realm mercenary team of five Ruler-class powerhouses specifically to capture me. Not only that, looking towards the horizon, a small army of Thalorien’s own specialized Ruler-class clones, each gestated from rare, hazardous types of snow across the realm, were deployed from the Heathen Stone Prison to the Frosnow City to back the mercenaries up.

Considering the Crown Prince had already spent a fortune hiring a Ruler-class mercenary team, he couldn’t afford to use the Devil Merchant Code to teleport his army of clones to Frosnow City and reinforce them immediately.

Sansa’s analysis flashed a visual grid into my mind. Also, she warned me that if the movement of his primary body weren’t currently limited to the heathen stone prison as the consequence of his actions in the Winter Valley, he would have come to lead them himself. But given the brutal track record of this mercenary team, they are absolutely not to be underestimated either.

The fact that the Crown Prince was finally willing to mobilize his specialized clone army meant he was completely dead-set on capturing me at any cost. Even though they were artificial proxies, they still wielded genuine Ruler-class combat capabilities and unique rule authority. If they managed to organize a high-tier, synchronized Ruler-class battle formation and to lock arms with the mercenaries things were going to get incredibly difficult, fast.

A flash of pragmatism ran through my thoughts. Yes, I too possessed a massive army of perfect clones. But unlike Thalorien, I couldn’t just drop-ship hundreds of them onto the field to act as independent soldiers right now.

Because my overall realm was still lacking, my clones had to remain functionally integrated to grant me my current, overwhelming peak strength. My power was centralized. Meanwhile, the Crown Prince had the luxury of a fully matured ruler class realm backing him, giving him both the raw fuel and the overwhelming numbers to wage a war of attrition.

The five mercenaries fanned out into a hunting crescent, their terrifying auras clashed with mine aggressively. Behind them, the sky turned a dozen chaotic shades of elemental ice as the specialized clone army began to march through the clouds and neared the city.

“Just him?” asked a towering, thorny-skinned devil whose hide resembled the rough, overlapping armor of a jackfruit. He rolled his massive shoulders, looking at me with a mixture of skepticism and dark amusement.

The payment they had agreed upon with the Snow Elven Crown Prince was astronomical—bordering on absurd for a single target. The devil and his team were genuinely starting to wonder if the Snow Elven Crown Prince was playing a joke on them or were they the joke.

They knew all about Thalorien’s vast intelligence network and ruthless reputation, which only made them reconsider the situation with extra caution. However, this wasn’t the first time they had executed a high-profile contract for the Crown Prince, so they didn’t let a small hint of doubt cause them to walk away from a big payday.

“He is a Ruler-class curse master—do not underestimate him,” the Winter Valley clone warned sharply, his voice carrying an icy edge as he saw the mercenaries’ casual posture. “He has already executed several of my clones and captured a Snow Elven Ruler-class elder along with his elite vanguard before they could even realize what transpired.”

Hearing that they were facing a curse master and that a decorated ruler-class elder had been effortlessly made to vanish, the mercenaries collectively stiffened. The casual amusement vanished from their eyes, replaced by the cold, calculating focus of professional killers.

The jackfruit-skinned devil gave a slow, grim nod, accepting the gravity of the threat.

The red-skinned mercenary’s question hung in the freezing air. The mercenary group had completely misunderstood the situation—they assumed the massive spatial hum vibrating through the Frosell District was the Crown Prince’s own military relocating his precious slave population to keep them from becoming collateral damage in the upcoming clash.

Thalorien’s clone couldn’t even find his tongue. His face twisted into a grotesque, paralyzed mask of sheer humiliation and rage, utterly unable to respond to his own hired guns without revealing that he, the entire Snow Elven race, had suffered a loss of that magnitude.

Since the Prince was too choked by his own psychological collapse to speak, I decided to answer for him.

“Don’t worry,” I called out, my voice carrying a smooth, mocking ring across the sky. “The migration has officially completed. You can go completely all out.”

Right at that exact second, a crisp notification from the Hive Spirit flashed in my consciousness. Except for one teleportation array, all the others have been destroyed so no one can recreate them or trace the spatial coordinates used. The Frosling race’s migration to the Lil’ Red Storm Realm was a 100% complete success.

Normally, this was the precise cue for me to vanish into the void, leaving a humiliated Prince and a very confused mercenary team behind. At least, that had been the plan at first.

But things had changed. The horrifying truth of Thalorien’s subterranean breeding caves, the thousands of trapped Frosling subjects, and the plight of the half-bloods had me improvise my plans. Because of the blood covenant they had forged with me, their fates were now inextricably bound to mine.

Strictly speaking, the bylaws of the covenant demanded absolutely nothing from me. I could technically walk away right now with a clean conscience, but I have never been in the habit of abandoning those who place their ultimate trust in me, especially when the reasons are this damning. I had arrived in this city to liberate the oppressed, and I was going to finish the job. I would leave this realm with the half-bloods and every single remaining Frosling subject used in those monstrous experiments, or I would tear the Snow Capital down trying.