The Card Apprentice

As though he’d found a ray of light in the dark, Chen Mu was overjoyed. He had to conk himself on the head for not thinking of what he did as daily exercise. He had finally realized how deeply different real fighting was from practice. When that finally sunk in, his body was moving like a metronome. If one looked carefully, every slightest wiggle wasn’t linear but was more like an undulating line moving forward.

The oppressive wind pressure abruptly decreased while the speed of things falling behind increased. Chen Mu’s mind was more carefree than ever. The distance from the female card artisan, which had been growing, was now shrinking rapidly. The people walking along the way only inadvertently saw Chen Mu from the shadows shuttling through, imagining they were seeing things.

He was a predator in the dark as he snuck along while keeping a firm eye on his prey.

The apparatus on Butchie’s wrist suddenly sounded. She opened her communications card, and a screen popped out in front of her.

“Big Brother Hugo.” She displayed a sweet smile.

“Where are you?” came the knife-sharp, ear-splitting voice.

“I’m almost where you are. What’s going on? Did something happen?” Butchie asked as though something were odd. Hugo’s expression was serious, making it look as though there was some situation. She came to a stop. Seeing that from the ground, Chen Mu slipped into the shadows like a civet cat within a couple of paces. Even though he was in the shadows, he still kept a sharp lookout. He hadn’t expected Butchie to stop in midair. He couldn’t stop on a dime, so he was only 50 meters from her. That was a rather dangerous proximity, and since there were very few card artisans in the vicinity, he might be discovered if he was the least bit careless. Card artisans like Butchie were always on full alert.

Being too close, Chen Mu could see Hugo’s face clearly on the screen in front of Butchie. The man with the half-mask! Chen Mu was surprised. That spooky man had left a deep impression on him! His burst of power in the last seconds of the battle had utterly determined the outcome of the entire event.

Yikes! He seemed to have seen Chen Mu. He wondered if it had been an illusion. From such a distance, and with him in the shadows, how could his adversary find him by just the communications card?

In the screen, Hugo’s eyes suddenly burst open in flame, and he hissed, “There’s someone behind you!”

Butchie was stunned. She and Hugo made a good team, and she knew right away there was an ambush! Without the least hesitation, the tadpole-shaped energy bodies took shape on her hand like lightning.

“In the direction of 7 o’clock behind you, in the shadows under the eaves.” Hugo’s warning arrived just in time, and Butchie let loose five of the tadpoles in the direction of 7 o’clock to her rear. It was clear how well-coordinated the two were with their tacit connection. Before Hugo’s words were finished, Butchie had already completed her attack.

In the instant Butchie let loose her tadpole-shaped energy bodies, Chen Mu felt the energy fluctuation and immediately knew it was bad. Without time to think, his two legs burst out, and his entire body shot out like an arrow. The explosion behind him gave him a start before he could even consider how his adversary had discovered him. In that instant, his brain had become surprisingly calm and sober.

He didn’t choose the tailless shuttle, but rather he wandered like a ghost among the buildings. He understood the danger of the situation. If he was even slightly careless, he could die at the hands of that adversary. The woman in front of his eyes was more powerful than Bo Wen, and he wasn’t in the state of breath control. But, Chen Mu was a little surprised at how he didn’t have the slightest fear this time. On the contrary, he felt a faint excitement. The will to fight had begun to stir in his heart.

How could he change like that? Chen Mu was excited and a little bit panicked. That state was strange to him.

However, the situation didn’t leave any room for him to consider such extraneous questions just then. What he needed to do was face Butchie’s attacks, which blanketed the sky.

On first sight of Chen Mu, Butchie’s heart sank.

“I’ll be there right away.” Hugo wasn’t wasting words and immediately ended the communication. He didn’t know Butchie had become temporarily distracted during that desperate moment.

That person! That slightly raised, fuzzy face in the dark and those two squinting eyes! She didn’t know what he was called nor what he looked like. She had never intersected him. But, that moment of rubbing shoulders, when that painted face was like a nightmare as he passed by, had been etched deeply in her brain.

She hadn’t thought the enemy lying in wait in the dark would actually be him! Had her adversary been stalking her all along and still lying in wait when she happened to run into him? She couldn’t be certain.

Chen Mu didn’t know how it looked to Butchie, but he had to be sharp enough to seize any opportunity. He extended his toes, and his body was seemingly weightless as it flitted strangely in the dark like a bat, even giving the illusion of gliding. His movements were bizarrely fast like lightning and too much for the human eye to take in.

