The Card Apprentice

Robert’s death was the turning point of the whole fight. Chen Mu’s and Wei-ah’s attacks were as fatal as the blade of a knife. In the blink of an eye, the two had ended the life of the few card artisans around Lu Xiaoru.

After their first attack, Chen Mu and Wei-ah went back into hiding again. As their attacks had neither perceptual nor energy fluctuations, they did not catch the adversary’s notice. They used the chance to continue hiding, waiting for more opportunities.

They were waiting for an opening to kill with a single hit. This time was undoubtedly extremely successful. The annihilation of several card artisans at the same instant had a great impact on the morale of the Downstream Alliance battle card artisans. The tenacity of the adversary had already gone beyond the expectations of these battle card artisans, but no one could have imagined that there was more ambush!

After Chen Mu threw the dagger from his hand, without any delay, he sprang out like an arrow leaving a drawn bow.

Because of this, his figure couldn’t possibly be hidden anymore.

He hadn’t intended to conceal himself again anyway. The Big Mudfish jet stream card was being used to its fullest potential. The immense push forced him to bend his back and crouch.

Just as energy fluctuations from his target started appearing, Chen Mu alternated his steps and his body continuously swayed and slithered like a mudfish. In a split second, he seemed to have become a thin mist and his whole figure was blurry and indiscernible.

The face of the battle card artisan who had been preparing his attack was full of fear. He was shocked to find that his own perception couldn’t lock on to the adversary. His movement was too fast and, due to the successive rapid changes in direction, the airflow around his body was incessantly agitated, causing great disruptions to locking on with perception.

The fact that successively altering directions at high speed could cause disruptions to perception was no secret. Indeed, it was something every card artisan knew as common knowledge. However, card artisans who could capitalize on this fact were pitifully rare.

Everyone understood the principle, but those had the ability to achieve it weren’t many.

On the one hand, it required a very strong perception control. Several consecutive changes in direction completed in one fleeting moment meant that one’s perception had to manipulate the jet stream card in several rounds of reversals. The larger the number of times the direction changed, the more difficult it would be for perception control.

On the other hand, card artisans who employed this tactical move must have a powerfully built body. The faster the speed of flight, the quicker the changes in direction and the larger the number of consecutive changes, the better the effect of this tactic. Similarly, the pressure on the body would be the larger too. If a card artisan, whose body wasn’t strong enough, forced the use of successive direction change beyond his abilities, he would most probably die from his brain bursting due to the high blood pressure in it.

Therefore, it was no wonder that the battle card artisan was absolutely shocked when he realized that his own perception couldn’t lock on to the adversary.

An ace! That’s the first thought which flashed across his mind.

The capability of the card artisan lunging at himself was far beyond what he could imagine. From his understanding, only the well-known card artisans who had achieved great fame at competitive rings in the big cities could possibly manage it.

Perhaps it’s not really a grievance to die in the hands of that kind of ace.

This was the last conscious thought in his mind. Chen Mu, advancing noiselessly, did not make any blunder. His right hand, covered by an extremely weak pale cyan light, gently struck across the neck of the enemy whose figure was darting back hastily.

Having finished all these, without a pause, he pounced on the next enemy.

As compared to Chen Mu’s drifting eeriness, Wei-ah was of another style. His moves, simple and direct, had nothing showy and no flourish. His attacks had two striking features – one was fast and the other was heavy.

Chen Mu’s movement was already fast enough, but Wei-ah’s was doubtlessly even faster. His moves didn’t have the variety of Chen Mu’s drifting eeriness. They were straightforward and simply fast, so fast that others couldn’t react. Up to that moment, none of his attacks fell through, as could be imagined.

Wei-ah’s every attack looked so de-emphasized that it seemed careless, but when it landed on the enemy, it was like being hit directly by a swinging heavy hammer. As long as it was an enemy who had been killed by Wei-ah with his bare hands, the corpse never failed to appear in an unnaturally twisted shape.

Chen Mu and Wei-ah’s appearance out of thin air tilted ratio of forces on the entire field in their favor immediately. The morale of the Downstream Alliance’ battle card artisans was low, but it surprised Chen Mu that, among these battle card artisans, no one tried to escape.

In his experience in battle, he had never seen one where, having proceeded to this extent, there was still no one fleeing. The card artisans in front of him and those fighting in the head-on battle didn’t seem as though they come from the same agency at all.

Nonetheless, having pondered a little, he was at ease again. Those who could be entrusted with a sneak attack mission were naturally the elites amongst the elites.

Compared to the tenacity of the adversary, Lu Xiaoru and her companions didn’t lose out by much. The blow which had just been dealt had exhausted the last ounce of strength left in her body.

