The Card Apprentice

Chen Mu hadn’t expected to encounter the enemies. He had fled in a completely random path a moment ago and had no idea in what direction it took him. But he reacted exceptionally quickly and subconsciously altered his course again. Chen Mu’s figure was seen twisting like waves with peculiarly high frequency, and the surrounding air was crackling under its effect.

Mo Ta looked a little surprised. He knew of that direction change; it had an academic name called wave-shaped, high-frequency evasion. It was an extremely difficult battle tactic, and rare were the ones who could accomplish it. In assessments of flight, its points had never decreased. During card artisan level appraisals, almost no one would choose that battle tactic to take part in the assessment, despite its points being so high.

He was certain that if that fellow went for the card artisan level appraisal, he would definitely get terribly high marks. A critical indication of accomplishing the wave-shaped, high-frequency evasion was the sound of popping air, which could only be produced after reaching a particular frequency. That fellow’s popping was loud and clear and was sufficient to prove his movements were absolutely up to standard.

Among the card artisans of Mo Ta’s acquaintance, apart from the boss and that devious fellow of a leader of the seventh team, no one else could carry off that move, himself included. He dared not be certain as to whether the boss could accomplish it so beautifully, but the leader of the seventh team surely couldn’t manage it so perfectly!

An ace! Must be an ace! To think such an ace could actually be encountered there, how could he not be impassioned? Mo Ta felt as though his blood was almost hot enough to burst into flames at that moment. He cast everything else out of his mind. At that instant, he couldn’t wait to engage the adversary in a good fight.

Surging with the anticipation of battle, Mo Ta was just about to order his subordinates to surround Chen Mu when his expression suddenly changed. It wasn’t just him; the other card artisans also completely changed their expressions. They had finally discovered the dense mass of flying beasts following closely behind Chen Mu!

Mo Ta desperately wanted to shout at everyone to retreat, but he forcibly swallowed the word. If they were to pull back, it would only mean death.

In the forest, card artisans could never possibly match up against those wild beasts. Moreover, once they retreated, it would be exceedingly easy to develop into a trend of collapse and have not half a chance of survival left. If he were to turn and run alone, his chance of survival would be higher. However, his subordinates were all brothers who had rolled with him for years. How could he bear to run off alone?

Mo Ta had experienced plenty of battles. Knowing that only staking it all would give them a chance of survival, he promptly clenched his teeth and roared in anger, “Attack!”

The thunderous bellow sounded throughout the forest, and even the roars of the ferocious beasts could not drown it out. The expression of terror on the card artisans’ faces swiftly vanished. Mo Ta’s bellow had immediately allowed them to stop panicking and to find their towers of strength.

Their teamwork was excellent. Short-range card artisans went forward dauntlessly, slowing down the speed of the throng and looking for opportunities for their teammates. Long-range card artisans, meanwhile, under the command of Ah Xin, concentrated their attack to provide support. Mo Ta let out a roar of rage and charged into the herd!

Nobody had leisure left to watch Chen Mu. Everyone’s attention was focused on the multitude of beasts in front of them.

Ah Xin’s face was drained of color. The lineup of the group of beasts in front of him could be described as extravagant. Mille-feuille flying locusts, dingbirds, snow wasps…

Having entered and left the forests so many times, he had never seen so many and such terrible beasts at the same time. With a pale face, he compelled himself to suppress the shock and perplexity in his heart and to focus on issuing commands.

Chen Mu didn’t leave; the development of the situation went beyond his expectation. He indeed had that idea in mind initially, but the subsequent throng of beasts that came swarming toward him had made him extremely desperate, forcing him to give up on the idea. He hadn’t thought he would actually run in the right direction when he had fled at random.

As he lamented his luck, he was also watching the situation on the ground carefully. That tower-like, dark-faced, burly man was ridiculously strong. His powerfully built body, which could match that of a bear, was charging around violently and left Chen Mu speechless. His energy cloak was uncommonly strong; every time a tentacle of the mille-feuilles flying locust came into contact with the energy cloak, it would bounce off. The dark-faced, burly man’s method of attack was also rather queer. Chen Mu had never seen such a strange way of battling.

Mo Ta’s expression was grave. The palm of his left hand enclosed a ball of bright silver light, and the palm of his right hand enclosed a ball of vivid red light. As both palms came together in a clap, and one fist was cupped in the other, the balls of silver and red light collided.

With a tremendous boom, an explosion was triggered with Mo Ta at the center. The beasts around him were blasted straight into the air, and even the beasts some distance away could hardly keep still in the powerful blast. A huge tree more than ten meters in diameter was caught up in the fallout, and only half of the thick trunk was left.

The ground under Mo Ta also had a considerable pit exploded out of it. He suddenly sprang out from the pit and plunged among the beasts, again slapping his hands together into a cupped fist for yet another explosion!

Boom! Countless branches and beasts were blasted everywhere, and the scene couldn’t have been more chaotic. Mo Ta kept moving the entire time. His whole being was like a human-shaped bomb, exploding wherever he flew to.

Chen Mu was dumbstruck as he watched the scene from off to the side. He had never seen so queer an attacking method as Mo Ta’s. But that kind of attack was rather effective in group confrontations. Having initially been clustered together, the beasts were scattered everywhere by his blasts. The threat the beasts posed was quickly and substantially reduced. The other card artisans worked extremely well with him too, focusing their firepower on bombarding the scattered beasts.

While the unorthodox style of cooperation in battle widened Chen Mu’s horizon, he secretly guessed that card artisan definitely had other means of combat. That kind of fighting method suited group battles but wasn’t good for one-on-one battling.

