Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3017: Saving The Enemies?

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Void, Hundred Frost Domain, Frost Maze

“Come to me if you want to live,” I remarked calmly, my voice flat and unhurried as I stared at my own reflection on the surface of the slowly crumbling ice wall addressing the mercenary team.

A standard, single Ruler-class domain explosion was already a cataclysmic event capable of wiping out everything in it, though a sufficiently powerful or lucky entity might still harbor a slim chance of crawling out alive. But this? This wasn’t just any ordinary domain explosion.

The Crown Prince was forcibly detonating his combo hundred frost domains. The sheer density of multi-Ruler-class domain explosions meant there was absolutely no chance of survival for those trapped in the domain.

Yet, despite the impending apocalypse fracturing the very air around me, I remained entirely calm

There was a way to escape a domain explosion, but it required exploiting a flaw in the physics of collapsing domain. The microscopic, single-digit microsecond window that exists at the exact moment a domain transitions from being an inescapable prison into an active bomb. In that hyper-compressed instant, we were no longer trapped by the domain. If I could perfectly time my transition from the physical plane to the spiritual plane using my Dual Existence ability during that precise window, the shockwave would wash void in the physical plane, allowing me to successfully ride out the multi-domain blast unscathed.

However, catching a window that lasted less than a blink was far easier said than done. Even with the heightened, time-dilating perception of my curren ruler-class senses combined with my Soul Pupils, relying on manual human reaction to split a microsecond was a suicidal gamble.

So, I didn’t gamble. I handed the task entirely over to the Hive Spirit. With its inhuman, parallel-processing precision and cold, mathematical calculation speeds, it could lock onto the exact moment of the window instantly, executing the planar shift without a slightest margin of error.

Right on cue, a violent upheaval tore through the floorboards. The ground burst open as the Maworm shot back up to my side, its massive, tooth-lined bud head slick with the liquefied essence of the domain it had just gorged on. Sensing the imminent detonation, the prehistoric beast rapidly contracted its massive form, shivering violently until it was no larger than a harmless garter snake, before quickly slithering upward and nesting itself deep inside my inner coat pocket.

Simultaneously, the reflection inside the nearest ice wall rippled violently. The mercenary team abruptly materialized within the wall’s reflective pane, their expressions frantic. They had no choice but to answer my call. The Snow Elven Crown Prince had utterly abandoned them, trapping them in the domain while forcing a total domain collapse to wipe us all out together.

As the ice walls began to glow with a blinding, volatile internal light, the mercenaries pressed themselves flat against the reflection, their eyes wide as they prepared to leap blind into the hands of the masked curse master, praying my lifeline was real.

Not all of the devils fully materialized into the frozen maze. They remained anchored at the threshold of the reflection. Only the mirror devil Uno materialized outside of his reflection dimension.

Uno didn’t bother with pointless negotiations or suspicious scrutiny. He knew the countdown was in the single digits, they were willing to pay any price as long as they could survive. He simply locked his eyes onto mine and asked, “What do you need us to do?”

“Take out one of your scales, move your friends and my Maworm in there with you. Leave the rest to me,” I said rapidly. I didn’t make any elaborate demands or try to force a contract; we simply didn’t have the luxury of time for that.

The stray thought crossed my mind that we could theoretically use time rule power to artificially slow down the explosion’s trigger sequence. But Thalorien was terrifyingly thorough. The freezing effect woven into this specific domain—summoned entirely by his specialized clones—possessed a conceptual “time-freezing” lock. This meant that any external time rule manipulation was rendered completely useless inside the labyrinth unless you possessed the explicit permission of the domain owner. And we obviously didn’t.

We could have also used the time rule to artificially stretch that tiny microsecond window to give ourselves a manual escape path, but I lacked the necessary mastery over the time rule to pull it off. The mercenaries technically possessed the temporal skills, but they lacked access to the Hive Spirit’s god-like computational processing to time it safely. Without the perfect synchronization of both, using time rule power was completely off the table.

“Okay,” Uno immediately agreed, wasting no more breath.

With a sharp, fluid motion, he reached down and violently plucked a shimmering, pristine mirror scale directly from his own skin. In a flash of silver light, he collapsed his entire reflection domain—along with the rest of his mercenary crew—straight into the isolated matrix of the dislodged scale. Before the connection severed, he swept his hand outward, transferring the tiny, wiggling Maworm out of my coat pocket and safely pulling it into the reflective sanctuary alongside them, leaving me standing entirely alone in the epicenter of a dying domain.

The labyrinth around me was glowing with a blinding, apocalyptic brilliance, the structural rules fracturing as the domain prepared to detonate. Without hesitation, I flicked the mirror scale straight into my dimensional storage.

Closing my eyes, I completely relinquished control of my physical body, entrusting it entirely to the Hive Spirit. It now wielded unrestricted access to all my prowess while I stood perfectly still amidst the blinding white light of the countdown, placing absolute faith in its flawless, emotionless judgment.

The very next instant, the multi-domain structure suspended in the Void detonated without warning. The resulting shockwave rippled across the Void like a stone cast into a tranquil lake, its violent disturbance drawing the attention of powerful entities from the neighboring realm, the Dark Realm.