Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3035: Ancestral Possession

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

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

“What’s happening?” The Snow Goblin Empyrean barely managed to force those words out. His body had frozen in place. Not because it had been encased in ice, but because every function of his body was slowing to a crawl, as though he, too, were being dragged inexorably toward Null.

Even his thoughts became sluggish.

The Frost Rule Slaves that had been charging at the arrogant curse master with flawless coordination suddenly vanished without warning. One moment they were there attacking, the next nothing. As if they never existed.

It then hit the Old Goblin, his Frost Rule Domain had disappeared. No. It hadn’t disappeared. It had been completely overwhelmed and replaced by another.

The old goblin’s mind struggled to piece together what had just happened. Every realization came painfully slowly, his thoughts no longer flowing with their usual sharpness. By the time he understood that his Frost Rule Domain had been forcefully suppressed by mine, several precious moments had already slipped away.

That was the true terror of the Null Rule Meaning. It didn’t merely freeze the body. It slowed everything. Be it thoughts, perception, reflexes, the flow of energy. Even the passage of time, as experienced by the victim, seemed to grind toward a standstill as they drew closer and closer to Nothing.

Terror and horror finally surfaced on the old goblin’s face as he realized what had truly happened.

His Frost Rule Domain, The End, which had painstakingly imitated the Null Meaning using countless Ice Rule Meanings, had been completely overwritten by an authentic Null Domain.

To make matters more painfully worse for him, his imitation had become the foundation for the real thing. His eyes moved with agonizing slowness until they finally met the Curse Master’s gaze.

Disbelief quickly gave way to fury. The Curse Master hadn’t simply deployed the Null Domain. He had used the old goblin’s own imitation as a foothold, piggybacking on it to manifest the genuine Null Rule Meaning with far less resistance than if he had deployed it from scratch.

In other words, his greatest achievement had become the stepping stone for his own defeat. The realization only deepened the terror lurking beneath his anger. Had he not painstakingly recreated an environment approaching Null, the Curse Master might never have been able to establish his domain so effortlessly.

In his obsession with perfecting an imitation of the impossible, the old goblin had unknowingly prepared the stage for someone who possessed the genuine domain.

“Give up yet?” I asked as our eyes met.

I had no intention of killing him. Doing so would only be doing the Snow Elves a favor. With the Snow Goblin Empyrean gone, they would simply replace their missing Frosling slaves with Snow Goblin slaves, stabilizing their economy and restoring the balance they had lost with the Froslings leaving them.

That wasn’t what I wanted. Of course, that didn’t mean I intended to let him walk away either.

By now, the old goblin had most likely realized the truth. I had only been able to manifest my Null Domain so seamlessly because his own domain, The End, had already recreated an environment approaching the Null Meaning. It had served as the perfect bridge, allowing me to overwrite his imitation with the genuine domain.

If I let him escape today, he would never make the same mistake again. The opportunity would never present itself twice. As for simply turning him into a Calamity Daughter Gem, I wasn’t particularly interested.

Instead, another possibility surfaced in my mind. What if I made his will cease to exist? Not by killing him, but by dragging it so close to Null that it can basically be considered nothing.

Then, would my Cursed Primordial Bloodline judge him worthy? Would it recognize him as a suitable vessel and transform the Snow Goblin Empyrean into one of my Bloodkins? Or would it remain dormant, considering someone who was so close to being reduced to Null that his will was basically non-existent were no different from the dead?

The possibility intrigued me. It was a gamble worth taking. If it failed, I would lose nothing. I’d simply walk away with a Calamity Daughter Gem. But if it succeeded, I wouldn’t just gain a powerful Bloodkin. I would gain something far more valuable. A method of turning anyone into a Bloodkin. That discovery alone would elevate the Cursed Primordial Bloodline from a rare inheritance to a terrifying means of creating a loyal army of overpowered beings.

A slow chuckle from the old goblin pulled me out of my thoughts. I looked at him, puzzled by what he found so amusing given his current predicament. Meeting my gaze, the old goblin struggled against the influence of Null, every word taking immense effort to utter.

“Let me show you… how my mother saved me… from becoming Nothing with her.”

My ears perked up. Despite everything, I genuinely wanted to know the answer. How had his mother managed to deliver a premature child while her consciousness was trapped in the relentless comprehension of the Frost Rule’s Null Meaning?

Having personally experienced the trance induced by the Null Meaning, I had dismissed it as nothing short of a miracle.

Once Null drew you in, it spoon-fed itself into your consciousness without pause. There was no room for distraction, no opportunity to stop midway, and certainly no chance to consciously perform something as complex as cutting open your own womb and severing an umbilical cord.

That was why I had always chalked it up to a miracle. But now, the way the old goblin brought it up made me suspect it hadn’t been a miracle at all.

“Ancestral Possession.” The old goblin muttered the words with great difficulty. The next moment, a brilliant radiance erupted from his body, engulfing him from head to toe. It formed an apparition of a ape with the head of a owl gazing at the moon.

The dazzling light lasted only a moment before rapidly receding, leaving behind only his eyes, which continued to glow with an ethereal brilliance.

Those luminous eyes settled on me with detached indifference. Gone were the terror, greed, and anger that had filled them moments ago. They were calm. As though an entirely different person had taken their place.

Then, the impossible happened.

While everything else remained shackled by my Null Domain, the old goblin moved as though completely unaffected. He took a single step forward and casually tore through my domain, peeling it apart as effortlessly as a player tearing out of a poster.