The Card Apprentice

The dingbird was about three meters long, its whole body a bluish-black with a long beak, sharp talons, and eyes like rubies. It had long, featherless wings. The thing people found most strange was that the wings were wrapped in a layer of light blue-green glow. They were so fast they looked like green lightning.

Brenton had turned white. The first time he encountered a dingbird, he had only ever heard how scary it was. But when he saw it with his own eyes, he really felt the terror. They were really fast! In front of them, card artisans with good speed simply looked like snails.

Dingbirds were carnivorous and social animals who generally hunted in formation. Their talons were incredibly sharp, and they could easily penetrate the thick skin of a striped rhinoceros. The most terrifying thing was their high-speed attack. If you hesitated at all, you would be dead. Their weight was similar to a shuttle car, and their speed was who knew how much faster!

Everyone had prepared for battle, including Chen Mu. That wasn’t the time to conceal his power. Having seen the speed of the dingbird, everyone well understood that they didn’t dare to underestimate it. It was the fast wild beasts that gave people the most headaches. They had made contact with quite a few wild beasts during that time, but none could compare with the dingbird.

The flock of dingbirds had clearly discovered them. Just seeing the dingbirds draw back their wings and suddenly climb, the card artisans who were familiar with birds knew that was the precursor to their making an attack.

Sure enough, after their climb, the flock of dingbirds immediately commenced their attack.

Hong, hong, hong! The attack launched by the dingbirds was so shockingly powerful that it brought about the sounds of a thunderstorm. Dozens of dingbirds were diving toward the crowd, with their spread wings pulled back and their whole bodies drawn in like a sharp arrow, the arrowhead being the tip of their beaks. Their speed abruptly increased!

What was still more frightening was that in the very front of those dingbirds diving at high speed was a light green conical energy shield. As they increased their speed, the conical energy shield deepened in color.

“Lu Xiaoru!” The ever-steady Bogner’s face was serious as he called out in a deep voice.

“Yes, sir!” Lu Xiaoru gave her response, but she didn’t immediately move. Her eyes were fixated on the group of dingbirds that was approaching at high speed.

Her body was covered in a standard female battle suit, which made her look unspeakably valiant. It was the combat suit most often seen on the market in the Heavenly Drum Village District, costing 300,000 Oudi apiece. It had terrific stretchiness and could resist a certain degree of energy attack. That was something Xi Ping had purchased for everyone in Bartleman Village.

Her skin had darkened considerably from before, but that hadn’t made her face lose its color. On the contrary, it increased the special look of gritty capability of a card artisan. Her constant training and fighting made her a completely different person from the Lu Xiaoru who’d previously lived it up and courted favor. She was now an excellent, pure card artisan.

As she sharply focused all of her attention, the speed of the dingbirds seemed to have slowed a little. The thunderous sound they’d brought along with their charge disappeared for her. She knew in the face of such high-speed beasts, the slightest negligence would be extremely deadly.

Her pupils suddenly widened. Now! Her right hand, which had been ready for action, rose quietly.

Weng! In frequencies that were inaudible to human ears, she emitted high-frequency sound waves!

Some fine distortions appeared in the scene in front of them, which was the result of the high-frequency sound waves disturbing the air. But that was just a side effect. What was truly scary about that move were the vibrations of those formless, insubstantial soundwaves.

Like arrows, the dingbirds were diving headlong into the zone enshrouded in high-frequency sound waves.

Gua! Gua! Gua! The powerful sound waves were lethal to them, and the dingbirds squawked in panic. Their iron-like skin did nothing against the sound waves!

Hong! The forwardmost dingbirds suddenly suffered the sound waves’ attack, and they lost control over their bodies in their panic. Their speed was so fast that they slammed into the ground after losing control. That frightened the rest of the dingbirds, who rushed to control their bodies. Although they didn’t hit the ground, their formation was destroyed. The sharp green energy shields in front of them disappeared in an instant.

“Attack!” Bogner coldly spat out the word.

Pu, pu, pu!

Countless blossoms of blood appeared where the energy shuttles had shot holes in the dingbirds’ bodies. The only thing left was the two wings wrapped inside the layer of that glow, which left most of them safe.

Neither Chen Mu, Wei-ah, nor Xiaobo had made any moves, but the rest of the card artisans were on fire. Countless strange, glowing energy bodies shot toward the sky. None was more beautiful than the bar-browed man’s Cross. The bright red, cross-shaped energy body imprinted a cross-shaped wound on the dingbirds’ bodies. Compared to the bloody hole left by the hits from the energy shuttles, the cross-shaped wounds were spurting three times faster.

Faced with such dense firepower, the dingbirds had received a devastating blow! The sound of aggrieved squawking came from one bloodied dingbird on the verge of collapse as it suddenly fanned out its wings and came shooting down! The light green conical energy shield had re-appeared in front of it.

