Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3107: Void Guzzler

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Lil’ Red Storm Realm

Being dragged toward the black hole, Thalorien’s expression darkened. His snow-white Frost Rule Stream Spirit had already been swallowed.

The moment it crossed the event horizon, the connection between him and the spirit was severed. He could still sense the Frost Rule Meanings that had once formed it, but they were now being consumed by the distorted space surrounding the singularity.

Thalorien resisted. His colossal Frost Rule Incarnation dug its heels into the void, creating glaciers behind itself and anchoring them together with layers upon layers of Frost Rule Meaning.

It did little good. The black hole continued pulling him inward. Thalorien immediately understood the situation. His resistance was futile.

At the moment, he was barely managing to devote enough of his power to fight against the black hole’s gravitational pull. If Dalia strengthened its attraction using the celestial array formation while simultaneously attacking him, he would have no means of properly defending himself.

He would end up exactly like his Frost Rule Stream Spirit. So why wasn’t she attacking? Thalorien struggled to turn his head. Even that simple movement required effort under the increasingly distorted gravity. His eyes eventually found the Celestial Treant.

Dalia hadn’t moved. She simply stood in the distance, watching him. When their gazes met, Thalorien saw no excitement, no urgency, not even the satisfaction of watching an enemy struggle.

Her eyes were indifferent, cold, observant. Like an examiner watching a test subject reach the next stage of an experiment. That expression unsettled him more than the black hole.

Thalorien had long decided to stop wasting time trying to understand his enemy’s thoughts. Every time he had attempted to predict Dalia, he had ended up more confused than before.

‘Fight first. Think later.’ That had become his new approach. Yet, at moments like this, he couldn’t help himself. ‘What is she planning?’

Was she waiting for him to reveal another ability? Was the black hole merely forcing him into a position where she could study his Frost Incarnation? Or was she simply confident that there was nothing he could do?

Seeing that Dalia had no intention of attacking and appeared perfectly satisfied observing him against the singularity, Thalorien’s expression gradually hardened. His crimson eyes narrowed. His enormous Frost Rule Incarnation suddenly split apart. The separation was clean. One massive body became two. Then the two identical Frost Incarnations continued to help one other to stabilize in the void against the pull of the blackhole.

This was one of the more extreme applications of his Snow Elven bloodline ability, Snowomb. While in his Frost Incarnation, Thalorien could use the frost incarnation itself as a womb and create a perfect clone of that form. The clone wasn’t an ordinary Frost Clone. It inherited the same Frost Rule Incarnation, the same accumulated Rule Meanings, and the same terrifying physical scale.

For all practical purposes, Thalorien had created a second Frost Rule Incarnation. Of course, such an ability came with a cost. An enormous one.

Maintaining even a single complete Frost Incarnation already consumed a terrifying amount of Rule Power. Creating another one didn’t merely double the expenditure. The act of reproducing and sustaining millions of compressed Frost Rule Meanings placed an additional burden on his Frost Rule Stream.

Every second became expensive. The more Frost Incarnations he created, the faster his reserves would burn. That was why Thalorien rarely used Snowomb to create multiple incarnations. One additional body was manageable. Two was already extravagant. Anything beyond that would rapidly shorten the amount of time he could maintain his ultimate form.

But right now, he had little choice. If one Frost Incarnation couldn’t escape the black hole’s pull, then he would use another. The two colossal Thaloriens immediately moved. One continued resisting the gravitational pull, pouring its Frost Rule into creating anchors and barriers.

The other turned toward the singularity. Its hands spread apart. Instead of resisting the black hole, it reinforced the barriers the original was hiding in with Frost Rule Power. If Dalia wanted to watch and see what he would do next, then Thalorien would give her something worth watching.

Suddenly, the clone Frost Incarnation vanished. In its place appeared Thalorien’s Frost Rule Stream Spirit. The exchange happened through a spatial substitution, switching the positions of the clone and the Stream Spirit. That meant the clone Frost Incarnation was now where the Stream Spirit had been.

Right beside the event horizon. The Stream Spirit had never actually been swallowed by the black hole. It had stopped just short of the point of no return, burning through its accumulated Rule Power to resist the final pull into the abyss. The moment the substitution was complete, the Frost Rule Stream Spirit used the distance it had gained to retreat.

Meanwhile, the clone Frost Incarnation stopped resisting. It willingly fell toward the black hole. Thalorien’s eyes hardened. Then the clone detonated its core. A terrifying explosion of Frost Rule Power erupted from within the gravitational well.

The explosion didn’t overpower the black hole directly. Instead, the incomprehensible cold released by the destruction of the Frost Incarnation spread toward its source. The two suns maintaining the singularity were immediately affected. Their rotational speed began to fall.

The black hole depended on the celestial array formation forcing the two suns into an extreme orbital configuration, their momentum and gravity sustaining the collapse of guzzling space between them.

But the Frost Rule explosion interfered with that process. As the frost consumed their energy, maintaining their rotational velocity became increasingly difficult. The singularity weakened. The distorted void surrounding it began to stabilize. Then the event horizon rapidly shrank. Finally, the black hole vanished.

In its place were the two suns. They continued chasing one another through the void, revolving at incredible speed around their shared center. However, their rotation had slowed. Frost covered portions of their path and continued creeping in all directions.

If not for their remaining momentum and the tremendous energy generated by their movement, the Frost Rule would have already frozen them solid. Dalia understood that immediately. Momentum was now their defense. The faster they revolved, the more difficult it was for Thalorien’s Frost Rule to completely overwhelm them. But that momentum was gradually being drained by the cold.

So Dalia acted. Celestial force surged from the gigantic Treant. The celestial array formation responded. Energy flowed toward the two suns, continuously accelerating and stabilizing their orbit. Their rotational speed increased again. The frost covering them cracked and melted before rapidly reforming, beginning a silent contest between Thalorien’s Frost Rule and Dalia’s control over her celestial bodies.

Thalorien had successfully destroyed the black hole. But Dalia hadn’t lost her suns. The battle had simply changed again.

…

AN: Some readers reported that this month’s giveaway code was showing as incorrect when they tried to redeem it. The code was indeed incorrect. I used Google Lens to copy and paste it, and it mistakenly interpreted Q as O. I should have double-checked it.

Here’s the correct code:

P.S. Please redeem it as soon as possible, as the code will expire at the end of the month. Reminder, code can only be redeemed by the first ten users.