Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3171: Other-Race Effect

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Realm Of True Evil, Shell Island, Unknown Natural Array Formation

‘She clearly hasn’t killed any Truevil since we entered the array formation, so where did those extra undead Truevils come from?’

I stared at the Scarred Truevil rushing at me with no sense of self left. Lust and passion had completely replaced the cunning light in her once tranquil eyes.

I used my mastery of martial arts, plus the physical prowess of the Truevil Primordial Form, to dodge her each time. I needed the collective consciousness of a thousand-plus primordial ethereal spirits to do this.

Though the remnants of her primordial bloodline had given a massive boost to her physical prowess, it came at the price of her sanity. As such, I didn’t need Hive Spirit’s help to dodge her, my collective consciousness was enough. Instead, I had Hive Spirit continue exploring the array formation while I kept her busy.

‘Or these undead Truevils were not the enemies she killed but the corpse of versions of herself that died in the array formation at her opponent’s hands?’

This thought crossed my mind when I noticed that among the new undead Truevils to join the other undead Truevils on the Ouroboros, one of the undead Truevils sported a familiar hole in her chest. It wasn’t just familiar, I had made that hole in her chest. Also, they all sported the Scarred Truevil’s signature deep chest scar.

It was then that pieces began to click into place. I finally understood how the Scarred Truevil was alive even though I had crushed her core.

This natural array didn’t appear to keep the corpses of the opponents the Scarred Truevil killed as part of its undead army. But it seemed to keep the corpses of the Scarred Truevil herself, giving her a new body without even a fraction of a second’s delay.

I looked around, avoiding the Scarred Truevil who tried to grasp my neck. As my gaze moved from one undead Truevil to another, I asked Hive Spirit to check if all the undead Truevils were the corpses of the same Truevil, the Scarred Truevil.

Though I already knew the answer. In my Truevil Primordial Form, I should be able to tell one Truevil apart from another. However, all the undead Truevils on the Ouroboros looked similar to the Scarred Truevil, except for the ones that had horrible injuries and wounds.

The more I noticed the similarities, the more certain I was about my new theory. My initial theory turned out to be false because I didn’t consider one simple fact: other-race effect.

If I had considered it, I would have deduced back then that those undead Truevils weren’t different but one and the same, and looked exactly like the Scarred Truevil I was facing.

I felt so dumb right now. I tried to excuse myself by reasoning that the Scarred Truevil didn’t even give me time to refine my assumptions, when actually, I made the oldest mistake in the book.

Thankfully, I divined my odds before coming to these coordinates. Luck was on my side. Had it been an unknown situation, I would have paid heavily for such a mistake.

Soon, Hive Spirit reported confirming my suspicion. All of these undead Truevils were in fact the corpses of the Scarred Truevil.

According to it, most of the undead Truevils didn’t sport the Scarred Truevil’s deep chest scar because it appeared to be a recent injury. That tracked with what we gathered from the memories of the other three Truevils that I turned into my Calamity Gems. She seemed to have gained that scar while helping them escape the mainland. As such, only a few undead Truevils had a similar chest scar, which was hard to spot among hundreds of thousands of undead Truevils.

Looking at the hundreds of thousands of Truevils, I couldn’t help but look at the Scarred Truevil in a new light. It should have been easy for her to overcome the toll of dying so many times. She was something else, especially her mental fortitude. Instead of rage and sadistic traits, she developed a cunning and calm mentality.

The more I learned about the Scarred Truevil, the more I began to see her as someone trying her best to survive with the hand she had been dealt rather than the True Evil that Dark Races labeled them as.

Still, I couldn’t wrap my head around how she was able to resist my Calamity Daughter Gem.

Calamity Daughter Gem doesn’t kill its host but turns them eternally subservient to the Calamity Soul Gem.

So, why did her body keep dying and being replaced every time I sowed a Calamity Daughter Gem in her body?

Was she committing suicide every time she sensed me sowing a Calamity Daughter Gem in her body, having observed what it did to her cannon fodders?

That’s decisive.

If that were true, if I were to use a Calamity Daughter Gem on her now, when her mind was eroded by the remnant primordial bloodline in her body reacting to my Truevil Primordial form, she wouldn’t be able to commit suicide the moment I sowed the Calamity Daughter Gem into her body like she did previously and successfully would become my Calamity Daughter Gem.

With that thought, I turned to look at the Scarred Truevil, who mindlessly tried to catch and overpower me despite failing over and over again.

However, I didn’t plan to turn into my calamity daughter gem because of my newfound respect for her. The plan of turning her into my Bloodkin was back on. However, this time, I wouldn’t be using her hatchlings as leverage but the primordial bloodline.

But for that, I needed her to regain her sanity.

I stopped dodging the Scarred Truevil. Instead, I started killing her. Again and again. I planned to continue doing it until the remnant primordial bloodline in her body began to calm down, giving me a shot at negotiating with the Scarred Truevil.