The expressions on the card artisans below shifted. Without needing any orders, most of their firepower was abruptly shot toward that stranded beast’s head.

Pa, pa, pa! The energy shuttles hit the conical energy shield, setting off spurts of glowing spray. However, apart from the energy shield dimming a little, it emerged unscathed. The other few energy shuttles hit the back half of the dingbird, leaving a string of bloody wounds. But its speed hadn’t slowed in the least.

“Look out!”

What happened next was too fast—too fast for most of the people to react.

Xiu! A sharp whistling reached a crystal-clear crescendo!

It was Chen Mu. He finally couldn’t help but make a move! The tailless shuttles that had been rapidly spinning on his finger flew off from his hand in stream after glowing stream. They hit the conical energy shield protecting the dingbird’s head.

Pa! The energy shield finally couldn’t withstand the blow. It exploded into bits, disappearing after being ignited by the air shooting past. Just then, the dingbird finally went headlong into the crowd.

“Aaaah!”

A mournful scream changed all of their expressions. The body of a card artisan had been completely skewered, turning his flesh into a blur. Everyone was so enraged their eyes nearly popped out. They couldn’t even say goodbye.

Enough energy shuttles to fill the sky and cover the earth shot like crazy at that dingbird! In the blink of an eye, it had been shot into a pile of mincemeat.

Hong! Hong! Another two dingbirds struggled down at high speed. With a cool expression, Chen Mu’s move was extremely quick. He shot off three energy shuttles at once and precisely hit the first dingbird.

The first tailless shuttle made the conical energy shield of the dingbird dim until there was nearly no glow.

The second tailless shuttle made the conical energy shield shatter with no suspense.

The incredibly accurate shot of the third tailless shuttle hit the dingbird in the head, leaving a bloody wound.

The dingbird’s ruby eyes immediately dimmed. The lifeless body smashed into the crowd like a shooting star because of its inertia. One of the card artisans had pretty awful luck and was injured when it smashed into him.

The second dingbird was brought down by Xiaobo. Out of nowhere, dozens of amber glowing streams suddenly appeared in midair. They looked like living creatures as they tightly entangled the dingbirds. The dingbirds and the conical energy shields were wound up solidly together.

The amber streams were razor-sharp threads as they twisted and tangled. Then, with a light popping sound, the conical energy shields were the first things to break apart. The unprotected dingbirds were left entangled by the amber glowing streams and were mutilated into dozens of pieces, which smashed to the ground.

The dingbirds in the sky were finally wiped clean, but no one relaxed; they shot at the dingbirds that were still struggling, not stopping until they were certain they had all been killed. It was a brief battle, though it was dangerous far beyond anything they had encountered before.

No one had imagined the dingbirds would be so violent-tempered. Moreover, the conical energy shields they produced were far stronger than they could have expected. The energy shuttles shot from the set of cards had no way to smash them. If it weren’t for Chen Mu and Xiaobo acting, the aftermath would doubtlessly have been a lot more frightening.

Still, most of the credit for the fight didn’t go to Chen Mu or Xiaobo, but to Lu Xiaoru. If it hadn’t been for the wonders of her high-frequency sound waves, they might have taken heavy casualties in the battle.

Closely examining the dingbird bodies on the ground, Bogner looked pretty bad. “Their skin is hard, and their wings can form an energy barrier. No wonder they’re so fast! Its conical energy shield must be used by the long beak.” Bogner kicked the dingbird’s extremely hard beak with his foot.

With his new lease on life, Brenton was looking at Chen Mu and the rest with incredible adoration. That brief battle had given him a shock like he’d never felt before. That was a flock of dingbirds—dozens of them. If they had been a team of ordinary card artisans instead of specialized battle card artisans, everything would have pointed to disaster. That team had only sacrificed one person before annihilating the entire flock of dingbirds.

“The dingbirds’ beak and talons, along with the skin on their wings, are all hard-to-get materials. They can be sold for a high price. If the wing skin from a dingbird is used to make a shuttle car, it would increase its speed by quite a bit. The beak and talons are outstanding card making materials, though I’m not a card master. I don’t know much about that.” Brenton spoke with a sense of envy.

There were at least 30 dingbirds on the ground, which was a rather good haul! That would be enough to get excited about.

However, there was no joy on Chen Mu’s face as he looked at that bloodied card artisan. Everyone was in a bad mood. There had been little attrition after experiencing their first battle. There had been a lot of wounds, but with Sue Lochiro there, they had all survived.

They hadn’t thought that just as they entered the Heavenly Drum Village District, they would experience attrition. As they now thought carefully about that battle, Chen Mu felt his heart go cold. If it weren’t for Lu Xiaoru’s ultrasonic wave, and if they had been fighting according to their normal style, then the aftermath…