A distressing cry interrupted Chen Mu’s focus on Mo Ta. His attention swiftly turned to the other card artisans.

The situation’s disorder was far beyond his imagination. Be it the mille-feuilles flying locusts or the dingbirds, not one wasn’t incredibly formidable. Though Mo Ta could scatter the beasts, he couldn’t inflict lethal damage on them. If it were under normal circumstances, when those wild beasts met, a fight to the death would certainly not be missed. That day, however, they were united against the intruders. Humans were the public enemy of all beasts.

A card artisan’s chest was pierced by several tentacles of a mille-feuille flying locust, and the smooth tentacles were covered in blood. The piteous cry ended abruptly, and the tentacles were withdrawn from the card artisan’s body. Having lost his support, the card artisan fell weakly. Blood was pouring from the holes on his body, and he clearly couldn’t survive it.

The mille-feuilles flying locust was a supremely troublesome kind of beast. They were agile and noiseless, and their tentacles were bizarrely unpredictable, excellent in sneak attacks, and very hard to deal with.

The mille-feuilles flying locust’s withdrawing of its tentacles caused a moment of delay in its figure, and it was just that moment of delay that cost it its life. Without needing Ah Xin’s command, the enraged card artisans concentrated almost all firepower at hand on the beast.

Pew, pew, pew! The mille-feuilles flying locust was instantly covered by innumerable wavy blade energy shuttles and turned into a sieve.

However, that mille-feuille flying locust had attracted almost all the firepower, giving other beasts chances. A dingbird that had soared up into the sky plunged downward violently. The chaotic scene had caused that card artisan to be entirely unaware of the dingbird hovering in the air.

Swoosh!

In the blink of an eye, the dingbird appeared like a sharp arrow in front of a card artisan, who was caught off guard and couldn’t dodge in time. With a crisp ping, the card artisan’s energy cloak broke into countless fragments of light. Surrounded by the many fragments of light, sad and beautiful and as if illusory, the dingbird stabbed head-first into the card artisan’s chest! Blood spattered!

The card artisan was coughing up foams of blood, and both hands were holding tightly onto the incessantly flapping dingbird. The apparatus on his wrist lit up. Energy, freed from all control, collided anyway. Boom! A brilliant light enveloped both the card artisan and the dingbird.

By the time the light had dissipated, apart from the additional five-meter-deep cavity in the ground, the card artisan and the dingbird had both turned into fluttering ash.

The skin of Ah Xin’s lips was broken from biting. He rather wished to be like his companions, launching attacks in a frenzy! It was a pity that he was only good with two types of cards, one being the probing card and the other the jet stream card. As his probing ability and cool-headedness were extremely remarkable, he had always played the role of the scout and commander.

But the situation at hand was too chaotic, and the card artisans were beginning to lose control. The fluctuation in emotion caused a trace of instability in Ah Xin’s probing. He was completely unaware that a few snow wasps had detoured to behind his back.

Apart from the rather hair-raising hobby of gnawing away at bones, snow wasps had another lethal weapon—their stingers!

The individual size of snow wasps was about that of an adult man’s fist. They looked very much like enlarged white ants except for the three additional pairs of snow-white wings. The stinger at its tail end was a little longer than a human’s index finger and exceedingly sharp. When fired in a short range, the stinger could even penetrate ordinary three-star energy cloaks.

Their more vexing aspect was that they usually appeared in swarms. One stinger wasn’t to be feared, but if it were wave after wave of stingers raining down, even the best energy cloak might be shattered. No card artisan was willing to run into them.

Five snow wasps fired their stingers simultaneously!

“Argh!” Ah Xin cried out in distress. His energy cloak was almost non-existent. The five stingers easily shattered it and plunged savagely into his back.

“Ah Xin!” Mo Ta heard Ah Xin’s piteous cry, and his eyes turned red instantly.

A mille-feuille flying locust thought there was a window of opportunity and approached Mo Ta quietly. Before it could shoot out its tentacles, though, a golden-yellow energy chain had bound it tightly. The other end of the energy chain appeared in Mo Ta’s hands, and from between his clenched teeth, he squeezed out one word. “Explode!”

Bang!

The mille-feuilles flying locust was instantly blasted into bloody pieces, filling the air.

Wielding the energy chain, Mo Ta was unstoppable. He could be heard continually bellowing, “Explode!” Soon, flesh and blood were splattered everywhere. Mo Ta’s bold demeanor also significantly boosted the morale of other card artisans.

However, as he wielded the energy chain, Mo Ta could not activate his energy cloak. Though the energy chain was originally equipped with defense capabilities, Mo Ta, who was as good as insane, had given up on defense entirely and was solely attacking in a frenzy.

Moments later, he seemed like a man of blood, with several stingers sticking out from his back. If he hadn’t reluctantly blocked with the chain at a critical moment, he would have already been a dead man. The injured Mo Ta had no change in expression, and the energy chain in his hands again wrapped around a few snow wasps.

“Explode!”

With no suspense, the few snow wasps were blasted into pieces. A dingbird suddenly swooped by beside him, and Mo Ta grunted in pain. A massive chunk of skin and flesh had been clawed away from his shoulder by the dingbird, and blood was gushing out.

“Court death!” Mo Ta’s expression was savage, and the energy chain in his hands dexterously entangled the dingbird.

“Explode!”

The dingbird’s sturdy body disintegrated into countless bits.

What a powerful energy chain! Chen Mu was inwardly aghast. That golden-yellow energy chain was simply too terrifying!