In the space of a blink, there was no more than ten meters between him and Butchie. By that time, Chen Mu had completely entered the state where any fright or miscellaneous thought—or any scruples at all—had been put entirely out of his mind. There was only one person in his sights by then. Butchie!

The sense of danger abruptly shot up as she saw Chen Mu close by from the corner of her eye. She was shocked! How could she let herself be distracted at such a time? Without being able to think any further, she swiftly pulled back and finally didn’t have any reservations about making her move! Roughly 120 tadpole-shaped energy bodies went shooting toward Chen Mu like 120 eye-piercing rays of light.

Chen Mu had seen that play with his own eyes when Lu Xiaoru had taken a big loss from it before. She almost didn’t have the chance to turn.

The only thing that made Chen Mu feel a little safer was that he hadn’t felt himself being locked in. Facing such a professional card artisan as Butchie, once locked in, it wouldn’t be easy to even think about breaking free. There was a saying among card artisans: “Once locked in, you’re already dead.” Chen Mu hadn’t heard that saying, but that didn’t prevent him from understanding it.

Chen Mu dodged to the side.

A ball of bright red flames blossomed abruptly in the dark to pierce the night sky.

Chen Mu only felt the shock, which shook him until his head was buzzing. He nearly couldn’t stand under the oppressive shock waves. He rolled awkwardly on the ground to shed the power transmitted from behind him, but he couldn’t avoid getting ashes all over his head and face. Chen Mu stuck to the ground and drilled into the shadows in a corner.

His heart was beating violently, and his face was full of lingering fright. He could only tell from personal experience how powerful the trick actually was. What he felt this time was a lot more powerful than when he was an onlooker far away, and his ears were still ringing. The place where he’d just stood was already leveled.

He slowed his breath and forced himself to calm down. He was rapidly figuring out how much distance he had put between himself and his adversary because of what had just happened. They were then 15 meters apart, which wouldn’t be considered very far, though it also wasn’t close. Even given Chen Mu’s speed, the time needed to go 15 meters was enough for his adversary to get off a few attacks.

A few attacks… Within such a short distance, even if she didn’t lock him in, there was a pretty good chance of hitting him. Moreover, never mind a few attacks; even one attack’s hit rate was quite frightening.

What should he do?

Sweat was forming on Butchie’s back as she looked nervously all around. She didn’t really know if that last shot had hit the target or not, but she didn’t dare to go look. In her mind, she might as well assume the attack hadn’t hit her adversary. She didn’t think the guy in the dark would be so easy to get rid of, for sure. So, she didn’t dare to move, afraid it would give her adversary an opportunity.

But, her anxiety had increased since she had lost track of him. That explosion was too fierce, and it had been very close. If any energy fluctuations had appeared during that instant, she couldn’t have had any perception of her adversary.

When she thought of how good he was at taking advantage of the dark and the shadows, her heart jumped up into her throat. Every nook in every direction seemed to be concealing endless danger, like innumerable poisonous snakes lurking and waiting for their prey.

She had experienced quite a few battles, but none like this one.

She had found out how massively oppressive it was to face a card artisan assassin; her adversary could appear at any time from some unexpected place to make a deadly blow.

Chen Mu slightly raised his head in the dark, sending his gaze to the night sky. The explosion had already alarmed quite a few people, and there were countless card artisans approaching. He was a little taken by surprise. It seemed no one had dared to come watch during that last battle. Could they have changed their nature this time? How could he have known Pomelo was in a high state of alert having just experienced that bloody battle? The city wasn’t going to experience another battle at such a scale.

There were already quite a few who had started to migrate to other cities, which greatly affected all of Pomelo’s interests. So, all of the powers in Pomelo had come together in unprecedented unity. Of course, they’d had to remove the Central Island Firm from among them.

Having heard the commotion, the card artisans all came rushing.

He had to make his move. If he didn’t, there wouldn’t be another chance! Chen Mu was determined in the dark. He would take the big risk this time, not wanting to return empty-handed. His heart was brimming with the will to fight, which seemed to be urging him to hurry up. That bout of fighting spirit put Chen Mu forever in the midst of a kind of strange excitement while he was still utterly cool and calm. That kind of cool being mixed up with the excitement felt really weird.

Quickly and carefully reviewing the tactics in his head he had just proposed, he made sure he hadn’t left anything out.

Chen Mu abruptly opened his eyes in the dark. With his ghostly face like a flower and his eyes like stars, his will to fight was awe-inspiring.