Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2652: Uncharted Way Beyond

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Unknown

”Where the fuck am I?” I asked, looking at my surroundings, which resembled a mountain range. Because of my size, I felt as though I were standing in an ill-constructed maze of massive stones and snow.

While the Hive Spirit tried to locate where the damned Emissary of Light had teleported us, I turned to find the city guard captain lying half-dead from exhaustion, no longer being supported by faith after the Emissary of Light cut off his soul projection.

A pair of my floating arms hovered over the guard captain, using celestial empowerment to strengthen his overexerted will and awaken him. Simultaneously, I sent messages to my women and subordinates, informing them of my well-being, assuring them of my return soon, and asking them to continue their work as usual.So that they wouldn’t worry about me or let the world’s perception of me affect their duty to me.

Once my thousand-plus floating heads confirmed there was no threat nearby, I immediately returned to my regular form, not wanting to attract any more attention or trouble than I already had, until I was sure the Emissary of Light hadn’t teleported me to the—

’SON OF A BITCH!!!’ I cursed aloud in my mind, as the Hive Spirit, with the help of the Devil Merchant Code’s inter-realm transportation function’s location feature and the data it had collected on the Card World’s geography, confirmed my suspicions. It determined that the Emissary of Light had indeed sent me to a never-before-explored, uncharted part of the Way beyond, approximately 67,000 miles from the Southern Region.

The Emissary of Light’s endgame to escape my checkmate caught me by surprise. To be honest, I had underestimated the capability of faith. Only now that I had experienced it, I knew that with enough faith he could simply teleport us out of the Southern Region, despite my resisting it with all my will and celestial force.

Yes, my celestial force was strong, but compared to the Emissary of Light’s faith reserve, it fell short by a wide margin. I knew that, I thought it wouldn’t matter, but it did.

This came as a tremendous shock to me, as I was a hybrid celestial. Teleporting me against my will was akin to teleporting a very small celestial. Even Dark Races, who could destroy celestials for their celestial will fragments, couldn’t achieve that. This included the likes of the Devil Merchant Code, which could teleport Demon/ Devil Merchants anywhere within the known myriad realms and even explore the unknown myriad realms, for a premium.

Now I was beginning to understand how the Dark Cults had managed to survive while opposing the Devil Merchant Code. I should have known that Dark Cults capable of making the Devil Merchant Code go out of its way to preach against them were not to be underestimated. Faith was mighty enough to threaten even the Devil Merchant Code, one of the entities in the known Myriad Realms closest to achieving transcendence.

This was enough to prove that the Dark Cults’ mastery and knowledge of faith was by far superior to that of the Emissary of Light, who was foolishly limiting himself by trying to become the true son of the Card Celestial as he hadn’t been exposed to the world outside of the Card World. If he did, his ultimate goal would never be to become a celestial affiliated with the Card Celestial.

Just thinking about how I had been blindsided by someone like that pissed me off so much that I couldn’t even take solace in the fact that he might have used up a huge chunk of his faith reserves to teleport me so far away against my will. The reason I was caught unprepared was that, as a rookie demon merchant, I had yet to be exposed to the faith practiced by Dark Cults, which didn’t get enough credit in the devil merchant code. Had I known faith was going to be so troublesome, I would have approached this whole differently.

How could I, when my plan had been to expose him to the five regions as a false herald? Now, I was left wondering what I had managed to achieve from all this and how the five regions would react to my true form. It all felt moot, except for the Celestial Empowerment, which made my anger recede a little.

”Master Wyatt, thank you for saving my squad and me,” the guard captain said as he awakened, immediately expressing his gratitude without attending to his weak and exhausted body.

”Don’t mention it. Get healed.” Taking out a few high-grade blood elixirs, I handed them to him and said, ”We are in an unexplored part of the Way Beyond.”

”Uncharted Way Beyond?” the guard captain exclaimed in utter horror as he finally began to scrutinize his surroundings in terror. Every little sound suddenly seemed to spook him. He was an elite card demigod who had survived countless battles and wars, yet out here he behaved like a child trying to cross a dark alley late at night. After all, these were parts of the Way Beyond that even the bravest card apprentices would not dare enter without extensive preparation and a proper team, let alone waking up here with no preparation or knowledge at all.

”Stop spacing out and drink the potions before you fall unconscious from exhaustion again,” I reminded the guard captain, who seemed to have forgotten all his survival training and experience as he grew aware of our eerie surroundings. To me, the sight was mesmerizing, but as the saying goes, beauty is in the beholder’s eyes.

”Yes, yes, sorry,” the guard captain nodded vigorously before chugging down the elixirs, his rigid posture gradually easing as he began to accept our circumstances.

Meanwhile, I turned my attention to exploring my options for returning to my city from this goddamned place. However, with baggage in tow, most of the obvious methods I would normally rely on were no longer viable.