She fell limp to the ground, fainting straight away. In just the blink of an eye, another two card artisans were wounded, but their opponent wasn’t much better off too, having been heavily injured at the same time.

They had already done their best. To be honest, the difference between them and their enemies were not inconsiderable. The main reason why they could hold out and have even done some effective damage to the adversary was the presence of Chen Mu and Wei-ah.

Disregarding these two, even the strongest among the nine, Lu Xiaoru and bar-browed man, couldn’t quite match up to the ordinary members of the adversary’s group. It was only that in their partnership Lu Xiaoru’s uncommonly rare sound beam and the bar-browed man’s excellent assassination skills complemented each other well.

Apart from Chen Mu and Wei-ah, they had killed the most number of card artisans. Though the other card artisans weren’t quite as competent, they had good teamwork and still effectively hindered part of the enemy’s forces. Given the enormous difference in individual capability between them and the adversary, that was all they could do.

The adversary’s card artisans all had perception strength above the fifth level. There were even five with perception at the sixth level. If this had been a force in an ordinary residential district, wiping out a city would have been no problem at all. However, though these card artisans’ own individual capability was formidable, they were mostly battling separately, which gave a window of opportunity to Chen Mu’s card artisans.

Chen Mu and Wei-ah’s two rounds of assaults, apart from further decreasing the adversary’s advantage in numbers, had an immense psychological impact on the enemies too.

The first card artisan Chen Mu killed head-on had taken the largest amount of effort. This was accomplished with great difficulty while he had been under attack from five of the enemies. Nevertheless, after succeeding, he felt much more confident. The strong and omnipresent sense of oppression in a face-off with Wei-ah was completely absent in his confrontation with these enemies.

Though it had been a little difficult, he still accomplished it successfully. Soon, he got used to the battle rhythm and became calmer.

One, two, three…

Towards the end of the battle, Chen Mu discovered with a shock that he seemed to have grown so much stronger that even he himself found it hard to believe. A short time ago, when he had a face-off with Xiaobo alone, he had almost been driven to the wall. These card artisans from the Downstream Alliance were no less capable than Xiaobo, but how could he succeed so easily this time?

He had always not had much desire for competition. He had only turned to the path of becoming a card artisan when he had had no choice left. Besides, he believed that he couldn’t really be regarded as a real card artisan as he hadn’t had any formal and systematic training. He had only figured out a little unconventional know-how, and that bit had been literally squeezed out, like toothpaste from a tube, under duress from Wei-ah.

The goal he had set for himself was very simple. If he could last three minutes in a one-on-one fight with Wei-ah, he would be satisfied. However, this goal seemed extremely distant at this point in time.

Even so, with my amateurish skills, I can actually, actually kill so many card artisans…

What he didn’t know was that the card artisans killed by him weren’t mere elite card artisans, but rather battle card artisans who had passed professional assessments.

His movements were very fast. Big Mudfish’s property of having endless variations had been put to the best use possible by him. Chen Mu’s figure drifted eerily in the darkness and with the addition of the bogus borderline breath control, he was pretty much like an assassin walking in the dark, impossible to defend against.

In the perception of the enemy card artisans, Chen Mu’s presence was intermittent,like a ghost hovering in the wind. And when he decreased the intervening distance to less than 10 meters, you would find that, no matter how you changed your direction, there was no shaking off this ghost. You could only watch on helplessly as he got nearer to you bit by bit.

If he got within ten meters of you and you still hadn’t activated your energy cloak, then you would be dead meat.

Wei-ah’s efficiency was even higher than Chen Mu’s. An incidental glance every now and then caused even Chen Mu to feel a tinge of terror. Wei-ah did not repress his murderous aura, which seemed almost tangible and made one feel as though one fell into an icehouse. He was like a cold-blooded and heartless butcher, or perhaps a machine specialized in reaping lives, battling in silence and indifference.

Lying low against the ground, Chen Mu didn’t use the jet stream card. He crouched and sneaked up on the adversary to behind his back without a sound. This was the last card artisan. Once he’s taken down, they would be closer to victory.

10 meters.

Staring at the other’s back, Chen Mu looked highly focussed, calculating the distance in between them. A distance of 10 meters was the best from which he could launch his assault.

His legs exerted a great and sudden force and the jet stream card was activated to the highest power at the same time. A tremendous push turned him into an arrow shot at the adversary.

The adversary seemed to have just awakened with start and darted forward hurriedly, hoping to increase the distance between himself and Chen Mu.

However, to Chen Mu who had already begun his attack, such resistance was futile.

It matched Chen Mu’s prediction exactly.

Suddenly, a weak energy fluctuation was generated up ahead.

Chen Mu’s expression changed instantly.